Chim Chim

hi,not sure what type of puffer he is...he's kind of a fluorescent yellow and white with white spots. my tank is not a brackish tank at all. will they survive in normal water whatever that is.

cheers for that. snowman I'd be very interested to get some GBAs from you I love bristlenose catfish. and the golden ones are pretty cool. are you in the auckland region? yep 30 sounds right I paid a little over that, but I didnt' see them anywhere else as yet. well since my males disappeared he hasn't had anymore small fish to eat and he wouldn't be able to fit platties in his mouth. maybe when he gets bigger? and he's starting to eat the flakes, bloodworms and granules that i've been feeding my other fish. seems like he's gotten too hungry he can't be bothered being fussy.

wow this is interesting. I bought guppy fry from a lady and she included free apple snails with them, there were about 20+ of them obviously she was trying to get rid of hers. I didn't like the look of them and just got out the guppies and left the snails. I'm glad I did this now! and heard so much about snail infested tanks. but if i was to get a puffer and started putting snails in the tank wouldn't i get this problem?

hey am thinking of getting a puffer fish for my community tank. I've read that they are brackish water fish, and the guys at the pet store say it will die if it's not in a brackish set up. I have a few fish that are categorised as brackish water in my tank and they've survived with no problems. does anyone know much about these fish and their needs? i think they're extremely cool little fish. I'm aware they need snails in their diet as well...please advise.

Hey am going to put up a new post about puffer fish if you'd like to have a look at it.

hey guys, sorry still new to this site what's GBA? guppy baby....a...? it probably doesn't stand for that. I know B/N = bristle nose. up here in auckers we saw only one butterfly fish in jansens and thought they were quite rare so we quickly bought him we had never seen a fish like that before. we later asked about them and they said we could order more if we so wished. I think not many ppl buy them compared to the other common variety trop fish like neons guppies etc. But we bought him for 39.95 and so far I've only seen it at one place. 39.95 is not too bad I thought. I'd love to get more but I might have to give up guppies since they'll get eaten.

Hey there thanks for your replies. I am almost certain he ate them since they are nowhere in sight and they used to hang around where the butterfly was and still is. and he had a fat tummy for a while. I thought the same as you that he wouldn't eat dry food and I wonder how he survived because I never saw him ate despite putting blood worms very close to him. but one night I quickly turned the lights on and saw him quite active and swimming around, once he saw me looking at him though he resumed his spot and kept very still almost like a dead log floating. sorry have only one 10+ cm female and some very beautiful males but they got eaten. have about 50 guppy fry i'm holding in a breeding tank so many when they grow bigger you can get some.

Hi there, yes ignorance is bliss alright, I too don't have an ammonia test kit and all my fish are doing fine too. I use stress coat to get chlorine etc and heavy metals from the tap water and hasn't been a problem. Lots of plants good filtration and lots of air into the water seems to have helped for me. Some fish are just weaker than others and tend to kark it easier. Survival of the fittest.

Hi Geetee and everyone , Yep agree with you guys, a bigger heater is the way to go. I too have similar dimensions as you greg, just marginally bigger, ~136L, upgraded from a 20L tank! bought lots of gear for it, 50w heater etc. I didn't know if I was going to be serious about fish keeping and didn't want to start off paying too much to begin with. Now that I've upgraded to a larger tank, I foolishly tried to use my 50W heater which was on constantly (no surprise) and my water wasn't heating up kept at a constant 24-25 C which was basically around room temp. I bought an Aqua One heater 150W which cracked and decided to shell out and get a 250W Fluval heater which is fantastic. There was hardly any difference between the two, in fact they were probably the same price (~$50) however it was worth it, I don't ever have to worry about the heater at all. I also have an internal power filter which replaced my crappy undergravel filter (it was terrible, my water was practically greenish within days despite feeding very minute amounts of food) and this power filter is pretty cheap ($24 brand new as a clearance stock) it is a 1200L/h power filter second largest power filter of the aqua one range, and it's fantastic. Only thing to worry about is since it's so powerful, it can 'blow' your fish around. I have small fish and they don't really get affected by it at all, in fact my red tail shark 'surfs' in the current. It's always better to overkill the filtration than less filtration. As far as light is concerned, I recommend the aqua one reflector lights, double bulb if you can, it helps with plant growth. Get one that is very similar to the size of your tank, ie if you have a 3ft try not to get a 2 ft light since from my experience in trying to save money, I bought a 2ft light for my 3ft tank and it created dark spots on either side of the light within the tank where the light didn't reach. Also getting a good air pump is good too, again a larger one for your tank is probably better since an underpowered one will not be able to push enough air through large amounts of water, also you will be able to hook more things eg ornaments that release air bubbles from a single pump. I also recommend stress coat, does a fantastic job at eliminating heavy metals and chlorine from tap water, fantastic stuff. I add half a teaspoon per 40L and works a charm. Highly recommend it.

Hi everyone, has anyone had any experience with these fish? or have they ever had these fish eat male and pregnant female guppies? I can understand small fry, but a 10+cm very pregnant female, I'm not so sure. any insight is welcome! Thanks

Hi there, I have four gouramis in my community tank, two pink, and two blue and one siamese fighter amongst other fish. I haven't had a problem with the siamese fighter with the gouramis at all, although there is a pecking order between the gouramis (pink with pink). As of late however, one of my pink gouramis seems to be acting the same fashion as yours, ie isolated, lonely and sits quietly by itself. It may be that it has been harrassed by the other gourami that it is behaving that way. But certainly I don't think it is due to the siamese fighter at all. Good luck though!

Yes thanks, definitely not a zebra plec. Everyone here is so friendly. Thanks for the welcome everyone. Is there a possibility that my male siamese fighter can eat two male fantailed guppies also male?

Hi Martind, am also new here on this forum, but your question on growing plants urged me to reply. I recently bought a 3ft light for my 3ft aquarium surprise surprise, which is a double. The one bulb is a blue spectrum whilst the other is white. Aparently having two is good for great plant growth. I had some stalks which was given to me from a friend as small shoots not even 10 cm high. Within about a week or two under the light for about 10 hours + they have grown sideways and upwards and seem to grow really quickly. This compared to my other tank with axolotls in it, with no light the plants have hardly grown at all. I"m amazed at the speed the plants are growing, I think they are sword plants or similar to that but they're doing really well as well as my java moss and baby tears. Most of the plants I have gotten are doing extremely well under the light. Hope that helps!

hey thanks for the reply. Do you think it could be a zebra plec? The shop people are very young and don't really know much about fish, they had a few different plecs there all lumped under one price and one sign saying plecostomus. Are there any other common types that have the same description as I said? Thanks]

Hi there new to this forum, was introduced by a friend. Not sure how to use it at present, but I'm sure it won't take too long! Just a little about myself....I'm new to aquaria, saw a small fish tank with an undergravel filter, gravel and an air pump for a really cheap price and thought why not? Needles to say, a hundred dollars later including two fish, it ended up being a huge waste of time and money! the two fish died within 12 hours or purchase. I had gotten everything needed, including cycle, alkaline remover, fish food, chlorine remover etc. I followed all the instructions of the pet shop and fish after fish died and died. I managed to get some fish to survive longer than the rest, fish such as the peppered corydoras seemed to be hardier than even the tetras. Despite money quickly depleting, I decided to upgrade and keep the existing fish I had, two guppies, and two peppered catfish and bought a 3 ft tank, brand new power filter ( L/hr) and got rid of my undergravel filter. I noticed the water was not clear even in my small tank and disturbing the gravel made it worse even though i was feeding very minute amounts of food to the fish. It worked! the combination of small amounts of fish and a good filtration system worked. Now I have 38+ fish in my tank and there is a beautiful symbiosis created between the species and they are surviving with no problem. It may be a little crowded but the fish are small and there's lots of room. I just bought a common pleco which i'm sure will get large later on, but I'm not sure what type he is. The pet shop wasn't much help apart from knowing it was a plecostomus. It is white and black, and greyish which zebra type markings. It may be a hypostamus but I'm not sure, anyone have a clue?