alanmin4304

Don't leave them around too long or they may make you blanc

Hi, welcome and enjoy your time here.

What I meant was that if you have the bugs from whatever source you don't need to cycle--you on da bus. Jus watch fo da parasites.

The usual ingredient is sodium thiosulphate which produces some ammonia. Not familiar with your ingredients.

If you take media or gravel or whatever to get enough bugs it would not be a fishless cycle. You would add a few fish straight off.

Goldfish generally carry a lot of flukes but they can handle them if the water conditions are OK and they are generally healthy. It is common for people breeding goldfish to treat the fry for flukes because they cannot handle them. This is so of tropicals as well.

Copied from a previous post & edited: When you add chlorine to water you get hypochlorous acid which reacts with the amines (in all proteins) and forms monochloramine. When you add more chlorine you get dichloramine and even more you get trichloramine. All these (and other reactions) form part of the "chlorine demand" in the water. You cannot get free available chlorine until this "chlorine demand" is satisfied. Therefore when the reaction is pushed towards trichloramine there will be virtually no monochloramine present. In some states in the US they treat the water with monochloramine (made by reacting chlorine with ammonia) because chlorine will react with other impurities in the water and form some compounds that are not so nice (such as acetone) where as monochloramine will not. Monochloramine is not as effective in treating water as chlorine as is used in NZ but is still a strong oxidising agent. When people complain that the chlorine in a swimming pool is too strong and it is burning their eyes the problem usually is that the free available chlorine has been used up by contaminants in the water (such as urea) and this has pushed the chloramines back towards the monochloramine and this is what is burning their eyes. The problem is fixed by adding more chlorine. When you allow water to stand or aerate it to get rid of the chlorine the chloramines all move back to monochloramine and this will react with your fish the same as an under chlorinated swimming pool will with your eyes. Chlorine and all chloramines can be converted to more harmless chemicals with the addition of sodium thiosulphate. Drinking water will contain various impurites that add to the chlorine demand and will form chloramines and other compounds. Ammonia is a bi product of the reaction when adding thiosulphate to chlorinated water. _________________

Mainly skin and gill flukes I would be worried about. Guppies can be dickie at the best of times. I would use danios or similar.

Some dechlorinators can produce ammonia as a bi product (but only in relation to how much chlorine is present).

I use river sand as it contains a bit of silt and is rounded. Plastering sand and some others is sharp. Also our local sand is greywacke which is chemically pretty inert.

Goldfish generally carry and can handle a lot of parasites so I would never use them or media from their environment to cycle an aquarium. As stated earlier,with fish, fishless or put your filter in another tank or swap used for new media with someone. All personal preference. I prefer to heavily plant a tank then add fish slowly and give the system time to adjust. All work if done properly.

Interesting article. If the nitrate gets turned to nitrite in the blood, why does it not cause methaemoglobinemia as in humans? Or have I got the wrong end of the stick? Is that where blue goldfish come from?

Please boys and girls could we try a little harder to obey the rules and try hard to not get personal

Smell them--very easy to tell--don't look right--can't smell from here.

Sorry, there was a pair here I was told cost that much a couple of years ago.

Baby leopard geckos were $1500 each from breeders a few years ago. Tortoises have only come down in the last couple of years. Supply and demand.People paid $10k for green iggies so maf could destroy them.

Put a bit of fine mesh like a ladies stocking over a funnel and jam it into the end of a hose then siphon the water out. I have a pump that I used like that for inground ponds and it worked well. The bigger the funnel is at the big end, the slower the water movement will be. If you still can't see to catch the fish slowly add clean water until clear. Do it slowly (may have to be over a few days) or you can shock the fish

+1

There may be a lot more around next season in which case the price could come down. I would think 2-3 hundred from a breeder, obviously more from a retailer.

Pretty big for a platy--2.5 inches

Well done. That is the sort of numbers you should be bringinging through. As you suggest, the problem then is to stop the small ones getting eaten.

Koi

Not a lot of baby beardies about this year. Seems the same all over--not sure why, but gives the ladies a rest I guess.

Sorry I cannot see a conflict. Please enlighten me.

Joshlikesfish--what previous statement? I only made that one.