alanmin4304

Welcome to the site and hobby. My guess is that you are doing a natural cycle with the tank just as grandfather used to do before someone decided it was cruel to cycle naturally. If you continue to add fish slowly everything should go well. I used to have a fish house with 60 tanks and bred 50000 tropical fish a year and I have always cycled tanks naturally by adding fish slowly and allowing the system to adjust.

Welcome to the site and hobby. My guess is that you are doing a natural cycle with the tank just as grandfather used to do before someone decided it was cruel to cycle naturally. If you continue to add fish slowly everything should go well. I used to have a fish house with 60 tanks and bred 50000 tropical fish a year and I have always cycled tanks naturally by adding fish slowly and allowing the system to adjust.

I only text on my phone also (doesn't even take pictures) but welcome to the site and good luck with your new hobby. I am sure there will be a 7 year old on here that can help with your phone---AT 71 I have little knowledge of these matters and little enthusiasm for learning. Have bred a few fish though. 

I have never used them to feed dwarfs but have recently  obtained and maintained a culture of vinegar eels which would also be OK but my preference would be brine shrimp nuplii because they are virtually live pieces of egg yolk and I suspect they are better food value. 

I unfortunately cannot see much in your pics. Make sure you are not dealing with saprolegnia (actual fungus) as a result of injury from being bullied. If you increase the dose of wunder tonic be aware that too much acriflavine can kill your plants and stain things and that malachite green can kill neons. Salt will cure both but plants don't like it too much (2 teaspoons/gallon for 30 minutes. It is likely that columnaris was in the tank and most tanks and really only takes off with acid conditions and high temperatures and fungus as a result of injury.

Looking great, keep it up.

I agree with above. The tank is overloaded and this will ensure that the fish are not happy. Overfeeding also causes stress on the fish because the excess food causes bacterial blooms that use up a lot of the oxygen.
 

You actually need a small rise in ammonia to feed the extra bacteria that will eventually feed on and remove the extra ammonia produced by the extra fish. It is a living system and it is all about balance.

Welcome and enjoy your time here.

I am not sure if I should be jewish or a muslim this xmas . Either way it will be a good way to have a very quiet relaxed xmas with no sign of panic about. My brother is arriving in two days. He is done with being a Zambian, then South African and now Strain. May your god go with you all.

Most of the crypts at redwood wood have been imported by them and Bob Ward would be one of the most informed people in the country on identifying crypts. He has a lot of literature on flowers of crypts as well as info on DNA. Chances are that his identifications would be pretty spot on.

It looks to me like it is one of the tanks with a plastic ring around the bottom which keeps the glass bottom from sitting on the stand. You therefore need to properly support the ring so I would go with the plywood suggestion and even put a bead around the edge of the ply to make it even safer. (advice from shaky town)

Start from scratch and leave your problems behind.

Many thanks for the advice. I had previously sprayed the food with water until it was wet but had no success. I flooded the whole container and left it for about 20 minutes then tipped all the excess water off and the next day there were worms all over the glass over the food like there used to be. I am very happy.

They breed after a brumating (colder) period usually in spring/early summer. They then need to be grown up until they morph---time is dependant on feeding. I used to sell mine at 6 weeks after morphing. There are not many about but I would think a bit less than a year from now. You might be lucky if a breeder has manipulated the cooling off period or they have been kept for a longer period. They are pretty small when they first morph.

Well done

Great work as always.

I have seen a frog eat another frog the same size and all I could see was the feet sticking out. I pulled the victim out and it survived but you would be asking for disaster to put small ones with larger ones. These were green and golds as well.
 
 

Always welcome

Welcome to the site

My understanding is that prime  contains thiosulphate to neutralize chlorine and chloramines. When the chloramines are broken down one of the biproducts is ammonia so they added a compound to make that less toxic. This may be altering your test results.
 

There are members on here who are keen on orandas so good luck.
 

I used to breed a lot of angels in a previous life. If you wish to breed them please try to get ones with good genetics. It seems that at the moment people are prepared to breed any male to any female and there is a lot of rubbish out there. Also you will need bare tanks to put the breeding pairs in ---I used 600x300x300mm tanks, small tanks to hatch the eggs in --I used 150x150x150mm tanks for that then larger tanks to grow out the babies. Work out what you are going to do with the fish you breed---my biggest spawning was 1226 raised and sold, and they will breed every 10 days if you do it right. If you want to get a pair from younger ones start with 7 and be prepared to hold or dispose of the other 5. If you sell from home it is unlikely that a wholesaler or retailer will buy from you after you have destroyed the market for them by selling at the back door. The easiest to sell when I was doing it was black zebra lace veil tails but you might have to work towards creating them yourself. There are a few genetics about now that were not available when I was doing it so you may be able to start with some of them but you need to establish a reputation for having very good quality fish that are healthy and in good condition. Reputation is everything. I used to work with a friend and we were selling over 50000 fish a year to one wholesaler (who is no longer about). The genes in angel fish are in pairs so a marble should have two marble genes but may have gold as well ---If they only have one marble gene they do not look good. Do not cross a blusher (two stripeless genes) to a normal (two stripe genes). Read heaps and talk to people with knowledge and you will get on the right track. Good luck. 

Fishless cycling is a con job produced by people that want to sell products. If you add a couple of hardy fish such as zebra danios and do regular water changes they will be perfectly OK. No one knows how many flakes of food or dead shrimps produce the same ammonia as the fish you are going to add so the balance is not a balance at all and far more stress is produced when the fish are added. I used to breed 50000 fish a year and have imported fish and I have never done a fishless cycle and never had a problem either. The more fish you add, the more water changes you do. There is an equilibrium between  ammonium (harmless) and ammonia (harmful) which is related to pH and is diluted by water changes. I used to add over 1000 baby angels a few days old to an uncycled 50 litre tank and never had a problem. I fail to see how the cleaning agents in cloudy ammonia regardless of dilution can be better for the fish than water changes. Everyone to their own.
 

Well done