sharn

i beleive cories are omnivorus (sp) which means they eat a whole range of things from meats to vegies to insects. mine get spirulina flakes, normal flakes, tetra bits, frozen tropical tucker, chopped worms (they go nuts over these), bloodworms and mysis shrimp- thats what i feed to the occupants in their tank so they get some aswell. i used to have shrimp pellets and they loved them but i wouldnt make them a staple, i think those sinking pellets by JBL are quite good and would be more of a staple food. im not sure whats in trout pellets but it probably wouldnt hurt them. try to over feed a little when your feeding the other fish so enough gets to the bottom to feed them

yeah, its just her natural parental instincts (try putting your hand in there lol) i have fish that lay at least two times a week on average and its not doing them any harm in laying so often apparently, producing eggs is hard work on the body so make sure she gets all the good stuff in her diet and she will be fine

natural tho- lets not get into the feeder argument again- we all know everyones views. lets just be thankful they werent feeding a small dog or something which probably isnt uncommon among the idiot keepers which is why i dont think they should be here. we cant be trusted with fireworks let alone fish with razor teeth, be a serial killers dream :lol:

is this the same as the meds they mention over in the states? what would it do when used as a med?

normally i get a bucket fill it, plonk the media(if its a canister)/filter (if its small enough to fit) in the bin and pop the lid on. that will take care of the filters as they wont dry out and wont get temp shock etc from new water. then i put the substrate in bins and put enough water over them to keep it wet as this holds a bit of your bacteria as well. dont pour the water the substrate is sitting in back into the tank as it will hold a heap of poop. doubles as a good gravel clean too. you may not need to put water in the bins with gravel as it will stay relatively damp for the 10 min trip, its up to you but wouldnt be a big issue. then i put as much water into bins as poss, bag up the fish, into a poly box and off you go. a ten min move isnt gonna be too hard, just make sure you plan it all as there is nothing more stressful than holdups when you have fish sitting in bins waiting to move in :lol:

driftwood- even driftwood from the beach if washed properly- should not turn your tank brakish, also carbon will not remove salt. perhaps you are meaning it releases tannins which make the water brownish?

its very common and nothing to worry about at all, many fish will lay eggs even if they have no partner. its not hurting her at all so best to just leave her to it, she may stop after a while, she may not.

BGK are touchy towards meds, they are scaleless and it seems them being electric fish also causes some problems with meds for some reason ???

oh bummer, you have whats called 'camallanus' levamisole is most redily available for it and is safe for your bio filter and sensitve fish. i wrote a little thing on a post titled camallanus or something further down the page. formalin will not do a thing to them, fenbendazole (panacur) may also work if you can find it but it didnt work as well IME. the bad thing about these nematodes is they not only feed off blood (which can lead to aenemia), they can create big tears in the intestinal lining which is where they attach which can leave the fish open to infections. they are live bearers which means if one fish in the tank has it everyone else does regardless of whether you can see the adult worms hanging out. fish will sometimes have problems passing the worms after treatment if they have a large load and it will sometimes block them up which is why a dose of epsom salts is reccomended with both doses (you need to do two, one-two weeks apart). they seem to hit rams the hardest in my experience but i successfully erradicated them from my tank. you need to make sure you do not swap gear from tank to tank without it being sterilised first nor touch the infested tank before others without washing your hands well. if you need any extra help with this feel free to pm me, they are nasty buggers but easy to wipe out IME and i can probably send you a bottle of levamisole if you like (really cheap too and will do a large amount of water) if i can still get it.

chuck a piece of zhuchinni, cucumber, shelled peas etc in the tank before bed each night (you may need to weigh the first two down) and see if your plants stop getting nibbled. my BN have never touched my plants but even when my pleco was well fed he still ate my cabomba like it was candy

great to catch up with everyone and meet new faces. a great big thanks to sharron and pauls church for the venue and peter shiela for coming along to speak for us- most appreciated

nice fish chin i think the reason BD's are getting pale and losing their red eye is because people are crossing them with white fish, which may have seemed like a stunning idea at the time but we are now seeing the effects.

im gonna try health food shops (last resort) and farmlands tomorrow and see. while ant will most likely have enough i want to secure some more for plant usage and just incase whatever this is comes back.

do any of you guys coming to the meeting have access to potassium permanganate? i cant find it for the life of me (no pharmicies stock it and most cant even order it in), i need it this sunday and the places that can order it in say it will arrive late next week which will most certanly be too late for one of my fishies willing to pay whatever you want for it (within reason of course lol). cant wait to see you all there tomorrow

phos zorb isnt a gimmic thankfully and works wonders for helping releive algae problems if theyre being fuelled by phosphates.

it will depend on the % PP you have to how you want to dose it, the normal dosage is 2ppm and you need to remove the media from your filter during the treatment as it knocks back your bacteria count in the tank (does something to organic waste to which means you have to wipe down every surface inside the tank before treatment too) and on the fish. put the media in a 40L bin or something with a powerhead for the treatment. you must never ever ever use PP without hydrogen peroxide- ever :lol: PP normally lasts about 4-8 hours in the tank before it goes from purple to browny (brown means its loss its effectiveness) and then you need to use HP at 3% (most common % used so easier to calculate) which is like an antidote sorta and you add a few drops at a time with about five mins wait inbetween until the water clears then do a bit water change (over 50%, over 80% is better if poss) and chuck in a bag of carbon to absorb the last of it. also you need to be able to watch the fish for the whole treatment pretty much (you dont actually have to watch them every minute, just be able to), the fatalities pretty much always happen when the people arent around to watch and things go bad. heres a link ive been reading recently on PP usage- http://www.simplydiscus.com/forum/showt ... hp?t=54033

they can be quite nippy im told so best not to chuck long finned fish like angels, fighters etc that will be tempting to the barbs

IME they are fairly placid- but only because mine is kept in a tank with an oscar who puts him in his place if hes naughty :lol: he does chase my RT shark now and again but i beleive thats more to do with the pecking order in the tank, not plain old aggression. every fish is different though and while one might be a little angel another will spend its time taking on fish five times its size :lol: they will eat smaller fish that they can fit in their mouths, im not too sure how they would go with plants but i would suspect the softer leaved ones wouldnt last too long. you could fit a pair of adult sevs in a 200L or your standard 4 footer quite well so they arent too demanding.

i dont know what skin flukes look like but perhaps anchor worm? they look like little worms hanging off the skin? the worm like thing may be pus or something perhaps? gill flukes are pretty impossible to see with the naked eye and dont hang out of the gill area that i know of. some signs of gill flukes are spitting out food repeatedly, using gills irregularly, pumping their gills, flashing against stuff and sometimes head twitching. there are a few methods of removing flukes- prazi and potassium permagenate (must be used on conjunction with hydrogen peroxide) seem to be the two most common. i was reading on simplydiscus how bad drontal tablets can be for the fish and it was strongly reccomended not to use them on discus. pure prazi is expensive and can be hard to find but its a very gentle med which also does tapeworm, it does not hurt your bio filters. PP plus hydrogen peroxide IMO seems quite harsh but apparently works wonders if you get it right (fatal if you get it wrong) but it kills your bio filters and will clear up most nasties in the tank. i would quarentine him asap, he would have most likely passed anything he had onto the tank (even though he was with other discus doesnt mean they were all healthy) but it will be easier to treat him in a BB tank. hope someone can help you out some more and your new discus recovers real quick

i agree, i got a gold one myself and hes a quirky little bugger. the males are stunning and get neat red faces and fins with gorgeous filaments. they are pretty cruisy IME (in my experience) for how large they are (max out at 20-25cm but it takes a while). the green sevs can have really neat bars and varying colours on them. when you see their lips you can see where the parrots get them from. they are easy to house and dont require anything extra special, mine seems to enjoy vegies now and again. and unlike parrots they can make successful babies (sadly there have been some horrible reports of fertile parrots).

it seems introducing new fish that already have whitespot on them normally ends up in the existing fish getting it- whether the exisiting inhabitants are stressed by their new friends or what im not sure. perhaps because the cysts are already present they are stronger? (i dunno just thinking aloud lol). i have seen many tanks that have had no new occupants and no possible contamination get whitespot for various reasons so my beleif is its always present

the really fine ones may do but the heavier ones dont normally unless you push the siphon into the sand (you normally just hover slightly above or push it in only a cm or so). my sand is fine for vacuming like normal gravel but it will pull out the finer stuff

thats pricey! they will bully your discus evil- it seems they know what fish wont fight back- perhaps they got some psychic crossed in them? :lol:

nope, creating colour strains and some mutations are fine IMO- its mixing species that gets to me- hybrids have created havoc all around the world and have ruined some of their parent species. thankfully in NZ we dont have a big market for them but its each to their own on the hybrid debate and i respect that but i wont encourage the sale of them- some love them, some hate em and some dont care for the colour strains example- all these species of guppies etc- theyre all the same fish and have been selectively bred to bring these out- noones crossed them with brightly coloured differnent species to bring the colour out or genetically altered them. for the mutations example- some veil tailed fish can have a real problem with their heavy fins and it can make them slower when trying to escape nets, predators etc. i wouldnt like to have extra long arms and legs to drag around :lol: i think alot of the veiltailed ones look lovely but it seems a bit mean- i dunno *shrugs* some mutations like the many goldfish species (im not too up on them) seem to not affect the fish at all which is good. sorry to get off topic tim-tam, back to you

sorry to hear that axies seem to be one of those animals that arent a skill thing to breed- its normally more luck so i hope you find another male that likes your female unsure if youve seperated the sizes out but if not that would be a good idea if you can as they tend to go thru a canaballistic stage once they are able to move themselves about- smaller siblings taste great apparently :lol: