sharn

im pretty sure the lemon barbs are on the lists (or i could be getting them confused with tetras, or the spanner barbs, great memory i have :lol: )

ahhh, that would make sense, i remember reading about their lips going red or something when spawning a while back. good to hear its nothing to worry about

possibly. depends what its from really. could be from fighting or it could be a sign of a bacterial infection. how is it acting?

good point jim- certain species are quite salt sensitive, cories, cats, BGK and so on

got my sand from benchmark, its quite fine though. five bucks for a 20kg bag i think it was. needed to be rinsed for quite a while too

mmm, yummy dinner for your aro! not sure if they would be viable but hybrids are best someone elses din-dins :lol:

i replied in your other thread cichlid give it a go, the two (angels and acaras) that would cause problems if theyre going too generally arent 'overnight killers' and just hassle over a certain time period so you should have enough time to take action if anything does pop up

Hehe, i do it all the time

sounds like planaria?

remove it asap to a quarentine tank. if its slightly swollen its most likely dropsy, the 'pinecone' look at bulging eyes are a sign of dropsy but they are often swollen around the belly area too. it can be contagious apparently (i think its after the fish dies though). sadly if it is dropsy it may be best to euthanaise it humanely, there isnt any known cure- only stories every now and again of people curing it with a gazzillion different medications/methods

Im not sure if a 300W will be very efficient at heating a 580L. If you have very good flow and the outlets faced to the heaters sensor then it may be ok but you may find it on alot *shrugs* I guess at least your overheating problem would be minimised but if it failed on then you would find the tank would get cold quickly. In my O tank ive got two stainless heaters and split the wattage, already had one fail on and was thankful for the second as a backup :lol:

good to hear it was fixed easily but do keep you eye out *just incase*

discus are easy if your water is good quality. if it isnt you will have endless problems and no amount of water changes are going to help if the water is bad to begin with. our te puke water was really bad until they changed the supply over and i had quite a few problems (thankfully nothing too major) during that time. most fish are adaptable to a certain degree and discus are no exception, 7 would be fine for general keeping

certain fish will benefit from dark substrates as they will attempt to darken to blend in which really brings out their markings. really brightly coloured fish also look great against the dark substrate. it can also be a nice contrast against bright green plants. light gravel will do the same, certain species will lighten which is sometimes desirable (ie discus), sometimes not (tiger oscars). ive got both, light sand and dark gravel in my tanks that have substrate and they both work a charm for the setup i have

i would say they would be ok as long as they are all well mannered. SD's normally leave everything alone anyway but the angels and acaras are cichlids so its a case of how each individual is

i only use it when i have certain problems, definatly not in the tank all the time. i beleive table salt is reccomended to help reduce nitrite toxicity or something? ive read it a few times in passing now

i would up your w/c's a bit and see if that helps, if in doubt do a w/c is my motto :lol: discus LOVE clean water and in most tanks a couple of 50%ers a week is sufficient depending on what you are doing (keeping, breeding, growing out etc). if she is scratching heaps and breathing heavily she may have gill flukes. when she breaths is she using one gill more than the other?

havent seen otos on the list for a while but havent been looking at all the ones we get. we have one marble in stock at present (must have sold all its buddies)

id go 6x3x2. considering they can get 2 foot long that means its most likely going to have to hit a wall to turn around. if you decide to get one take into account once larger it will be near impossible to move so make sure you plan to be in the house for a long time and dont want to move the tank, they have alot of body weight to throw around at that size and it causes them considerable stress.

general rule for O's is roughly 55gal/200L for first then 25+ gals/100L for each extra fish (can ya tell i use american sites too much? :lol: ). as you mentioned never have odd numbers if you can help it, 99% of the time it just ends up causing hassles because one will get bullied as the others buddy up. try to aim for at least 5x turnover per hr when using a canister, im about to setup a 2200lph aquis on my 460L and i might keep my 304 running on it. oscars are very messy fish and need good filtration to match up with their output. IMO four oscars would be fine in that size tank and you could perhaps add some dithers like silver dollars or something. Severums make nice big, generally placid fish but IME my boy isnt as interactive as my O, close though. There are several large species of cichlids that are very impressive but from what IME most dont match the personality of the good old oscar. Jags are another possibility but to save heartache dont add tankmates unless your prepared to lose them unexpectedly one day- countless stories out there of them snapping and killing everything in the tank good luck with choosing your new fishies, if you go with oscars you wont be dissapointed

special med, i couldnt find it myself but a friend had some. ring your vet and see if they have it in a pure form. if you think its worth the money take a fish thats flashing down and get a gill scraping done, they will be able to tell there and then if it is or not. if it is tell them what you need, theres countless info out there on dosing so prescribing it to you shouldnt be a problem if they can get it.

My newest cat addition as of saturday is a handsome little Hemisynodontis Membranaceus

if your handy with a little sharp object, holding fish and taking gill scrapings you could have a look under a microscope :lol: normally its the pros that do that sorta stuff, im too woosy to try it myself! I had to obtain PP from a friend as the pharmacy didnt stock it. Im not too up on other possible treatments for flukes other than prazi (its the most common and pretty safe so thats why i went with that when i treated for flukes), a google may turn up some useful info?

pure prazi costs *heaps*. you could use drontal buy you want to take your fish out for the duration of the treatment- theres a chance you would find a tank full of dead fish if you treat with the fish in. copper based meds kill that sorta stuff too i think, not sure how copper goes with fish and good bacteria though.

A dose of epsom salts at 1tbsp per 40L will help releive and fluid buildup and hopefully help releive pressure. I treated an apisto with popeye with furan once, i may have been able to clear it up with w/c's and epsom salt but i didnt want to risk the wait.