New bowl set up, no algae yet. I've been feeding the tip of a toothpick amount of freeze dried spirulina twice a week. The shrimps came with poop in their digestive tracks but now a few weeks later, they look pretty empty. I feel like they swim around a lot. Maybe looking for food? I dont want to overfeed and mess up my water but I don't want to starve the little dudes either.
I didnt see this thing until I was looking at this picture. What is it and will it hard my shrimp or fish?
The first picture is a male, the middle picture is a female, and the third is a male, right?
I got 13 cherry shrimp from a local breeder to split in between two betta tanks. I didnt have tubing so i acclimated them in their bags floated in a bucket with my tank water and slowly put my tank water in it with a syringe over a 3 or 4 hours until I had twice the bag volume. Then I dumped the fish into the bucket and netted them into my fish tanks- 5 of the biggest ones into the faster betta's tank and the rest into the slow moving betta's tank.
My fast betta immediately started hunting them and ate one. So I took the 3 I could find out and put them into the other tank. I dont know what happened to the last one because i could not find him. The slow betta tried to attack or chase the shrimp for a bit but couldn't catch them and started to just ignore them after a few hours. I even caught him and a shrimp starring each other down and the betta turned around and swam away. The shrimp seem to not even be afraid of him. The ones that started in the other tank all hid when the fast betta started hunting. But shrimp are not hiding in the slow one's tank and some shrimp would even swim right next to the slow betta.
The first night the shrimp swam all around the tank non stop but none died other than the one killed by my bad boy betta. Next morning when i first checked, most of them seemed to have calmed down and were chilling on spots around the tank and only occasionally swimming around. But later on in the morning one died. Then another one in the afternoon. Then another one at night. So 3 gone in the first 24 hours. Thankfully none are dead this morning.
I checked my water. 0 ammonia and nitrites and nitrates a little over 5. My ph is between 8 and 8.2. I dont have tests for minerals but I have hard water. Temp is 80.
I'm not sure what I can do to stop my shrimp from dying. I dont think the betta is messing with them, but I'm not watching them all the time so I can't be sure. Did I not acclimate them well enough and its the stress of moving to a new tank? Is it likely the betta even though I haven't seen him do anything or even try to do anything to the shrimp past the first couple of hours?
We will be out of the house for a few days when the day time highs are in the low 90s and nightime lows are about 70. Electricity costs are insane here so Id like to keep the AC off if possible without harming the fish, but Im really not sure how hot the house will get.
What's the max temperature the fish will be ok at for 4 days? Im thinking of setting the AC to that temp when we leave, unless there's some way to keep them safe without cooling a whole 2500 sw ft home. My parents can come over to drop in a frozen water bottle if needed but how safe is that in a 5 gallon tank without someone being there to see how it affects the temp? I could also put them in temp buckets to send to my parents house.
What's the best way to go?
He is active and eager to eat. I noticed his gills are slightly open most of the time. Is that concerning? He doesn't seem to have any issues breathing and is busy exploring the tank.
He just got put into a new tank a couple of hours ago that recently finished cycling. Ammonia and nitrites are at 0. Nitrates around 5. pH is 8.2. Water is at 79 degrees.
Also, is he too fat or is this a healthy size? What type of betta is he?
Our 1970s home has aluminum wiring and an electrician recommended a whole house rewire. Is rewiring something that really should be done or should we be inspecting for current condition (is it possible to do without poking holes in the drywalls)? Is there a way to make aluminum safe without replacing everything? I dont know anything about electricity other than aluminum is not as safe as copper. We have a large two story home without and rewiring just sounds like a nightmare.
There were lots of these winged insects walking along our second floor bathroom window sill yesterday afternoon. A huge clump of them on the wall right below the window on one side and another clump on the other side. None were flying. They were different sizes. The biggest ones being just smaller than a grain of rice and the smallest ones being barely big enough to see it's wings.
Unfortunately my husband found them, sprayed, and mostly cleaned them up before taking any pictures.
The pictures are from a few sprayed ones he hadn't cleaned up when I got home and I found one live one on the window of another bathroom this morning that I got a pic and video of. The one in the first picture looks kind of like a termite to me but I don't know if it's because it was sprayed. The rest look more like ants? If it's ants, does anyone know what kind and if they can cause damage?