mrshanepaul

If you didn't realise you were talking to "slappers", that post would come off rather racist...

Chlorinated water with no cycle (or prime etc) = no bacteria and results in the same problem you have above...

None of the ones I looked in! Just my bad luck I guess. Anyways: Straw works wonders, but a baster would be better.

Also, I would not bother with the carbon and so forth. I run my filter packed with extra wool for bacteria and can't be bothered with the rest. Waste of money. I use plants to filter the water instead! YMMV

Cheers for that. I will pop down and have a look today.

Sand mining is not consented on populated beaches AFAIK. All Sand mining our way is done far from the actual beach. Buckets turn into trailers...many of them. Simple fact: People cannot be trusted. Once you understand that, a great many things become clear.

Due to general inbreeding of fish, it could be anything. If you are lucky it is a harmless cyst that will go away. If not, it could be a carnivorous tumour that will eat the very soul of your fish... :evil: errmm... Wait and see?

Loser is a state of mind. (Ican back that up with research also...) For instance. I win $20 every week in lotto. Gauranteed. I don't play.

Or you could boil and rinse it until the water is clear like I do and have no problems at all! :lol:

Mites do nothing to WW except compete for food and they are small.

I have two golden albino axies and just finished setting up a new tank for them. They used to be on a gravel base, but I hated it. I have gone with silca sand as a base. It is far easier to keep clean than gravel and you can drop sinking foods onto it without having to worry about them eating gravel. (I used to feed them pellets on a stick and hand feed them heart) On sand you do not have to worry. The axies literally gulp in food+sand and spit out just sand a second later. It is very funny to watch. For Poo: It can be difficult to find a turkey baster at times since kiwis aren't that fussed with them and therefore most places don't have them. (not that I could find) However, I use two large straws connected together instead. (I got them from a korean juice bar - about 3/4 inch in diameter) You put your finger on the end and put the straw in the water. Let your finger off for a second and the water is sucked into the vacum. Put your finger back on and quickly pull the straw out. (I use a cup to catch the water before it drips out again) Very easy. On silica sand it is very obvious where the poos/muck is. This is what they used to look like:

Absolutely another truism. "Great minds" have always debated, theorised and disagreed like crazy. That is a large part of made them great. In fact, our greatest minds usually flew in the face of popular thought and were discounted in the beginning. (truisms at work again) Analogies are used for UNDERSTANDING, not proving conclusions.

A very good example of how these random bits of "wisdom"/analogies/whatever are completely misleading. I have always marvelled at how someone can spew out whatever random "saying" they can weakly link to a discussion and consider it proof of argument. The same goes for analogies. I have seen many people describe a weak analogy and then go on to conclude all sorts of things by reasoning from WITHIN THE ANALOGY?? Suffice to say this is complete nonesense. BTW - no offence to the above person - almost everybody appears to do it. Noam Chomsky refers to them as "truisms", or things that we believe to be true without any sort of qualification or need for justification. We use them as gospel truths and never actually analyse them to see if they are correct or are still applicable. e.g. "The market forces will solve this problem."

Didn't say if it was tropical, people put goldfish in everything. Ok, so don't get SAE. Whack the guy who sold you GAE.

Bloody AE's confusing me again. Edited...

Considering this is an aquarium site, one would assume that giving a man a fish is the preferable option.

Oh the humanity. (or lack thereof) Let's just chill, its not like we are discussing DIY electrical jobs here or anything. Please people, let's just put the toys back in the cot and kiss and make up. I think I left my lipstick in the car...

I used a stocking. Worked pretty well. Actually, I use stocking for a range of things. (Feel free to rib me for this if you want...)

lol. Only most of them. Just don't mention DIY electrical jobs and it will be mostly harmless. :roll: Don't worry about it. Too many old codgers on here just need to take a chill pill is about all it is. They DO have a wealth of info, so it is not all bad!

Tell hom to get [EDIT]SIAMESE[/EDIT] algae eaters - they are awesome. Also tell him to whack the person who sold it to him... ..and whack me for being confused...

Like the one you put on the end of a grinder?? You could probably rig one from warehouse tools maybe??

I thnk you mean: http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/grumpygr/Hatcher.html The link did not work for me. Must be bad Link day or something. I will call Nintendo to find out...

Sorry to hear that. Still, losing only one fish is something to be happy about. It could have been the whole lot...

The main problem was that your questions were so broad that they would take pages to answer. Since you are a beginner, you have a lot to read. Try starting with one of your fish (try a live bearer) and go from there. There is heaps of info on breeding fish on the net.

Looks like fin rot, although I am not expert. More info than you could possibly want: http://freshaquarium.about.com/cs/disease/p/finrot.htm Most likely someone has been overfeeding them and not changing the water enough. Take note of trying to identify and remove the root causes. (especially if you decide to "upgrade" your fish to ones with tails :lol: ) And of course dead fish make a good life lesson for your step son...