Week 5: New snail has gone...Dormant?

So it has been a week since "Zoom" (snail 2) was added. Yes, that's the new name, it felt appropriate since this little dude zooms through the whole tank so much! The tank is still in the day 0 technically because the new snail is here and we don't know much waste he will make/ and eat. What we do know is that Zoom (snail 2), is a pretty fast meaning he will be searching for food fast =algae be GONE.

However, after two days of being with us, Zoom got lost and i can't lie, i did panic. Although, not for long because i soon saw him against the glass but UNDER THE SUBSRATE! This was a little alarming to me because i wasn't quite sure if he was dead or not. Especially how hyper he had been at first. But once diving into good old google i learned that nerite snails sometimes go dormant after getting transfer to a new tank, due to subtle stress. 

In other words, Zoom was indeed happy but he needed a good nap in healthy water now. I did check the tank for any spikes each day in case he was indeed dead but he has begun to move his little mouth now so i can tell he's alive. 

I'm attaching a google image just to show it looks like with him burrowed since i could get a good picture. 

Anyways we'll wait on our friend and see if he wants to wake up sooner than later. Hope everyone has a good spring break!

Week 4: New Nerite Snail Joining us!!!

 So earlier this week I was able to take a trip down to Petsmart and finally get Gary his new snail companion! As mentioned A while back. I lost a previous snail for unknown reasons. I do have a feeling he had come to me already ill. Due to this, the load of keeping the tank from being covered in algae fell all on Gary ( snail 1). 

But that is all now in the past because this week we can introduce our new buddy (snail 2). I still am not sure what exactly I'm going to call it. I was told he is a boy, and he is significantly faster than Gary. I'm happy to inform you that they are usually seen together and my Betta hasn't tried to bully either of them. He does have white-scale-like spots on his shell due to poor water parameters, probably high in calcium. I'm still researching what that means exactly. However, all tank mates seem to be very well for now.

It is still too early to check for water parameter changes but we will begin this soon!

Speaking about snail genders, Nerite snails seem to be one of the few if not only, snails that are either male or female, but this is impossible to determine until the snails either have eggs or not. Depending on what type of water they're in is what will determine if they will be able to reproduce or not. In regards to freshwater tanks like mine, I do not have to worry about overpopulation because the eggs won't be able to develop.

                                             

Michael. “Nerite Snails – Detailed Guide: Care, Diet and Breeding.” Shrimp and Snail Breeder, 26 Jan. 2021, aquariumbreeder.com/nerite-snails-detailed-guide-care-diet-and-breeding/.

Week 3: First Week of Cycled and Clean Tank (60% WC)

                                                      Hello everyone! I'm back with some updates finally. I had some family
things to deal with but was able to do the initial 60% water change for Vincent (betta fish) and Gary's(nerite snail) tank. The initial water change was larger than usual (20 percent every week, to treat the large amount of the harmful Nitrates in the water  ASAP to not cause any harm to our little friends. The water change was made on the 26 of February, last Friday to be exact. Up above we can see Vincent swimming close to the surface a lot more lively, a common betta fish so that made me extra happy since he was starting to just lay low and sleep a lot. I scrubbed a lot of the algae off the plant and trimmed their roots. Down below you can take a look at the rearrangement of the plants that were made did a lot of landscaping and added an extra inch of the substrate to allow extra room for root growth (this means more nitrate consumption).

The biofilter media was not touched, since we have the beneficial bacteria living here that takes care of the nitrate cycle! However, that is pretty gross to look at haha. I only left enough algae on the heater bar and a bit on Gary's favorite side of the tank so he could have something to eat.

The plan this week is to let the tank accommodate the big water change, and by Thursday I will check all the water parameters before deciding if I will be making a water change. I will also be getting Gary a companion since he alone cannot maintaining the tank. He had a buddy named Beetlejuice, but unfortunately, he passed a little after I bought him for unknown reasons. That was a little sad since it was charming to see both snails racing about in the tank, in terms of tank maintenance, the snails did take care of a lot of food waste and algae control.

Here is a close-up of Gary and his antennae. Nerites snails don't really have a gender and they don't reproduce in freshwater tanks so there is no need to worry about them becoming a pest issue!  I will be thinking of names for the next snail when I go get it this week. I'm totally open for some name suggestions!

                               

Week 2: Initial Test and Water Change!

 Hello! Hanah here again✌😁

So today IS THE DAY of the first water change. I prepared the new conditioned water with all its treatments and plant nutrition. I sealed it in a 5gal bucket with Saran Wrap and tape to make sure nothing got in until I can buy a proper bucket with a lid from Home Depot or something! I couldn't change it yesterday since I need the water to be properly conditioned over 24hrs. I also began to label each syringe I would be using for each chemical and plant nutrition fluids and put those instruments in separate baggies, one for Tank Water chemicals and another for Plant nutrition chemicals.

However, I did go ahead and my first water test with the Fresh Water kit and recorded my initial data for the tank this week. Everything was good except the pH and the Nitrates. I was a little annoyed since this has been the issue since the passing of my other snail in the tank/: So, no. Not that good. Here is a picture of that.

Even though I'd be more alarmed if the Ammonia and Nitrites were high instead of Nitrates, this is still something I need to fix soon before Vincent(betta fish) and Gary(Nerite snail) begin to get affected. To my fortune, this is easily fixed with good and big water change. I decided to do an initial 60% water change to not stress the fish with a drastic change tonight. Every week, I will be checking the water for Nitrates and doing 20% water changes as needed until I can get the Nitrates level back to 0 ppm. Something awesome that I came to learn is that if the Nitrate levels increase, the pH levels decrease significantly. Realizing this honestly made me feel a little more confident of a good research question and a much better hypothesis revolving around these two variables. I'd love suggestions if you have 'em! Some of my constants will be temperature and volume, and waste(food digested by Vincent and Gary). I will also be controlling the amount of time I will be leaving the light on in the tank since I am currently having a big algae problem.

Vincent has been digging some of my front plants, so I will be replanting those. During the water change, I will be taking Vincent out into a separate small tank, including Gary,  to gently scrub the algae off of the plants and his house. I want to do some trimming to the dead leaves since that can also influence Nitrate spikes. I will also be doing a 50% change in the biofilter media just enough so there isn't too much sludge but enough so that the beneficial bacteria aren't disturbed. This IS the one thing that helps break down ammonia and nitrites and keep the cycle going, so we do NOT want to kill that.

I will be doing a water test again after 24 hours to see how things are, then check in a week again before the next water change.

Week 1 Spring2021!

Hello Everyone!

I'm super excited to finally be working on TRAIN stuff once more! I'm certain it has a lot, if not everything to do with the new research project that I jump-started a couple months back in the midst of COVID-19. I'm talking about my 5-gallon live plant aquarium which is currently housing a male red betta fish called Vincent and a snail called Gary. The was a smaller snail named Beetlejuice but he sadly passed unexpectantly, I'm sure he had already been a bit since when I got him. I'm hoping to be adding a second snail to give Gary some company soon, though. The main question for my research is whether or not I can create a balanced ecosystem in my fishes tank with the help of beneficial bacteria, live plants, light, in a 5gallon tank, and only having to worry about minimal water changes and monitoring the pH, temperature, ammonia levels, nitrites, and nitrates. so far I have successfully maintained the tank going for 5 months, and I've only had to change 25% of the water maybe every 3-4 weeks.

    

This next week, However, I will have to do a big water change, and also replace some of the biofilter media due to the sudden passing of one of my snails. I first noticed something off when I got a very high reading of nitrates in my tank which is harmful to the fish, and that's when I realized it was due to the decomposition of the dead snail.

I also got a bad case of green and black algae on my plants, so I did have to trim down some leaves to stop the decaying of some plants thanks to the ALGEA. 🍃

SO. It feels a bit like a downer, but this is also perfect because I get to give my tank a little restart just in time for TRAIN! I'll do the water change and filter stuff next coming week and will keep you all posted! Good luck and Happy Valentine's day!💖

WEEK 7 Fall2020

Hello Everyone, hope your week is off to a good start!

I was gone for a while thanks to life(this whole year really), but thanks to a small chat with Dr. Chapman I was able to get back on track with everything. I've decided to put my current research project on pause for next semester just because I feel like I'd need the complete semester for it, due to the fact that its all a combination of Bacterial biochem shtuff and coding, which I have no clue and where to start with the last part. I do have an Excell document started which has been serving as my "database" for now. However, due to not really being able to be in the lab, things got a little more complicated for me. I am a person that likes getting things done good and give 100% of my best effort. I don't like doing nor leaving things halfway. So with Dr. Chapman's advice, I will be putting a pause and start that research official in Spring.  In the meantime, I will be participating in a few tasks Dr. Chapman has set out for me that will still keep me busy and learning.

Now, on to Halloweenie things... My betta fish disappeared completely. Yes, I checked around and under the surrounding furniture, including filters and whatnot... I CAN'
T FIND A BODY.

Two nerite snails visible.
 1 next to the heater bar, and the other under the big leaf

I was adding a new live plant to its aquarium and a new nerite snail to the tank; then after cleaning everything up, I fed him, Leonard (my fish), closed the lid and went to get lunch. I come back with my dad to show off the new set up... and HE WAS GONE.  3 days later and he is still gone. What is weirder is that I only have guinea pigs aside from Leonard... which unless they pulled a G-Force stunt on me... and became pescatarian...Are far from being suspicious. I mean look at them.

The mystery is what mostly bothers me at this point, Like not being able to even find the body??? No water signs anywhere?!

Anywho. I hope your week goes smoothly and I wish you the best on your midterms this week! I look forward to catching up on what the rest of you have been up to. Let's hope and pray the spooky things stay at bay!

 

WEEK 5: More Gram Staining and Frozen Plate??

         

On this week I went ahead and streaked a Hektoen Enteric agar plate with a colony from the isolation plate of Salmonella enterica just to make sure that this plate in fact had ONLY Salmonella growing on it, since the colony growth on it was unfamiliar. The HE plate is a selective and differential agar primarily used to identify Salmonella from an unknown culture.


To my surprise, the HE plate showed positive results, meaning that this colony is Salmonella. However, the results also indicated that this microbe didn't show indications of lactose fermentation or hydrogen sulfide production; so it remained its original green color.



I then went ahead and made Gram stains for B. subtilis, S. aureus, E. faecalis  to take a look at the cell morphology of them. Unfortunately, I smeared too much bacteria for B. subtilis so could not really see much of the cell shape due to how much clumps were present on the slide.