sharn

luke*- i was enquiring about flubendazole a while back and after reading many articles, both on simplydiscus and on other sites i found tail standing wasnt too common. it was suspected the solvents used may be the cause as most people who experienced problems used a liquid form.

i agree :lol:

i have only one angel in my tank (due to it disliking every other angel i put in there!) and it always has its tube out for some reason. its quite flat so it must be a male. if they have spawned once they will spawn again so dont worry too much

drontal is a bit hit and miss though, some people use it without problems while others will find it kills every occupant in the tank so you would need to decide whether you could risk losing them all or not. i wouldnt reccomend it because it has other ingredients which i dont think have any benefit to your fish and there are much other safer drugs out there, even if they are more expensive (most arent more expensive than a tank full of fish!)

good to hear the gouramis are out and about :bounce: you can buy master test kits which have everything you need in them, they are around 45 on trademe i think. i found once the cycle had finished and i got more confident in fish keeping i never used the ammonia/nitrite test kits and they expired before i got the chance to use them. i still use my nitrAte test kit though, nitrates are the last part of the cycle and will always be present, i use the kit to give me an outline of how often i need to do water changes (cause some of my tanks need 3-4 a week). the downside about not having the kits on hand is you have to wait until the store opens to get them to test the water for you. when fish get sick the first thing you check is the water and often you dont want to wait until 9am the next day :lol:

awesome job caryl (and the people who wrote the articles) no chance anyone knows who this mysterious neptune is? :lol: caryl- apparently the reason some fish are more salt intolerant than others is because

agreed, while the importers often see the pictures its down to the exporters to send over the right stock and when the importers know little about the fish they are unable to spot the difference. i would also pay more for higher quality discus but i would draw a line, not because i dont want to spend X amount of dollars but because i cant (im a poor student) :lol:

liquid prazi is extremely expensive, your looking into the hundreds for a 1L bottle im told i personally dont know of anywhere to buy it but i aquired some off a friend. there are many treatments around, i suggest doing some research and picking the one that suits you best. normally two or more treatments are required. make sure you dose properly- flukes seem to be able to become immune to it over time and if that happens you may need to look at less safe options. what type of fish are you treating? i dont think there are many problems that come with usage if you treat correctly. it is a very safe med and wont harm your bio filter. unsure about using prazi with other additives. it works on gill/body flukes and tapeworm (which i think is from the roundworm species? it does all of that species of worm). the pain in the bum thing about flukes is you need to dose the whole tank that they are in, removing them to treat wont help as the eggs will still be in the filter, substrate etc. good luck

my bad :oops: i thought you were asking if the readings on an existing tank were fine :oops: the new tank probably hasnt started its cycle yet. water doesnt actually hold much beneficial bacteria but it wont hurt to move 50% over- your existing tank will love the big w/c! if you can take some of the media out of your exisiting filters that will help greatly along with the substrate if you are using the same types. once you have the seeded filter running start moving the fish over slowly, perhaps a couple of fish a week and feed lightly. moniter the levels just incase and everything should go fine

i have the JBL chips, most of them sink but some of them dont so i let them soak for a bit then squeeze them and that seems to do the trick.

looks spot on to me

goby- its the old owner that gave it the bad reputation i have heard only good things about the new owner and i hope he will continue to improve the shops reputation

its not so much you over crowded the tank (after the plec is gone IMO you will be fine if you keep up rountine maintenence) but they were added quite quickly werent they? when lots of fish are added to a tank quickly ammonia and nitrite can build up to deadly levels very easily (part of the nitrogen cycle) and if very frequent water changes arent done for the first few weeks the fish can suffer burnt gills, nitrite and ammonia poisoning and in the worst case scenario die. normally when people do a cycle with fish they are added quite slowly so that the good bacteria have a chance to reproduce slowly and you wont get any spikes. ammonia is the first part of the cycle, then nitrIte and then the less harmful nitrAte follows. nitrates are removed by plants and water changes and dont pose a serious threat if they are kept low. during a cycle you can test your levels to see whats going on, first ammonia will rise then drop followed by nitrIte rising and then once thats dropped and you have nitrAtes registering the cycle is complete- you are aiming for a reading of 0 with ammonia and nitrIte. sadly most LFS wont tell you about cycling a tank when you go in and buy your first setup or fish so its quite a common thing, luckily most fish can handle it and from your list it looks like most of them are quite hardy hope i didnt confuse you too much or bore you if you already knew about the cycle :lol: it can be a heap to take in when your brain is already filled with learning about the occupants.

dunno if you might like this or not but then end product looked quite nice and it looks fairly easy to build

alf- perhaps post this in the saltwater section too, many of the salties only read that part of the site so may miss your question here. i dont know anything about searhorses sorry so i cant help you. best of luck and i hope he gets better

oops- thats what i meant :oops: :lol: my planted tank is sand so i just hover over the top to get any detrius, i dont actually dig into the sand itself.

the albino cories are fine, they will be perfect in your tank. the goldspot (there are lots of names for them) however might start to outgrow it fairly quickly, they get pretty large- normally over 40cm and they have this great tendency to decorate your tank like a xmas tree with their poopies :lol: i would look at rehoming him if you can and perhaps replace them with bristlenose if you want another 'pleco', they max out around 15cm and the boys are real cuties

once a tank is cycled you dont need to keep adding products to keep it that way as long as you do your water changes correctly (dechlorinate it because that will kill your bacteria IMO cycle doesnt do much anyway but some people have seen slight improvements with it. since your tank has been set up a month i would think its either finished the cycle or its nearing the end. are you able to get a test done for ammonia, nitrIte and nitrAte done at your LFS? that will be able to tell you if your tank is cycled or not. your cloudy water is probably a bacterial bloom and they are pretty common during cycling or if something gets disrupted in a mature tank. do you dechlorinate the water before you add it to the tank? a bacterial bloom wont harm your fish or anything so just wait it out, as you have seen it doesnt take long to dissappear what do your albino suckers and spotted pleco look like? (i am on dialup so vids take years to load hehe). some plecos grow really big (50cm+) but you may have 'bristlenose' which are really good and will suit your tank wonderfully. i think your tank is stocked fine if we count out the suckers until we know what the are. all the fish are relatively small and if you keep up with tank maintence they should all be ok

are there many discus fans pushing for the importers to bring in higher quality discus? surely if an importer got enough interest in higher quality fish from whatever breeder they would look into it?

for some reason my ramshorns have never over run me. i see little ones on the plants etc but i never see any adults. my water is quite soft though so perhaps their shells are going soft and breaking apart :-?

i think the friend would become a punching bag he doesnt have a girlfriend by any chance does he? if he does then you can keep his partner with him. discus couples do fight but much less than ones that arent paired up. having only 2-4 discus which arent paired up will create an unhappy tank IME because the top fish will make everyones lives misery. discus are schooling fish and he will probably feel quite lost on his own. you can try it out and see how he goes, he might be fine but he decide to stop eating, start hiding etc.

i also vacuum around my plants, some places are harder to reach so i either leave it or swish my hand to get the leaf litter etc out of that spot.

i didnt, my wierdo mother did :lol: she decided to test the theory of them surviving a nuclear explosion and decided the microwave was the way to do it :-? she realised after that it was the eggs that are tough, not the parent :roll: sometimes my mother doesnt seem to be the brightest crayon in the box :lol:

ugly veins :lol:

those stick on ones get influenced by the room temps, sunlight on them etc so that may be why youre seeing the large changes?