rossco

Great colours! Hope you are looking after our Waikato Xenia stock...a couple of mine have shrivelled up and floated off! Little sods of things... Wot else you get for Xmas? :lol:

What would you guys do with her? She would probably wouldn't do very well in your fish tank!

Hmmmm... fishies...tank top often open...hot lights...buzzy flies...buzzy wife...fly spray...breeze...fish swimming upside down...very buzzy Ross! This SW fish stuff gets trickier by the day. Gonna have to get rid of one of the factors above...

Soon its going to be summer and after the shower or two we've had the flys will be a buzzing. What (if any) fly sprays/dispensers it is safe to use in the same general house area as the SW tank? Are the pyrethrum based ones safe? :-?

Its scary some of the times you guys write posts.... Just as well you have reef tanks to keep you off the streets! Hey Jimmy, look after the white Xenia, it could be the last left in the Waikato at this rate. We will all be coming around to get some frags off you! Mines still on the rocks but still quite 'wilted' - the brown looks a lot perkier. :-?

I had the privilege of seeing Jimmmys tank in real life - he's got a couple of REALLY cool clowns! And now a really cool clam!

Hi Reubs We lost a (new) blue tang with whitespot only a few weeks ago. That was even with Slappers assistance who gave us some Stop Parasite. I wouldn't disagree with any of the advice given (I'm gonna be a politician one day) because there are so many variables that could be at play. I reckon : If your BT keeps developing WS he's putting lots more little WS back into the water so increases the chances of other folk getting it. Just as it did with our lot. I got my hands on more SP and maybe it ain't a miracle cure but it makes me feel better putting it in and the other little fishes seem to have shaken off their sprinkles... We got some from Rotorua and the courier only cost $5 and it was there in the afternoon. The trouble with WS is that even when the WS appears to have dropped off it has still damaged the fish... Don't know about yours but BT are bastards to catch...they can hide under anything. Good luck

Having just set one up from scratch - mostly new - the $3500 to 5000 is a fair ballpark. The dilemma is how well do you want to set it up the first time? You can shop around second hand etc and get some great deals but you first have to know what you want and how you are going to use it in what system. As you can see by these threads and tank pics there are plenty of ways to skin the cat! Its only really by doing it that you gain the know how to upgrade in the direction YOU want to go. If you want an okay fish tank you can get away with paying a moderate price - if you want a great fish tank there is always something to spend your money on to make it better! Like most things in life - the worthwhile ones are never easy...

Cool - another dilemma knocked over!

Hi guys What do you mean by 'reef dip'? That was one of the parts of the process I was having difficult with when working out my quarantine procedure. If trying to get a SW up and going how do we introduce the coral types without ich going along for a ride? Ideally they should be put in isolation tank as well but then you have the additional problem of trying to keep them going with good enough lighting etc... Applying my experience of other 'stock' this eradication is a toughy but may be do able. Some issues to deal with for me: - sub-clinical (non-observable) forms of the 'disease'. In most animals (even humans) many diseases only presents itself when the animal's immunity is low eg we all have bacteria affecting us now that is being suppressed. Stress is one of the best ways to reduce natural resistance. Ich will be able to cycle without us knowing. - many of even the best of drug treatments only deal with the MAJORITY of the population - enough for the affected animal to recover and restore its natural 'balance'. We also have to be careful we don't breed 'super' ich by TOO MUCH treatment - the tough ones getting tougher. - Any ecosystem is exactly that - a system. Every action to it has a reaction. I am rapidly learning a natural balance in a SW tank is the best way to 'manage' the tank. Management by non-management! Its great to be able to share our thinking and sometimes agree to disagree! Don't ya just hate newbies putting their 5c worth in

I have recently set up what I intended to be a refugium and what rapidly turned into an isolation/hospital tank for my blue tang that came down with white spot. I can isolate the refugium from main tank, and main tank has run well so far on its own 'filter' power, so intend to use it as a quarantine tank in the future once I get over the current drama. What is the main purpose of the quarantine? I know to prevent putting disease into your main tank but if we purchase a fish that is a carrier, eg is harbouring sub-clinical form of the disease, not enough to be seen by us, but enough to keep the parasite cycle going in the quarantine tank, won't it still introduce it to the main tank? Do we isolate to: 1. allow fish to acclimatise to our tank environment 2. observe potential clinical signs and 3. treat with something like Salifert in case the fish has sub-clinical parasites? I guess my uncertainty comes from seeing some fish with what could be white spot that stays in the same place on fish for several weeks ie how do we definitely confirm 'whitespot'?

Looking forward to following your progress. I only recently started to introduce the tangs to nori and it was probably too late to help what had already developed. I think the main thing for me will be to develop an understanding, form a view, and then follow a process. As it is now, there is a lot of reaction and not enough prevention! All the sharings are greatly appreciated - even with the 'lively' debate!

The tank just isn't the same without an 'ich magnet'. Now I just have to work out how to build a lint trap into my system... or keep my lint magnets out of it...

Hi Cracker Must have been the farming background coming out in me. If you have 'unexplained' deaths in stock an autopsy is one of the first considerations - usually by a trained vet though! worm burdens can also be a cause of death in other animals but also eating the wrong sort of stuff. As I understand it, cattle can become quite ill and die through the accumulation of chewing and eating stuff like plastic rubbish, bailing twine and the like. Even bits of metal debris ingested while grazing. It ends up in a ball that blocks passage of food and digestion and/or causes peritonitis (inflammation of gut wall). As you will find out in this forum, I hate speculating, I want to know WHY so I can deal with things!

The rattle is a problem but there is one thing for sure, having bought one and had the problem I am know that Micheal makes every endeavour to put it right! For an old fogey that is uncomfortable buying over the web, Micheal makes it a one hell of a lot easier...

Yup pretty sure they be hairs/fibres, The analyst also came out in me - I can identify cat hairs, dog hairs, and fibres. Even the odd human hair - definitely nothing short & curly. Too hard for the tang to swallow...About 60% is actually various fibres such as the carpet. Thinking back, silly me use to drop the towel on the carpet and regularly wiped the drips off my arms when I was working in the tank. Probably put more hair/fibres in to the tank than water that I wiped off!

This SW stuff is tough! Just when I thought I was getting on top of my white spot my yellow tang goes off his food a few days ago and today puts his toes up. He was the second yellow tang I've lost in as many months so the pathologist came out in me...(not that I am actually one). I was very surprised to find that his stomach contents was one huge fur ball! About the size of my little finger nail. We have the usual cats and dogs around. I am pretty sure this was the cause of his demise. No other sign of ill health other than being off his food. Also consistent with him from day one being a great grazer and hairs in the tank would be more attractive to an algae eater? Lesson for me: - keep my hair (mine and others) covered arms out of the fish tank - keep tank covered as much as possible - be ultra careful not to introduce hairs etc when doing water changes etc Am I 'grasping at hairs' or do you guys think there could be some logic to what I am concluding....? Wifey wasn't pleased when I said we have to get rid of the cat! :bounce:

A question from a newbie - why is the warmer external temperature a potential factor when our tanks are still way warmer? (especially the ambient temperature over the day - not just peaks) Hmmmm....

Hi folk Following on from my 'Dang tang' post I can report that the little b.....d is back to 'normal' after his squashing, wet air, and formalin treatment. It was probably the formalin though that knocked his white spot. Thanks to the generosity of Paul I have been able to add some Stop Parasite to the tank and touch wood, no more sign of it in the other folk. I have been trying the garlic added to food but after about 4-5 days I think it started to put them OFF their food so knocked it back a fair bit. Thought that it was better to keep them fed well. I would recommend the formalin treatment as a 'strong' response - trouble is to catch the little critters.

Don't know about increasing their appetite but it certainly doesn't put them off it! Do you know how little juice there is in a clove of garlic? Try squeezing some on to a small piece of fish food! Update: The shrimps have reappeared after being AWOL for two weeks. Musta been changing their coats. JC (tang) still ticking over well. Wifey hasn't sat on any fish lately...

Yup, doin the garlic thing. If nothing else it reduces the likelihood of vampires flying into the aquarium! Some things in life help even if its only the power of positive thinking and alleviates one's stress by at least doing something! Lucky we live in the country - I'm off rabbit hunting to decrease the rabbits luck and increase mine. Ain't that the fun of having a SW aquarium - trying a whole lotta stuff - some of which works and some of which could end up as the cats new garlic flavoured catfood...

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Sorry, as it is to say it, it is NO joke! And yes, the tang was sitting out of water for 3+ hours, in a net, on the chair. My rudimentary science knowledge suggests to me that there was enough water/moisture held in the net and wrapped around him to provide enough moisture for his gills to still work. Not recommended for people to try at home though. Our boys say that it was being sat on that provided a very crude form of heart massage (not quite their words though) Bluetang still 'kicking' this morning and hiding under the rocks in the emergency tank. Just to really make my weekend I was staring at tank last night after writing the post and a shrimp poked his heads out for a few seconds. We haven't seen one for two weeks! The downs and ups of having a reef tank...

WARNING - this sharing is not for the faint hearted and is not intended to raise a moral debate on euthanasia! A couple of weeks ago we bought a yellow tailed blue tang. Because we are newbies and only have the one tank, into it he went. After about a week he started to develop spots on him – most noticeable late in the day and almost gone by the next morning. Hmmm...that is why they are called ich magnets. The optimists in us thought the cleaner shrimps that we bought as the same time as him may be cleaning them off (even though we hadn’t spied the shrimps since their third day in the tank). Pondered good and hard on our options… On Wednesday I went to bed as normal. Thursday morning I wake up (7 am) to find a fish net on the chair in front of the fish tank with our blue tang in it. My dearest tells me she got up at 4 am to let the cat out, checks the tank with torch to see if she can spy the shrimps and sees blue tang on bottom of tank covered in spots and looking very dead. She fishes the tang out so I don’t get such a nasty surprise later in the morning. I tried to be philosophical about it (I don’t like losing fish) so got some frozen fish food out to feed his mates that were left. I happen to put the ‘dead’ tang on one of the frozen food packs and see its tail move. “Interesting its nerves are still going†I thought. Put it in a cup of tank water to see what else it would do. After a minute or two its gills started to flap. Bloody hell – its alive! :roll: I shouted it a big bowl of warm tank water as a reward for his efforts to live and thought if he could make the effort so could I. When it started to flap I thought I might as well try to deal with the white spot and shouted him some formalin solution – that really woke him up! Much a flurry later he was sitting in a bucket of tank water with his own airstone and heater. 36 hours later he is in a newly set up spare tank, and acting almost normal. He even ate some flake and he hasn’t got any spots! The beloved one this afternoon shares that he even endured a bit more trauma. She got up before me that morning and happened to sit on the net (with him still in it) when she looked at the tank to see if everybody else was alright – “It was only for a second†If he lives it will be a miracle. But even so, his name is already “JC†after a biblical character that also came back from the dead. Nature continues to astound me…how can anything so seemingly delicate be so tough? I’m still trying to work out how to keep you know who away from the tank!

Just when I thought I knew most of the stuff in my tank someone mentions 'pods'! A quick search here reveals 'pod-mania' I goin pod hunting tonight....