Todd

Hi Snowman, could be a bit tricky taking them back - would involve searching through the septic tank I've seen Rebecca at the store and yup she seems pretty on to it. Better luck next time eh?

Hi Jude, a tank at work sounds cool. I work from home so sort of have that already What are wcmm's (white cloud somethings?) Any ideas on what other fish would be okay to put with my white clouds? Cheers, Todd

Hi pearlyred - I didn't buy the tank at the same time - I got that off trademe for $30. Yesterday I bought the gravel, plants and fish, all from the same place. The Giant Danios were definatley sold as cold water fish, and I said I was setting up a cold water tank (at that stage I hadn't decided on which species to get). Having looked into temperature requirements a bit further I've found that other fish they're selling as cold water - like guppies with really colourful tails - need 25c+. I would have thought cold was more like 15 - 20c. No mention of cycling, although I had read about cycling but thought that wasn't needed 'cos I'm using rainwater. I will go back and let them know what happened, but probably next week. It's an hour each way to the store, plus I want to leave the tank for a bit before adding more fish. I don't really want to slag the store off too much as they've been good to my brother, I think I was simply unlucky and got the young guy who is big on enthusiasm and keen to sell fish (was kinda implying that I wasn't buying very many). Chalking it down to experience..

Hi Guys, thanks for the feedback re the gravel - I'd assumed that tank gravel sold by a lfs would already be sterilised etc Guess this isn't the case huh?! Makes paying $10 for a wee bag a bit silly if it's the same as the gravel a landscape supplies place would sell for a fraction of the price. re tap water ammonia - yup. Bear in mind this is rainwater collected from the roof which passes through dead leaves, bugs etc The level is really low though, and yup have test kits for pH, ammonia & nitrites I appreciate the help you've offered. Having since researched G Danios, it seems they tolerate water from 21 - 28c so I'm guessing that was the key factor as my water went from 17 - 20c Without wanting to sound too whingy, gotta say I'm a bit disappointed at the lack of info from the shop when I made it clear I was a newbie after a simple setup. My brother has tropicals but I was after something a lot easier to look after. Makes choosing the fish tricky when you have to go to the shop to see whats available, go home to look up each species on the net, then go back to buy them (rant, rant, rant :roll: ) anyway, the white clouds are happy hopefully my posts in future will be about the more positive experiences...

Hi, I've just set up a coldwater tank. Specs and details are: It's 2ft, about 42 litres of water in it. We're on rainwater here pH 6.6 I'm using a dolphin 400 internal filter (bloody noisy) which pumps 300l/hour. Yesterday afternoon I bought 3 giant danios and 5 white clouds from hff along with a bag of tank gravel, and some plants. In the morning I had filled the tank with water to let the water come up to room temp. When I got back in the afternoon it was sitting at about 17c. I chucked the gravel in - water instantly went very cloudy so I left it to settle for about an hour, then skimmed the surface rubbish out and put some filter wool in the pump 'til everything looked clean again. In the meantime I had transfered my new fishies into a bowl of water in case of ammonia build up. My brother also added a teaspoon of conditioner to the tank (contains stress-coat) and a few drops of Magic Clear to help the filter wool clean the water. With everything looking good I introduced the fish to their new home and they all seemed happy enough. I had wondered if there was too much current from the pump, but there are areas where the current is quite slow so figured the fish would work it out. Around 11pm when I checked the tank again the danios were all dead at the bottom of the tank. They had been okay at around 10pm, so whatever it was that they died from happened within a short space of time. The white clouds are all fine (fingers crossed) but I'd like to know why the danios died. The water temp at time of death was 20c and the ammonia level was 0.1- 0.2 ppm which is the level it is from the tap. If anyone can shed some light on what might have been the cause I'd appreciate it. I really liked the look of the giant danios and would be keen to get more, but not until I know what went wrong. Cheers, Todd

Hi Guys, Thanks for the welcome I'm planning on setting the tank up for cold water fishies. There is a place in Albany (closest to me I think) that has heaps of different sorts. There were some that look like tiny trout, thought a group of those could look cool. I'm going to be moving house in a few weeks though, sort thought I'd wait 'til after that. The place I'm moving to (Mathesons Bay) has rainwater tanks - I'd imagine that makes things simpler? Cheers!

Hi, found this site looking for some info on fish so thought I'd say Hi. I've just bought a 2ft tank devoid of fish as yet - so a total newbie. My brother started up a tank of tropicals and I sort of got interested so here I am.