u/spidernoirirl

I’m more than happy driving a bit to find a midpoint where we can meet

1 snail = $1

if you would like a very tiny baby snail as well, I’ll add it for free with the more normally sized ones.

I don’t know why you’d need so many snails but I’d atleast like to make it worth your while.

I

We’ve repeatedly been to the vet and have done everything possible. He had the surgery a year and a half ago and healed after a month or so. He had the antibiotics when healing, the temporary catheter as well as the pain meds at first. It genueinly was a lethal issue. His bladder was insane, his kidney was showing early signs of distress. Within another week we were told he easily could have died, it that blockage lasted more and any organs started to tail.

He’s had extreme anxious for the past few month. In October he got a UTI right after moving, months got rid of it. Moved to a house from hell from November - the start of January. Since then we moved to a new home and It’s been great. I know how stressful moving is and how horrible it was without him ever having moved since being a kitten but I’m also confused as to why these issues didn’t happen at all until last month. It’s like we’ve finally settled in this house and he’s started to pee outside the litter box and obsessively lick and leak from the surgical area. A week and a half ago we find out he has another UTI so

His quality of life isn’t as good as it could be. He’s constantly an anxious wreck and with this grooming and pain he’s miserable. I’m scared when thinking about what would be best for him when thinking about his quality of life but it’s sickening. He’s four. He’s been on UR medicated food since the surgery.

First he had crystals in his urine and they got rid of the blockage, of course it was over $3000. Three days later we brought him back and the blockage was unable to be removed without the entire surgery. He became an $8000 dollar cat we er like to joke. A few months later he didn’t have a UTI but he was very anxious so we brought him to the vet and were told his ‘His vagina is healing well.’

A year later he has the UTI, we get rid of it, a few months later he comes to the vet and they find no issues, few months later we find the UTI, and now the UTI is done and he’s just absolutely miserable. He cries and licks himself whenever he gets slightly anxious. He stays in the lower floor all the time, it isn’t exactly a basement but he won’t come up to have his breakfast, he won’t come up to lay in bed which he’s done every night since he was first here.

His life is more important than any amount of money, that’s why we’ve done every surgery, that’s why we bring him to every vet when there’s something wrong even if it’s $300 per appointment (and that’s money we don’t have). We’ve had to have spent $13,000 at this point just when it comes to the bladder. And that doesn’t include every type of natural stress treat we’ve found, nor does it include the UR food costs. They’re having us start kitty Prozac, which we think he needs, and that’s another $90 a month.

He’s eating, drinking, pooping, peeing, not lethargic, not straining, none of that. Except for the fact that now he’s peeing outside the litter box against it like a male dog. He hasn’t done this ever and he’s four.

I don’t want his quality of life to be low. We’ve done so much. I’m terrified for him and I don’t know what to do at this point. I will update if there’s any crystals in this urine culture but last week there was no crystals.

Water quality: Hard

Nitrite seems to be below 4 ppm but above 2, I don’t know how to measure the exact numbers yet I’ve only had water kits a month and this tank hasn’t had a spike until these past two days

PH: 7.6-7.3 ppm

Amonnia: 0 ppm

Nitrate: 2 ppm at most? It looks lower?

20 gallon vertical

1 honey gourami, 3 bladder snails, infinite ramshorns (most have been removed), two rabbit snail hitchhikers
There is 7 platys/mollies (unlabeled which at petsmart)
There’s two guppies because they were removed from the 10 gallon when there was an emergency and she immediately gave birth in the big tank so. I left her in there
My one swordtail has had multiple schools(?)clutches of fry and so she has a few babies in there too as well as five otos
There is one white shrimp because they were with the guppies during the emergency and the other four passed.

I want to add that I will likely add one more to the school since the reccomended is 6? But they’ve been together for five months so I wasn’t sure wether or not it would mess them up plus it was a rescue tank so I was worried about overstocking.
I was told I was getting a white goldfish and she was a sick honey gourami 😞 She’s an asshole but she’s my favorite

In my post history there was a mud snail in my 10 gallon after adding a new plant, I did the whole 9 years and there has not been any issue in the 20 gallon I have bad OCD so trust me when I say everything has been quadruple checked by my friend who works at a lfs and myself. Defintely more than four times but for the sake of this post i’m just gonna be simple.

Plants: El Niño, Java Fern and two types of Anubias

7 months since starting, I do weekly 15% water changes or more if any of the parameters are off. This tank specifically hasn’t had any issues until now minus an algae bloom (and now ai know better not to overclean and I have a filter pad now.

There was an amonia spike two weeks ago because a mystery snail had passed away and two days later the levels were back to perfect. This tank really has given me no issues. This tank (only had five fish at the time) had an Ich outbreak in the second month and there was no deaths after medicating it really has been an easy tank and I’m even more happy with that because it’s my first time aquascaping and using fertilizer on my own. Nowhere near great but it has plants doing well and that pleases me greatly.

I cleaned, the baby fish could be making more waste but the ammonia is at 0? So it feels like that would be higher if it were that. I did a 40% water change last night but the nitrite was only a tiny bit over 0 so I didn’t assume it would triple overnight (I was wrong and underestimated it).

I have a filter pad (cylindrical, no gaps for baby fish or baby snails) around the filter the set up tank came with but I left the filter cartridge inside the filter’s inner mechanisms.

Would it help to remove the filter cartridge?
Is there any things I should have been doing or is this just the long haul with 50% water changes? It happened to my smaller tank and it’s been back to normal this week so of course the big tank had to spike so I have no break.