Stella

There is a fascinating article here on dealing with whitespot: http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/docs/health/ich.shtml This guy is excellent at debunking all those pervasive fishkeeping myths, can be a bit heavy-going, but everything he says is backed up by science. This is what he has to say on the 'whitespot are everywhere' myth: "What happens is, the free-swimming tomites attach most easily to the gills. The rest of the fishes' skin is protected by a sturdier mucus coating that's constantly renewed, sloughing off all kinds of minute organisms that might settle out. Trophonts that are newly-attached to the epidermis are invisibly small. So a "carrier" fish is simply one that is invisibly carrying Ich, perhaps on its gills. There is no "dormant" independent, long-term encysted life stage separate from a host fish for Ichthyophthirius multifiliis. This is useful to know. You will often hear to the contrary. Dr. Peter Burgess, who took Ichthyophthirius multifiliis as his Ph.D. subject at Plymouth University, mentioned among Ich "old wives' tales" that "It's present in all aquariums." "What utter rubbish" noted Dr. Burgess (in the Nov 2001 Practical Fishkeeping). Brits don't mince words." Whitespot being in the water anyway is completely at odds with its lifecycle, it is simply not possible. Sorry for being extra-grumpy last night. Yes, whitespot misunderstandings and half-recommendations annoy me, but it was uncalled for. I shouldn't take my own #&$% out on others, especially when someone had just done it to me.

Give it to meeeee! I want some of that in my tank again, beautiful stuff. Lush green carpets waving in the current. You probably have too much light, and possibly also too much nutrient.

What kind of murky? Cloudy white is usually a bacterial bloom, often a 'feature' of new tanks. Do heaps of waterchanges to speed up its departure. Cloudy grey/brown means you mightn't have washed your gravel thoroughly enough. Do heaps of waterchanges. Green is suspended algae. Too much light, usually sunlight. You say you are new to fishkeeping, have you read up about 'cycling' an aquarium? Google it now. Most early fishkeeping disasters are caused by people not being aware of this. Welcome to the forum

hehehe more waterchanges solve 60.673% of our fishkeeping woes!

Sigh, come on guys, you can't just chuck random amounts of random chemicals at things and hope it fixes the problem! :evil: :roll: Add 1/2 tsp of salt per litre. This is for TABLE salt. The grain sizes are different for different types of salt, 1/2 tsp rock or flaky salt is quite a different amount of sodium chloride. There is NO PROBLEM with using iodised salt or salt with anti-caking agents. There is no science behind the claims that it should not be used. To calculate cupfuls of salt for larger tanks, 1 tsp salt = 6.6g. 370 litres divided by 1/2 = 185 tsp 185 tsp x 6.6g = 1221g = 1.221kg 1cup salt = 250g thus 185 tsp salt = 4.88 cups (yes that is a &^%$load. Bet no one would have estimated that much, right?) HOWEVER your tank is not filled right up, and there is presumably a bunch of rocks and gravel. Work out the estimated litreage and recalculate. Dissolve it first. Do regular waterchanges, like every two or three days. Take note of the amount of water you change in litres, and replace the salt removed. Yes, salt is not a serious chemical, the fish can probably deal with many times that amount. Whitespot IS a serious parasite and very annoying to get rid of it you don't know what to do. If you don't get it right the first time, you risk DEATHS. DO NOT stop treating until long after the last spot falls. The spots on the fish are not killable. Nor is the spot killable after it falls off. It the matures and releases hundreds of tiny free-swimmers, THESE are killable. The moment one latches onto a fish it is not killable any more, but it is too small for you to see. My tanks are all cold water, I don't know how long the lifecycle is in tropical temperatures, but it is faster. In cold water the lifecycle is about a week. I need to continue to treat my fish for two weeks AFTER the last spot fell off the fish to be absolutely sure they are gone. Rant Two: When will you people learn to quarantine your fish?? Yes ok so I learned the lard way too, twice, and now NOTHING goes near my tanks without at least two weeks quarantine. I have some fish who have just done two weeks quarantine, but because I really couldn't stand anything going wrong in the main tank, they will get a week extra of quarantine. It is JUST as important for you guys buying your fish from pet shops and fellow keepers as it is for me taking fish out of streams. :roll: Sorry, in a crabby mood. But still, I am tired of seeing these sort of unhelpful suggestions.

I just scrub them in cold water. No problem. No fussing.

weird....! Would be interesting if a rock exploded! What sort of algae is this killing?

What type of algae is it? green? brown? black and furry? Do a google on the type as each one needs a totally different approach.

if anyone wants to know a more measured amount of salt to use in different situations: 1/2 tsp per litre for whitespot/ich, fin rot etc 1 tsp per litre for columnaris and anything really nasty and quick... to calculate larger volumes, 1 tsp is roughly 6.6g. Play with a calculator to work out cupfuls. It is also only accurate measures of TABLE salt, as rock, flaky etc salt have different grain sizes. Do regular waterchanges and replace the salt for the volume that was removed. Treat for as long as needed, and just slowly remove the salt with normal waterchanges afterwards. Kiwiplymouth - sorry for your loss. Most annoying and puzzling!

Interesting to know that didymo does grow in aquaria. Thanks! In my native-fish-keeping book I have a segment reminding people to be careful of it, both transfering around the place and into a tank.

whitespot is a parasite, it must have come into your tank on the new fish or have been there already but unobserved (it can hide in the gills for several lifecycles. Extra stress is probably what caused it to go nuts. THe important thing is to keep treating AFTER you see the last spot fall off. THe treatment does NOT kill the spots on the fisht, they are safe. Once the spot falls off it falls to the ground and grows a little more, then releases hundreds of tiny spots. These tiny free-swimmers are the only killable stage. You need to be sure to keep treating until you are sure no more fallen spots are going to be releasing freeswimmers. I have coldwater tanks and it takes a week, so I keep treating for two weeks after I see the last spot fall. Not sure how long it should be done at tropical temps, the heat speeds up the lifecycle (consider yourself lucky!)

left lid off forgot hose was filling tank dropped desk fan in tank Dropped light in tank dropped fish on floor Forgot sick fish was in brief salt bath tipped ethanol in tank (never play with preserved specimens on top of your fish tank!) ....sigh :roll: Whetu, you don't happen to have another tank you can transfer fish into? Or if you have any worries with that, move some water from another tank into a holding tank and transfer fish into that from the Adzuki Bean Tank.

Didymo is killed when completely dried. Much easier and cheaper than boiling! It needs to be left dry for 48hours *after* it completely dried. So if you leave it in the sun for a day and it is dry throughout, leave it for another two days before using. With heat: Hot water: soak for at least one minute in very hot water kept above 60 °C (hotter than most tap water) or for at least 20 minutes in hot water kept above 45 °C (uncomfortable to touch). (copied off the MAF site) I would be very interested to see photos of your tank after you have set it up

The riffle tank build Zev linked to was mine. I use river stones and gravel in all my tanks (having moved recently, I am now aware exactly how much gravel I have lugged from the river! :oops:) It looks fabulous, very natural and because the large stones and the gravel are from the same rock, it looks.... 'right'. Take care with what sort of look you want. If your tank is tiny select smaller gravel. If your tank is large bigger gravel and stones look better. Do you gravel vac? Very large pieces of gravel (circa 5cm) are annoying to gravel vac - hard to push through and they get stuck. BUT having a good range from small to large gravel makes it all blend in with the rocks, otherwise (like most tanks with shop-bought gravel) you wind up with: gravel gravel gravel gravel gravel ROCK gravel gravel gravel ROCK gravel gravel etc Variety helps with it looking more natural. If you look around on a beach of gravel, you will find some areas naturally have mixed grades, some fine and some large. Handy if you want to be selective. I LOATHE washing gravel. My favourite technique is to put the gravel in the aquarium (then you can see how much muck is coming out), then put the hose in one end and use the gravel vac to siphon out the dirt. Just keept the hose on and gravel vac until the water is clear

your local DOC office could be useful. They might know what type it is an of a nearby safer population to move it to. They should also be able to advise on how to keep it alive for the moment. DON'T just release it anywhere. There can be many different species within an area and also different genetic groups within one species, moving htem around could screw up the genetics. (I know this is highly relevant for native fish, I am assuming as much for lizards) Don't worry, DOC will be pleased that you saved it rather than annoyed you took it from the wild!

not a smoker so I can't comment, but with hypnosis for anything, you need to REALLY want it to work and it will. It is not so much the hypnosis not working as the individual not wanting it enough. Good luck!

LOL! Very entertaining thread :lol: Good guess, the photo is mine. The bottom three large fish are giant kokopu. The top fish (slimmer one) is an inanga. The 'tongue' is a smaller fish darting up nad to the right, I suspect it is a small shortjaw kokopu or a bully of some description. I hadn't noticed it before!

What size are they? Can you upload a photo of them? Can you do our photos if we send them to you?

Happy birthday Caryl! Love the photo :-) I took my mum out on the back of a friend's bike (I did't have a full motorcycle license) for her birthday last year. First time on a bike. She certainly had much more guts than me on my first pillion ride! :lol: Great giving an experience for a present!

Ammonia should be undetectable. Do a decent waterchange now and keep waterchanging each day until the readings are 0. So filtration do you have? How long has the tank been set up? What maintenance regime do you have? Every setup works differently. It is not just the fish and the hardware, but the maintenance, the feeding, everything is different, setup to setup. I don't see how a fish food company could guess how much food should be fed per day like that. Marketing ploy with potentially destructive results :evil: The old rule of 'ONLY as much as they can eat in a few minutes' still reigns supreme. But that still also depends on water maintenance. If you do infrequent waterchanges you should do infrequent feeding, and vice versa, or risk the water quality.

agreeing with those saying to fight it. one extra reason: every time you apply for a job or anything you have to say you have a conviction. I think violence ones are not clean-slated after seven years. "she started it" is not a very good excuse/reason. MAKE SURE your friend has photos of his injuries!!! Not only ASAP but also if there is bruising etc take subsequent photos as the length of time it takes to heal is significant. Now tell him he is bloody lucky to be out of that relationship!

so if the tank holds about 50 litres (rounding down but that is still an over estimate because you won't fill it that full) (pump)L/hr divided by (tank volume)lt = total volume turnover per hour 2400l/hr divided by 50lt = 48 total volume turnover per hour Now the guideline I gave you was minimum 16-20 total volume turnover per hour. That is doubling or tripling the guideline. The guideline is just a minimum, of course you can go higher than that, but you haven't kept these fish before, you haven't tried a fast-flowing tank before. Obviously 48 times turnover is going to be stupidly fast, and you are wanting to do this in a rather small tank.... did you do the calculations yourself or just keep asking until someone else did them for you? :roll: :roll: And a pump that strong will put out a LOT of heat into a small volume of water, potentially raising the temp over what the loaches want, decreasing the dissolved oxygen and stressing the fish. Sure it is cheaper but in my opinion it will be far too strong and carries a lot of risk, which is ultimately more expensive (if dollars are all you count in). And a changing-direction pump is what you want for marine, not freshwater. These fish are used to water flowing at roughly the same speed in the same direction, a wash effect will screw them up.

Releasing ANY aquatic organism(1) into ANY waterway(2) without a permit from DOC or MAF or both is an offence. 1:fish, plants, invertebrates etc. 2: whether the species was present already or if the individual organism came from there originally.

also most 1000lt+ powerheads wouldn't fit on the average undergravel filter!

yeah always browsing... addicted to this damned site...! :evil: :oops: :roll: Sounds pretty long for an inanga in such a short time! However the other whitebait species would need to be much older before they are sexually mature. Of course it sounds like there is HEAPS of food in your pond so I guess it is possible.. Usually the ones over 10-12cm are more than a year old. Inanga usually only live about a year and die after spawning. So the whitebait come in to freshwater during spring, grow up over the year, and spawn the next spring. They are known for becoming egg-bound and dying in captivity. Did you notice if it had scales or not? A smelt might be possible. Smelt have scales and a deeper body than inanga, but can look very similar on first glance.