alanmin4304

You change the water often enough to know that the fish are not showing signs of stress. In the good old days (maf have now changed the rules) the trick was to pick the first signs of any trouble with the fish and treat before it got worse. You are correct with your assumption about fishless cycling and the same applies to cycling with fish. I have not met anyone who can tell me how much ammonia is equivalent to waste from the first lot of fish they add so how does that avoid stress?

Surfactants come in many different flavours, only one of which are the oils. I don't know what type of surfactants are used in cloudy ammonia so I don't know if your theory would work or not. I am simple minded obviously as I cannot see why someone would want to add surfactants and probably detergents (and whatever else) to an aquarium. A fish produces exactly the waste that the bacteria you want will feed on and at the correct concentrations so why not just introduce your fish slowly and show a little patience. When I was breeding thousands of fish and when I imported goldfish I never added anything to the water other than fish and never had a problem. I never tested the water either but I did heaps of water changes until everything stabilized. Everyone to their own I guess. I am also dumfounded as to why so many people put teatree oil( MELAFIX) into their tanks.I think we are being blinded by "science" and have forgotten what we are trying to achieve. I suppose it keeps a few people in spending money.

Sorry. I missed the point. The gas burner will produce Carbon monoxide but it will be exhausted. It will however deplete the oxygen. Don't know about the North Island but LPG is not cheap down this way. Very good insulation is the trick then it doesn't take much clean green electricity.

Surfactants and god knows what else is a better way---I stand corrected.

It does and that is why they give it to people with a tendency to get blood clots

Carbon monoxide. If the room is insulated very well it costs very little to maintain the heat once the water temperature is up where you want it.

The best one I have cost me $30 and a heap more to get it up from a farm in the lakes district. It was being used and was being sold as a bread prover but I recognised it as being a bacterial incubator that we had used when training way back in 1971. I checked it with a very accurate thermometer and it maintained a better temperature than the made in China, sold in Australia, purpose built reptile one I had previously bought, but not by a lot. It will hold about 3 times as many containers as the poly ones.

Assuming that the room is very well insulated (priority one) and your tanks are up to the temperature you want, It will not take much heat to maintain the air temperature and hence the tank temperature. The greater the volume of water you have ,the greature the heat sink you have. When I was breeding heaps of fish The ammonia in the air became a problem so once or twice a day, while working in the room, I used to leave the door open for a while to get an air change. It does not take much heat to get the air back up to temperature. Serious breeders and importers generally load their fish tanks up to the max to reach an economy of scale. Can be risky but profitable. Your overheads in a fish house are about the same for 100 or 10000 fish.

If you add CO2 you need to add light and ferts. Just doing any one of the three is a waste of time.

Why not just add a couple of danios and not use the added ammonia along with all the other contaminants. Worked for grandad.

Why do you think it is cloudy?

I can't tell what is going on from the pics but if you have fungus it will be an oportunistic infection following finrot which is bacterial. You will therefore need to treat with an antibiotic and a fungicide if fungus is present. Wunder tonic contains both but not sure if your fish can handle it, or Furan is available from the petshop. There are antibiotics that are selective against gram negative bacteria and are very good treatments but they would require a visit to the vet with the fish and a prescription, all of which would not be cheap.

It is worth what someone wants to pay. If you go to a glazier to get one made they will usually charge retail for the glass but if you buy offcuts you will get the glass for about half that. The thicker glass is used for larger windows so some offcuts can be a good size while thinner glass can be used right down to louvre windows so is all generally retail. Some tank makers get the glass cheap because they buy all the offcuts and the merchants don't have to pay heaps to dump it. I went where I usually go to get my glass to make a tank and because of the quakes no one was buying it and they had just paid $600 to dump it.

Welcome and enjoy your time here.

I used to have a heavily insulated fishroom which was heated by a 1kW heater with a fan rewired so it went all the time. The heater was hardly ever on. Had about 60 tanks--mainly about 600mm x 600mm.

Many commercial breeders and importers keep the temperature at 22-23 deg C to save power and it slows up the onset of diseases.

As above but would add that I found brewers yeast best---available from binin.

Not release them. Give them to a friend, sell them or destroy them I guess.

I haven't kept them in ages but bred them many moons ago. They are like many cichlids and are OK until they decide to pair off and start protecting a territory.

You are not supposed to release tadpoles or frogs to the wild amongst many reasons is the possible spread of chytrid fungus which could be really bad if it spread to our natives.

Well done.

It is a great experienc watching any egg hatch. Keep up the breeding--eventually I might be able to afford.

And give them all the conditions to make them feel like it is a good idea. What music ya got?

Nice lookers. What sort are they?

I know a guy who can pull about 1k a week with venturis on the west coast (the real and original west coast that is). Very hard work and very cold and wet in the winter but better than the dole.