Faran

Ah, gutted (bummer). Well, good luck next time. If you get them to breed you'll have a tank full of babies. Gouramis breed LARGE batches!

LOL @ the tupperware. I think they need something that they can't see through. Got a styrofoam plate? Just a floating thin chunk will do. Your females look very ready to lay and that rock crawling truck is awesome We used to have a Grand Cherokee, but they aren't as rugged as the cherokee. Welcome to the forums, and to our little NZ site! I'm a kiwi but grew up and lived a LONG time in Cali (from 5-23). See ya around!

:drool: I was just stoked about setting up a 500L discus tank.... you've blown that out of the water Congrats and keep us posted!

I currently have a large group of schooling discus that I've introduced a dominant "leader" to settle down. Lots of traffic by the tank and lack of places to hide give them a schooling response. When fish hang out and do "their own thing" they usually have babies. Obviously, schooling isn't always a great thing. Enjoy your fish, they sound happy. I could never get my penguins to school either, by the way. Great fish but a bit nippy for tetras.

it's actually a temp change of +/- 2 degrees but yeah, gradual changes are the way to go or you'd never be able to get them from one tank to the other Just a note, younger fish seem to be much more hardy to changes than adults, in my experience. Of course, younger fish seem to be more prone to passing from disease at the same time. Aside from watching water parameters the only other thing that discus need care for that other fish don't (normally) is worming. All this is covered in "Discus Health" by Dieter Untergasser.... GREAT book.

Wow, that's a shame. On the same note, congrats on breeding Congo Tetras! Between us that's 8, LOL! Sad thing about Congos is how long they take to get to sell-able size. Ah well, you have enough different fish breeding for the time to fly by

BTW, are they old copper pipes? I think I have a copper test kit here somewhere that I've never used and I owe y'all for the poly boxes...

Once again you seem to have taken things said a little harshly. Discus are MUCH more difficult than any fish you currently have. As I said, good luck if you DO decide to go with discus, as they're great fish and really have some beautiful colourations/strains these days. I strongly recommend buying a reading a book called "Discus Health" by Dieter Untergasser before getting into discus. It's literally the discus bible.

Hi Jo! Wow, there's a bit of a puzzle. I can only assume that the water is loaded with a toxin. Filter with charcoal/carbon. Before you do that, do a full spectrum test on the water for EVERYTHING to see what the problem is, exactly. If you don't have a full test kit, LFSes can usually help you out (for a small fee). Good luck and I hope you sort it before it's too late for the remaining fish. As for the cloudy water, this is usually a typical algae bloom symptom. perhaps the tank is re-cycling?

Without getting too far into it "soft" and "hard" water refers to the pH level. <7 is soft and >7 is hard. Peat is the stuff they used to burn instead of coal; it's from marshlands, I believe. You can buy it at your LFS. As for discus, I strongly recommend you avoid difficult fish like these until you have more experience. They can't handle a temperature change of more than 2 degrees © and a pH change of more than 0.2, generally. Care must be taken with all aspects of water quality, which you seem to just be learning about, as negligence results in DEATH and that's a big loss with such expensive and beautiful fish. Good luck if you DO decide to keep discus in the future. We find them to be the kings of freshwater aquaria

Okay, so I got a box of plants (mostly swords) and driftwood the other day and it has a good amount of BBA on it. Question is, what should I do to cleanse the plants and wood before introducing it to my sparkly new tank? I was thinking a diluted bleach dip, but I want to make SURE it's all dead before the new tank looks like the tank they came out of. Thanks in advance!

You can always use a digital camcorder as a "web-cam" via firewire and USB. Some even have remote zoom and other functions. You'll be much happier with the resolution and will know immediately when your house gets burgled if you're offline!

LOL... livebearer breeder is a guy and just a few years older than you. He IS a bit cocky, but that's not a crime

Right on, just know that they're escape artists and will need a good secure lid to prevent any mishaps. By the way, kevin_wgtn has one as well, might be a useful person to chat with about them.

Nah, let him learn for himself. Give a man a fish vs teaching him how to fish... old concept still applies.

http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/postin ... t4307.html

Shelf lives are for stock boys As long as it's all perfectly sealed it should have a LONG shelf life... though 7 years past the stamped date is getting on. The only thing to keep in mind is that preserved foods do lose nutrients with time, and the nutritional value info on the tin was only guaranteed until that stamped date. You may have lost some nutrients, but it'll still be fine for oscars and the rest if it was made for discus!

PJ - If you read carefully you will find that the ones that little alan had years back did, but big Alan has much nicer ones now...

Mickey, no offense but Google is everyones friend and people usually spend a second doing a bit if research into the fish they're getting into before running into a forum asking a hundred questions. Keep in mindthat for some of the members this is a very serious forum where they help people with problems on a daily basis and most of the questions you've asked have been answered in these forums before. Might I recommend using the search function for these forums and seeing if it's been covered already? I can guarantee that no one is really trying to be nasty....

May be best to overnight courier it to someone in WGTN that has a cycled tank ready for them to quarantine in for a few days while you get things sorted...

They will be fine, but will do better when given warm water and nutrients.

There's a popular type of fish called killiefish that are amazing at getting out of even the tiniest crack or hole. Maybe Inanga are the same? Use a bit of filter wool and seal the gaps. As for the smaller one disappearing.... :bounce:

5-10% water change and monitor your levels daily to see the affects. Prime is a bit drastic, I suppose, as pointed out by Stu. Main thing is to determine what caused the nitrate spike. With a heavily planted tank this shouldn't happen unless you have say.... a piece of rotting driftwood. Once you figure out the problem and deal with it, I think regular water changes and a nitra-zorb bag will prevent this from happening again. How many times did you test the water?

Good point Stu, thanks for covering my back there. Lindyloo, watch your pH levels when dealing with your nitrates.

Not at all. Nitrates and nitrites are just poison (contaminants) in the water and the sooner and faster removed, the better.