Faran

LOL, now I see where all our sand is going.... into suphews tanks! As for the pool sand, it'll have chlorine, chloramine and tons of other chems in there. I mean.... take a look at the bottles of chems that you dump in yer pool to keep it pretty. The ingredients aren't exactly fish-friendly. If it's fresh sand then yeah; why not, give it a wash. Used sand from a pool filter? Wash the heck out of it, treat it with carbon/charcoal and chlorine remover and you MIGHT be okay. Suggest against it tho, suphew's right, you should just go get some new sand.

PeneJane, just cover the filter inlet with stocking and it'll slow it down and protect the fry. If it's still too fast, just double bag it and so on. Just try not to stop it completely.

Why would anyone sell a 5.7 liter tank? Is that supposed to be for mossies or what? I mean, aquarium manufacturers need to be told that they're subjecting fish to lives of cruelty by being put into a tank that the owner purchased thinking was a safe and normal environ for their new guppies. Not so. I hate it when I see Bettas stuck in tiny cups or in breeder nets. This is the same thing.

Try "2251 coriander circle, corona, ca" and you'll see the craziness of urban development in California. Oh, that's the house I grew up in. When we bought that house the development was in the middle of no where. Then they built a golf course (the green in the hills) and suddenly the place was full of roads, shopping complexes and houses. Love zooming all the way out and in... amazing software, thanks for that!

I have an African Leaf Fish (Leopard Ctenopoma) and it's wicked!

Sup yankee ---edited---- (I obviously got shot down on this post)

I'd guess lack of oxygen, low water temps or high nitrates. You may have some odd chemicals/bacteria lingering in the tank from its vaction. When dealing with a recycled tank, ALWAYS use a bit of non-scented bleach to disinfect it. The chlorine remover (that you should have used) will take out any remaining traces when you put the water in. As you've taken an unknown old tank and set it up with random odds and ends, you never know what you're getting into. Also, when tap water turns into aquarium water there's a cycle of changes that the water goes through. There's a couple products (like "Cycle") that help with this process and speed it up. As you don't have any tests, it's really hard to tell you what's going on in your tank. Best to take a bit of water down to your local fish shop (LFS) and let them check it for you.

Too many clown loaches, you should sell a few On a serious note, water changes fix just about anything (concering levels). You can do the 25% per day twice or 10% a day for a week. As my tank is still cycling and I haven't been bothered getting the full test kit range, I do a 10% water change bi-weekly. Pretty much guarantees safe levels. So have you been doing water changes thus far? VERY important, specially when your tank is cycling.

Er... that's not a royal whiptail. That's just a Crocodile / Whiptail cat. The Royals have extensions on all the fins, therefore the "Royal" and I think the nose might be different.

Snails can survive MUCH worse than fish. I've seen the little buggers take 10 seconds in boiling water and keep going. Basically, snails are not a water canary, sorry! Best thing to do is test your new tank for pH and the rest, the filter probably won't do much until it has built up the bacterial growth, but that shoudn't take more than a week with the old tank water to get it started.

Man oh man, I wish I was in Auckland and had a brackish tank ready to go. A person on TradeMe has just listed 2x Monos, 2x Silver Scats, 2x Red Scats and 2x Spotted Puffers. At only $10 each ($20 a pair) that's a great deal and I strongly recommend it to anyone that has a setup ready for these wicked little fishies! http://www.trademe.co.nz/structure/show ... ber=221816

Hey Hummingbird. You lucky rascal. I soo want Monos again, but they're $$ here in WGTN and I don't have a proper setup. I used to have 2 back in the day. They were in a 60Gallon comm tank with scats and other brackish fish. Have you ever had scats? Same conditions and everything. You'll need brackish water with 1 teaspoon of sea salt per 5 liters for juveniles, doubling this as they grow. When adults, these fish are practically saltwater (saline). Oh, and java fern can be toxic, though they might be okay with Monos. So.... see why I haven't bothered getting them here? Good luck with yours and let us know how it works out!

Hiya Ryan, I'm guessing you got the GAEs from Animates. It's basically an albino/golden version of a Chinese Algae Eater. Behavior is - juveniles peaceful towards each other; progressively territorial as they grow. May also graze on skin mucus of other fish. BEST TO HAVE ONE OF THESE GUYS IN A TANK BY ITSELF, WILL KILL OTHERS!!! Your fishy is basically a sucking loach from Thailand and almost impossible to breed. Latin/scientific name is Gyrinocheilus aymonieri and they can grow up to 27cm, but usually much smaller. editied by Bruce(Mod) PM me if the smaller of the two is getting beat up too bad and you don't have another tank to put him in. Blue

?? $600 from Hollywood Fish Farm in Auckland for zebra plecs, ryan. Good luck finding any for those prices down here though!

So... meeting this week? When and where? I'm assuming Tawa, right?

Common name is "Wimple Fish" and also sometimes called a banner fish due to the dorsal fins ability to grow over a foot long. We used to have them in the reefs around Palau when I worked at the Mariculture Centre. Great fish, where did you get him and how much do they cost in NZ?

Throroughly search the tank - including under every piece of gravel - for chewing/spitting tobacco. Primary cause of mouth and jaw cancer in the world. As for the actual cause of the problem? I'm a n00b but I'd have to just assume it's a birthmark or a blood clot from some kind of impact. We had two jewel cichlids back in the day and one had something similar after a drop to a tile floor during a tank change (oops). It ended up outliving every other fish in the tank.

Now, if you're going to go through all the trouble building a fish room, why not build a big tank in that wall that can be viewed from outside and maintained from inside the room? Just a thought for when I build mine...

For me it would be a matter of running costs over initial costs. While you're spending as little as $200 on the dehumidifier chiller, our dehumidifier costs about $75 a month to run. If you had used Peltizers you could have run the entire thing on a couple of volts and had perfect results. Would have cost maybe $5 a month to run. Oh, and try getting Peltizers off eBay if you don't have a source here in NZ. You'll save HEAPS.

carrying eggs = gravid Yes, your neons could be gravid. I can only assume they would be egg scatterers. With these kinds of fish, the males dance for the females and then they pair off and "court" followed by spawning. Helps if you happen to have them do this next to driftwood so you can actually see the eggs (before they get eaten by the other fish). If you do get breeding scatterers, just put them in a tank with marbles and let them do their thing. You'll learn more about breeding once you have some babies to deal with

Computer says no.... LOL. Chim chim, I'd probably not get the puffer fishie. I know they're cute as a button, but it means that you'll have to add salt to your tank to make him happy, grow snails to feed him and keep an eye on your other fish. If you want to do all that because you just oh-so-love the little guys, just make sure you have a home for him in case things go badly. Could be as simple as asking the fish shop if you can bring him back later on. They really are fun to have in the tank, and some are not as agro as others.

The Apple snails are the ones that they sell at the LFS. The snails that are pests are little buggers that eat your plants up like crazy.

Puffer fish? Community tank? Umm... k. Well, I had spotted and figure 8 puffers in my community tanks a few times when I was younger. Simply put, every single one either went back to the store for aggression towards tank mates. They start with fin nipping and move on to using that cute little beak to take out chunks of smaller fish. Now, you may be talking about a different type of puffer... and I may not have been the most attentive 13 year old back then, so do your homework and make sure you have a separate tank for him in case he needs a new home. By the way, will all your fish in the comm tank be okay with brackish water?

GBA = Golden Bristlenose Ancestrus. L144. I'm currently buying 4 of them from Snowman. As for the butterfly fish, I asked in the chatroom yesterday and the common consensus was that they cost $30 in the Auckland region. As for giving up guppies.... you might have to keep going to feed yer butterfly fish if he's gone live-only! Either that, or pay for babies from a breeder...

Aww, sorry to hear that, PJ! I heard you askin about Ammonia Burn last night in chatroom but didn't say anything (frankly I don't know anything about it). Sounds like you lost a beautiful guppy though!