vapo

How's the gourami now? Have any other colours changed? I hear the males go quite orange under the throat when they're ready to breed. Our pearl was quite a stressed wee chap when we first got him, but his colours came out (esp. his spots) after he settled in. He was still eating while he was stressed and used to swim up and down the glass in the corner of the tank, but now he's the boss and hangs out in the middle. Cheers, Vapo.

Thanks for the excellent info Kyle. Bummer. Might have to get some more tanks for B/Ns. Up to three tanks already, got our first aquarium about three weeks ago!! MTS here we come!!! Cheers, Vapo.

Really? Where do they get them from then? Are they imported? If people can breed B/Ns, howcome not common plecs? Cheers, Vapo.

Hey guys and gals. Just wanted to know how to determine the sex of my plecos. Common ones, brown, spotty, stripey. Any info would be much appreciated, as I can't seem to find much anywhere else. Thought I'd look it up first, before I asked a supid question, but here I am, asking the people I probably should have in the first place :oops: . Cheers, Vapo.

Oh, one more thing, can anyone tell me how to 'sex' my plecs? Would love to be able to breed 'em one day. Cheers, Vapo.

They are the common type I believe. Brown and spotty, one has stripes on the tail rather than spots (good for telling them apart), but both look basically the same. After watching them for quite a while today, I noticed that they looked OK most of the time, but now and then faded out in places. They very quickly went back to their normal colouring, so I guess they are just a bit moody occasionally? Spotty is definitely more dominant than Stripe and often chases him/her out of the cave in the hill. This is usually when the coluor fade comes about, so when we get our 100L up and cycling, (yep, we're probably gonna come down with MTS) we'll probably put Stripe in there to keep the algae down. Hope this sorts them out. BTW, after doing about 35-40% water change this morning, the ammonia levels are back to 0 tonight. Thanks for the excellent advice everyone. Will keep those water changes up daily for a couple of weeks. Does 10-15% per day sound alright? *EDIT* Forgot to say we vacuumed the substrate quite rigorously when doing the water change. Cheers, Vapo.

Thanks to everyone for their help. All the info is there in the freshwater section (I posted in both places to ensure a fast response, so this thread is basically obsolete now). Cheers, Vapo.

Thanks Caryl. We've been putting Pleco-chips in for the plecos every couple of days and they're eating them - along with the clowns and gouramis, but the plecos seem to push them off. We were advised that plecos were good first fish to put in the tank to help start the cycle off, was this bad advice? The substrate is brown, black, white and cream coloured gravel. They only started losing colour last night, after being in there for two weeks. They seem to be eating fine and swimming around fairly unconcerned, though they hide a lot during the day. Oh, yeah our temp is approx 27.5C, is that OK? Thought we should keep it there for the clown loaches, but is it too high for the plecs? Cheers, Vapo.

Thanks BlueandKim. Yes, we have been doing them, but at 20% every 4 days. Will try 10% per day for the next couple of weeks. And no, we will not part with our loaches!!! :lol: Love their playful personality, though they chase everyone at feeding time! Cheers, Vapo.

The Lighting is from two Power-Glo Tubes and one 10,000K tube. We have the lights on for 12hrs in the following configuration: One Power-Glo on for 12hrs, the other for 5hrs, and the 10,000K for about three hours but only ever have two tubes on at any one time. Does this sound OK for the fish/plants we have, or should we change the timing? All fish are still eating normally and seem to behave naturally, except the one neon. (at least as normal as my minimal experience would suggest) Cheers, Vapo.

Thanks Matt. Will do that water change immediately. Yes my tank is very new, only running for 18 days. By almost normal, I mean Nitrites-0, Nitrates-0, pH-7.2, but Ammonia is 0.1-0.2 when it was 0 previously (2 days ago). I was wondering if this change in Ammonia could be the cause of my problems. I have done 3 water changes since the fish have been in there (approx 13 days) and we have 5 medium sized plants in our 285L tank. We have 9 neon tetras, two 3" Plecos, four 3 1/2" gourami, and four 3" clown loaches in there also. That's all the info I can think of. *EDIT* The filter is a 1600L/hr max, not a 1200L/hr as I stated in a previous post. Cheers, Vapo.

Please help! One of my neon tetras was acting aggressive and upon closer inspection, it had a big band of no colour up the side with a dark looking worm shape inside its belly. I quarantined the poor wee fishie yesterday, but now my two Plecos have bands of faded colour across them, behind their heads and across their backs and the neon has lost almost all it's colour in the quarantine tank. Does anyone know what could be causing this? My water parameters are almost normal, though the ammonia has risen from 0 to 0.1-0.2. Would this be enough to cause the discolouration I've observed? Cheers, Vapo. I've posted this in the diseases section as well. Thought I'd post in here too, to try and get as quick a response as possible. Thanks again.

Please help! One of my neon tetras was acting aggressive and upon closer inspection, it had a big band of no colour up the side with a dark looking worm shape inside its belly. I quarantined the poor wee fishie yesterday, but now my two Plecos have bands of faded colour across them, behind their heads and across their backs and the neon has lost almost all it's colour in the quarantine tank. Does anyone know what could be causing this? My water parameters are almost normal, though the ammonia has risen from 0 to 0.1-0.2. Would this be enough to cause the discolouration I've observed? Cheers, Vapo.

I would position the inlet and outlet of the filter as far apart as possible, with the inlet being as low in the water as possible and the outlet close to, but below the water line. Having the outlet high will help with aeration of the tank and having the inlet further away will encourage greater circulation of the water. Hope this is what you meant and not just which way to direct the outlet. Also, the heater should be fairly deep (it will probably have a maximum depth limit), but not touching anything (gravel, side of the tank, etc) as heat will rise. Keeping it close to the flow of water will help distribute the heat too. Vapo. **EDIT** Oops, didn't read the last post and seem to have repeated everything Caryl said. Nevermind.

I fully understand about your pics not being as great as when they're full size. They must look fantastic on your screen cos they still look excellent at the smaller size. VERY nice tanks.

I've seen gouramis with whitespot and it was mainly on their fins and tail. This could be due to the fact that it's easier for the whitespot parasite to burrow into the fins than the body as they don't have the same protective scales as the body(?). So could be whitespot although I would've expected to see at least some on the body.

Yep, I've seen my clown loaches chowing down on snails. Now we have no more snails(they came in with our plants). If price is a problem, Upper Hutt pet shop, just outside the Logan Plaza, sells 'em for $11-$12. They're very small, but they still ate our snails!

Follow this link and read the 3rd comment. http://www.aquariumfish.net/information/bio-wheel_filters_2.htm It states that your filter is for a 20-40 gallon tank, so you should be sweet with that filter. Ignore the bio-wheel stuff unless you want to spend more money on your tank and waste the new filters already in there.

I think the general rule is your filter should be able to pump your water at least 3-4 times an hour. Does it have a figure in L/hr or gal/hr? If so, it should be in the region of 400L/hr or 90-100gal/hr minimum.

We had two clown loaches to start with and they both hid for most of the day. Got two more who seemed to be pretty brave and now they all come out and play. One still hides a bit, but still comes out a lot more than when there were just the two of them. They seem to like to have a crew to hang with. Great fun to watch! Like naughty little kids! :lol:

^^Yes I have an uncle who would make puns out of everything that was said. Many a groaner!! Good times!

Thanks very much thats a relief, last thing we wanted was to kill all our fish. I will be testing the water every day now for the next couple of weeks, thanks for the advice.

Second day after receiving tank. First fish added (neons and a pleco). Yesterday. Last fish added (two clown loaches). Must take the anemone out as it doesn't fit the theme. It was a gift, so I'll probably put it in my hospital tank.

Hi Caryl, I added these fish over the last 9 days (they are all very small and our tank still looks empty, but we're gonna stick to this amount of fish unless we get another full-time tank). The first day we added ten neons and a pleco. 3 days later another pleco, 2 days after that, two loaches and two gourami, 2 days after that two more gourami, and then the last two loaches yesterday. We only had the tank cycling for about 3 1/2 days before hand, but the gravel and filter media came from an up and running, healthy tank, so thought we would risk it. Water has been fine so far. Got our fingers crossed. My filter is a 1200L/hr power head with the filtration in three 30cm x 25cm boxes with noodles in two and activated carbon in the other. These filter boxes are all in the hood and have sponges(?black coarse stuff one side and white spongy stuff on the other), over the top of each. Also we're planning to get another tank in a year or two to house one of the plecos and the loaches? If we can set up one that is compatible to both. Will the plecos grow too quickly for that? Also the substrate is quite coarse, the clown loaches can only just move it around, though they're only 2-3 inches long at the mo'. I'll try and post a pic.

Cheers Live Bearer. Will try it now!