ryanjury

Metro might be avaliable from HFF's otherwise do you know any discus breeders? Its also called flagyl. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metronidazole From memory a friend uses 5mgs of metro to 500gms of flake food mixed with agar and put in the fridge, starve the fish until they eat it. Obviously you could just scale the mix down a bit or add it to your own home made frozen food (would be awesome for oscars). They are commonly available in 400mg tablets and you use one of these per 40L of water every day with a water change, this goes through alot of it which is good that your fish are still eating because they can absorb it alot better.

Just do the temp thing and salt, meth blue is useless, only really good for fungus, I have always used rock salt from the supermarket and it has always cleared it up.

Oh yeah sweet hi Glad to hear they are ok they're nice fish.. If you put your location in your profile people know if your local etc, if you want to see some appisto's I have cockatoo's and just got a nice pair of panda's that look like they're going to breed soon. Good luck finding a bigger tank you can get bargains esp these days on trademe.

Metro is what you need.. And if they are still eating it can be economical to treat them by putting it in their food.

You could probably do a compatible pair of jewels/firemouths/blue acara in a 3ft tank, they would outgrow it but it would be a case of eventually, I would say years rather than months.. If you have a pair that is a little stroppy with each other it may not work out so well.. Rams are harder to care for and raise the babies, apisto's are another type of dwarf cichlid, just google apistogramma and you will find heaps of info, there aren't too many types around nz ones I know are around are panduro, cockatoo's, agazzi and a few others..

Your substrate/decor alone should be enough to increase the PH and buffer the water enough for it to remain constant

Put heaps and heaps of rocks and slate etc in their tank for them to lay their eggs on, and as soon as they lay remove the rock and eggs put it in a 2ft tank. Fill that tank with the parents tank water, add some meth blue and an airstone creating movement around the eggs but not too much, if you have a male and a female they should hatch. Obviously then you will have to keep upgrading tanks very fast depending on how many hatch and how much populating control (feeding out) you do

Thats awesome good work Looks like a very nice setup.

NZ couriers is who I have started using, should be around $14 cost for it obviously plus your heatpads or whatever else you want to use.. Or else hold out for someone who is driving that way

Your tank is too small to grow the discus out in you need to be doing at least 50% water changes daily with de chlorinated water same ph temp etc, larger water changes if you can. In a tank this size ammonia etc will build up very fast and this is what will stunt or kill your discus. What size are your other tanks? If I was you I would loose all the gravel, if you really want plants put them in pots or something or use things like indian fern which can float and look cool, or java fern which doesn't really need to be planted. Any uneaten food will hide in the gravel and it wont take you missing much of that to create an ammonia spike in a 60L tank which again will cause problems. Also how old is your test kit? They do expire (have heard ph ones don't) but am unsure on ammonia etc test kits if yours is older I would replace it and retest just to be sure. Also the built in filter might not be doing a very good job they're not known for being very flash.. Maybe get a sponge filter or something else as well. Good luck and I hope you don't have anymore problems or losses.

Agreed with that when my jullies are younger and paler the gills look very red and I have had people ask if they are ok, its just the colour.. Unfortunately alot of fish in shops do need to be culled, there are also alot of "respected" breeders who seem to be passing around alot of deformed fish too Did you quarantine these new fish before adding them to your new tank?

Tonic/melafix is the general cure all most petshops will use, unfortunately pete has gone now too How big is the fluffy area? Generally when I have seen this fish are happily eating etc and I treat it by dropping tonic/meth blue directly on it out of the water..

lol that is classic I guess we all have those moments.. Any salt water nasties wont survive in freshwater which is why you give your fresh water fish a salt water bath and vice versa. Good work on breeding the rams!

Hi and welcome to the forums.. Sounds like you are in a very tricky situation, to be honest getting a job without attending an interview etc will be very difficult.. There are a few nz jobs here http://www.trademe.co.nz/Trade-me-jobs/index.htm also http://www.seek.co.nz/ Maybe you could google employment agencies in NZ and see if they have luck finding you something.. Most of the pet jobs seem to be very low paid fairly menial jobs keeping fish is alot smaller in NZ than where you are owing to the smaller population I guess Anyway good luck

Oh it would help to read where you are of course Nav would sort you out.. He has an awesome setup down there (although I haven't seen it.. yet..) and awesome quality fish so all will be well there Sounds like you have some interesting plans regarding filtration, probably a bit of an overkill but you can never really have too much.. Undergravel filter won't work as the fish will dig it up causing the flow to all concentrate in one point and not through all the gravel resulting in the bacteria in the gravel dying and possible problems in your tank. All in all sounds like it is going well echo mj's post requesting pictures when it is all done The lightweight rocks sound good I use all natural limestone, its awesome stuff but very heavy and hard to move when catching fish etc, and its also very prone to becoming soft and just breaking when you pick it up (not so good when you have it over your tank).

Yeah id have to agree.. Assuming that all fronts come from the same breeder they were healthy when they got there so something the shop did killed it and you don't really know what.. I also feel that the shop shouldn't have dead fish in their tanks staff should check tanks regularly and remove them (and hopefully figure out what went wrong and stop the other fish from being sold) before they cause problems.

Some Tropheus have just been posted in PT & E depends what species and how lucky you are for price they aren't cheap or all that common, I have seen dub's selling for $20ea on trademe recently which are the most common species... Frontosa are around expect to pay $30+ea for them although I think they will get cheaper... The breeder is on here and may contact you Good luck they're both cool fish, hope you have some big tanks lined up

Need to research the specs on the laptop ie what the motherboard can handle and stick the right type of ram in there, also stick the faster type in there.. Doing it is easy there will be a cover on the back one bigger one for HDD another smaller longer one for ram open it and replace the ram.. You need to be aware of ESD though and wear an earth strap or have yourself earthed somehow to avoid damaging the ram or laptop..

Mel the sand is pool filter sand.. Used to have it in my community tank I don't know where it comes from it came with my tanks etc when I brought them, but try a pool shop it is neutral so wont change ph etc. I have buried limestone rocks at the back of the tank because I got sick of all my my african tanks being white (white sand and rocks) and darker substrate brings out the colour better in the fish. If you add enough buffering to counter act the lowering of the ph the driftwood tends to do it wont affect anything so you should be fine. Your plants may or maynot survive, the tank I pictured is a trail for me and I chucked all the plants out of my community tank in there, the fish are eating them however the growth rate of the plants seems very high so plants may keep rejuvenating.. You cant have too much buffering agent most of them only buffer to a certain degree and adding more wont have any additional effect on the ph, ph should be 7.5+ how much buffering you need depends on your tank and water and you will only find out by experimenting. If you wanted to avoid mixing your sands (probably a good idea in case you decide to use the inert stuff for a community tank) you can stick the coral sand in stockings or fine netting and bury it or just use the limestone rocks or chips as Nav suggested. Make sure you start building your rockwork on the bottom of the tank not on the sand so the fish can't undermine your foundations and cause a shower of falling rocks. I did some research on the sand hurting gills theory before adding it to my tanks and couldn't find any solid evidence it causes any harm, I use it in most of my tanks and saw alot of breeders (on the net) with 100's of tanks who have been breeding for years with it in their tanks with no problems. Smidey are you saying you have 4 x adult fryeri, 8 x adult empresses, and others in a 200L tank? Empresses get to 8-9" and 8 of them in a 200L tank would certainly be a site to behold, where did you find adults of them? Personally I would ditch the kribs, if you were keeping them with just yellows you might get away with it as yellows are placid, I had nowhere to stick my pair of kribs but in my african tank when I was going overseas and they got killed. I was pretty gutted I hate loosing fish from being a dumb ass and sticking them in the wrong tanks would rather give them away What are the exact dimensions of your tank? Generally tanks that get their volume from height aren't the most ideal for aggressive fish as alot of them need footroom to claim or to create enough hiding places for less dominant fish to hide in. For this reason I would probably stay away from most haps as they get big and like alot of room, there is no reason not to try them and rehome them if it doesn't work out as they grow though. A cf1200 would be fine with regular water changes etc of course more is better but should be fine with that you will still be turning over 4-5times your tank volume an hour.

Sorry to hear about your fish, you need a microscope and to know what your looking for to find the worms.. Treatment depends on what type of worm it is there are alot of drugs to try some easy to get some hard depending on what it is.. I suspect from the description at the bottom you probably had Camallanus or similar. It is one of the easier ones to treat as the drugs are easy to get, you need to get Levamisole Hydrochloride (avaliable as a bird wormer called aviverm from your vets or online). Do a water change and then dose at 2mg per L (1ml per 115L) do a water change after 24hours (to remove any worms that are paralysed in the substrate. Do this 2-3 times (3 times recommended) weekly as the drug doesn't kill eggs and these will hatch so you need to break the cycle. HTH I have just treated all my fish using these methods not because I was having trouble but to ensure that I don't have any in the future, all new arrivals will be q tined and treated the same way.

Clown loaches usually means more than one I thought it was pretty safe to assume they were talking about africans as they mentioned the higher ph and hardness and also bright yellow fish.. Yellows can get big I have seen some monsters but would guess they are 8-10years+ old to get that huge, and they would probably have still be fine in a 200L tank. Obviously you have to make the assumption its a standard sized tank if its one of those tall 200L rental type tanks it might not work out so well. Found this guide here http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/c ... er_55g.php

If these ones are from the same place then they are a cross between the wild type (F1) and tripple reds bringing the best of both worlds into the mix, ie colour from the tripple red and a new injection of genes from the wild..

A 200L tank would be fine for some species, 4ft I am presuming? Things that would be good: Electric yellows Demasoni Peacocks (probably stick to a trio or more of one species or add multiple males of the same size and age at the same time and hope they get along and stay coloured up.) Maybe mix in a few tanks, pulchers, jullies or brichardi. Lionheads Fryeri (depending on temperment etc but have seen the im a 4fter before.) I'd stay away from zebras and stuff like that, if you want a nice well balanced smaller tank zebras can cause trouble, all depends what you like and on the nature of your fish etc. I have kept clown loaches in my african tanks and have seen others keep the big pleco's in there too so they will be fine, obviously adjust them to the new conditions slowly. Here are some photos of my 130L 3ft tank that I have setup.. Current enhabitants are 21 demasoni (just starting to breed), a trio of marleri gold peacocks, 9 fryeri (going to be moving to bigger quarters as they mature) and I will add some more yellows when/if I can find some quality ones.. As for links this is about as good as it gets and you can get lost there is sooo much info here... http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/ Good luck and keep posting if you have any more questions

Awesome work Mark and awesome photo, lets just hope all this breeding ensures that quality cockatoo's are available to everyone for years to come

Yeah I do what Alan says.. My cockatoo pair was in my 30cm cube bred them in there left the fry in there for a while until they started spreading around the tank then transferred them to a 3ft.. A 30cm cube isn't much good for growing fish out in really, maybe some of those tiny danio's (i forget the name) or something like that, but getting a half descent spawn of any fish will require alot of maintenance to keep the tank water clean.