Faran

Oh, they'd be sitting in the hospital/quarantine tank for a few days, trust me You "age" tap water (fresh) by using aqua plus, or Stress Coat or any number of de-cholrinators. You can even use the el cheapo "Water Ager" as it does the job. So basically tap water with a dechlorinator. I think my youngest male may turn out to be as gorgeous as the big metallic blue. If not, we'll have to hit up boxersrus again!

Good, that should take out any bad stuff (ammonia, etc) down to a reasonable level. Keep doing daily water changes of 10 or 20% with water from the old tank and fresh aged water (alternate so your old tank doesn't get affected from all the water being replaced). I know it's a lot of work, but it will be worth it. Good luck and I hope we finally do a trade sometime! I want some red snakeskins

Hi Mel, when you set up the new tank, did you use water from the old tank? Take over any of the gravel? Seed the new filter with media from the old filter? If not, you should have done all of these things, as the tank needs to set up bacteria from scratch and go through all the stages of cycling. This could have been avoided by taking over as much media from the old tank as possible, but sometimes tanks go through cycles no matter what. The fin clamping is most likely ammonia, this wouls also cause breathing problems and even ammonia burn which can deterorate gills badly enough to kill fish. I'd set up another little tank with water from the old tank and an airstone and move the fish over to that tenk, then re-set up the new tank. If you need a tank or anything to get you through this, let us know. We have a 10 gallon hospital tank that SHOULD be cycled (filter at least) and you could have a temp home for your fish and see if the change of tanks solves the problems. Just a note - the ammonia burn could be permanent and your guppers could die no matter what you do.

I was just looking at Furan-2 today in the LFS while talking with the resident fish expert on de-worming Discus. On the bottle/insert it said that it treated dropsy... along with a WHOLE list of stuff, including gill flukes. Worth a shot, if you ask me....

Whatever it is, it's getting farther along. I'd treat for dropsy with pinecone-ing. Also, add some Prime to the water as well (or a good de-chlorinator/heavy metal remover). Couldn't hurt.

True, has anyone fitted these on a freshwater tank? I know they use them on saltwater tanks (or something that does the same effect). I'd be keen to try a UV blacklight on my tank, just need some opinions on whether it's safe or not...

damn, I just realized that it's you that asked and it's your own site I just referred you to... lol Ah well, I want that leopard adult! :lol:

Here's our discus...like findingnemo they're kept in a planted tank with other fish. Check out http://www.discushaven.co.nz/gallery.htm for more colours, and there's also some helpful info on keeping them... Orange - Marlboro Red (with peppering) and Blue Turk (adults) Blue-based heckle (juvenile)

Well, it's not dropsy. More of a pine-cone effect with that - http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/viewtopic.php?t=7357 There's many different things that are symptomatic of swollen gills, but it's hard to determine what it might be by pictures from above. Can you get a side pic? Perhaps one looking at the gill from the tail direction without a fin blocking the gill? If they're high enough resolution youcan magnify them to see what's going on in there. Gill flukes, ammonia burn... could be anything at this point...

Don't overlook Yo-yo loaches. Saw them grub DOWN on snails I drop in the tank from the discus tank. That tank remains snail free no matter how many snails I drop in there. Wanna get some clown loaches for the other tank, but don't want my ramshorns to get eaten.

Raise tank temp to 29-30 degrees. Good luck, hope it doesn't affect anything. Your bottle most probably contains malachite green and is not copper based. Good for killing many invertibrates.

Sorry for your loss, I recently scared my Leopard Ctenopoma and he got stuck in a hole and died from the experience. No one to blame but myself, and sure miss him like you do Honker. I was at the pet store today looking for a replacement, might get a black ghost knife or elephant fish, they sound great!

snail-rid, snail traps or loaches....

From what I've seen, it's all the same with different branding.... I have 2 AquaOne tanks (980 and 380) and have looked at Jebo tanks and seen little difference. Billaney has both tho...

Last time I had problems like that it was because I was using the DNS from a different ISP. Just a suggestion... (from a computer tech)

This may sound silly, but test some bottled water as well. Your test kit may have gone off? Otherwise it's water changes to correct but with a steady cycled system there shouldn't have been such a spike. When's the last time you did maintenance on your filter?

I use a medium sized trash can ($20 at your local hardware shop) and a bit of hose (a hose from a gravel siphon works) to gravity flow/siphon the water out. When filling, I put in 2 buckets of cold and one bucket of hot (and de-chlorinator) into the bin and lift it on top of the tank and start the siphoning process back into the tank. For the discus tank I do 2 bins out and 2 bins in. Easy as. You might want to toss the water on your lawn if high in nitrates - fertilizer. If high in ammonia it'll kill the grass. But as for the correct combo of buckets for the right temp, it'll depend and you'll have to figure that out yourself. Just do your best to get as close to your tank temp as possible. Discus don't like temp changes too much. You also need to keep pH in mind as well.

And after seeing your new website, I'll be asking soon about getting some "spare adults" and moving the smaller discus to another tank with similar sized discus (different sized discus REALLY don't belong together - they chase a lot).so might have to put up some more pics soon!

There's a few fish that have a certain personality and interact with you as a person. rather than a threat o food source The larger fish - Oscars, discus, arowandas and, well, most cichlids I suppose - are exceptions and I never thought in my wildest dreams that this little spotted oddball would become so dear to me... there's a lot more room in the tank, but just a big hole in my chest after spending so much time becoming friends with this guy and then seeing him slowly go and there not being anything I could do to help him... Thanks for the condolences, though. Feeling better now... still kicking mahself for prolly scarin him into getting stuck tho.

The leopard Ctenopoma passed this morning. Only with us for 2 months, he will be missed, as we brought him out of his shell and he went from being a very shy, reclusive boy to King of the tank with no fears whatsoever. Sorry the picture is so bad... he was always one that was hard to take pix of...

Hi Darryl, Welcome to the site! Where are you, by the way? Oh, South Auckland, duh. We have an AR980 as well. We added an extra Fluval 204 filter to it and made a rather nice Discus tank. No problems with the filter squirting as of yet.... can't imagine where it would squirt from, exactly. As for fish, there's plenty of surface area on the 980s to support a large # of fish, and the return on the stock filter provides aeration to allow for a few more than would otherwise be allowed. Sounds like a nice tank with a good variety of fishies. Only thing I can say is that your Chinese Algae Eaters (you'll hear them referred to as CAEs on here) are a solitary creature and will most likely fight to the death when they grow bigger. Good ;uck with everything and see u around. Oh, there's a chat room on here that people tend to visit around 9pm or so... Blue and Kim

Breathing shallow, looking pretty gone... don't know if he's going to make it....

Or just "feed" the tank like you would if fish were in there. Flake food works, but live/frozen foods work better.

Well, yesterday I moved the Congo Tetras into te new breeding tank and thought capturing them went quite well. The room was dark, water lowered and capturing the 10 of them took perhaps 10 minutes. This morning I went to feed the tank and the Leopard Ctenopoma was no where to be seen. I spent some time looking for him and found him hiding at the back of a large resin " tree trunk" that he sometimes calls home. As this was where he usually goes when there's action in the tank, I wasn't too fussed. It wasn't until the afternoon when I looked back in on him that I noticed that he hadn't moved - at all. I looked at the position he was in and noticed that his dorsal and ventral fins were pinched and looked behind the trunk to find the rest of him sticking out of a rather small hole (comparitively). I gently nudged him and got no movement, so I reached behind the trunk and attempted to free him... to find out he was hopelessly stuck. After a frantic dash about the house trying to figure out how to get him out I got a pipe wrench and slowly started breaking apart the resin trunk and eventually freed him. So, he's not looking that great.... definitely weak and pretty traumatised. I've put him in a 40L (45x30x30) hospital tank with his normal water conditions and treated him with Melafix. What are his chances of survival? He's laying on his side on the bottom breathing at a normal rate. Colouration is definitely stressed and his body has been compressed about half a centimeter directly in front of his anus. Fin and scales are damaged moderately, nothing he wouldn't normally get over in an everyday situation. Any advice on what to do that I haven't done would be appreciated. I guess it's now a waiting game. Last question before I go... do you think I should keep the hospital tank dark for him? -A worried papa

I just spent a while reading other forums in other parts of the world about the whole Eheim-Jebao comparison. Some people say that they just cloned the outer shell, others (that own them) say they're the same. No real way to tell unless someone has both and compares them, aye?