sharn

now we all know i dislike children and this is a perfect excuse to hire some! if only this happened in the school holidays, you could prey on them in malls and offer them ten bucks to walk in your pond for half an hour!!! be careful if you do stand in the pond, i did that once and it was very slimey and i fell over straight away :oops: (mother thought it was hilarious)

caryl- totally agree but i always look at pictures of fish before i decide what fish i like, once i see a fish then i do the research and id hope thats what others would do too

www.fishprofiles.com has some good stuff, keep in mind we cant get alot of those fish but do ask anyway

some get offended some dont. i beleive that mouse should have been killed first but thats just my opinion. sure its gross but some people dont have a problem with it and thats fine, personally id rather feed humans to pirahna than mice but once again its opinion. this video has been slapped on many many boards and often causes alot of controversy, i think ive locked and deleted three posts including this link in the few months i have been modding on an oscar site cause it just causes problems.

gill flukes are easily nailed by prazi which is found in drontal. prazi is also a relatively soft med compared to say formalin etc and as far as i know it doesnt effect bacteria colonies in your tank which is an added bonus

lol i know that :lol: so basically a ug heater is going to stop your worries with anerobic bacteria full stop? or is it possible it can still happen?

is it also know as 'cotton mouth disease'?

alot of people breed pinkies (baby mice) to feed to their fish. i dont know why when they could be feeding them nice fillets of fresh fish etc (i think i read mice are high in calcium?). feeding a mouse to a fish is no different than feeding a fish to a fish or a bird to a cat (i know most people dont deliberatly feed their cats birds, its an example). im on the fence with the mouse deal, its gross sure but pirahana do probably get some animal meat other than fish in their diet in the wild once in a while so i dunno. they probably take out birds that sit on the water during drought season etc. im sure www.pirahnafury.com would have something on that or perhaps aquaticpredators.com. when i was reading up on P's there was mention of alot of fresh fish (dead) in their diet, i wouldnt be that keen on feeding fresh fish fillets to my fish :lol: like jacko said, pirahna aint what theyre made out to be. in tanks the RB's are real skitty guys and arent all that friendly and 'out prowling for fresh meat' like theyre made out to be. then youve got the big solitary black pirahna etc. feeding them isnt all that eventful it seems either unless youve starved them for a long time. definatly overrated but i love em to bits, i love the RB's shinyness and their cute little mouths *lovey look* docos like to make out how vicious they are but theyre pretty woosy fish unless theyre starving :lol: after all who wants to see shiny fish just swimming around? thats not 'intersting' :roll:

thatd be real good to hear bout if you can alan! lots of planters like ug heating but then again many tanks seem to thrive without it so it would be cool to see what difference it really makes

id get two more clowns, clowns like to be in groups of at least 3. other than that i dunno :lol: thought bout good old angels? they can eat smaller fish if they can fit it in their mouths and they can be nasty but theyre generally pretty placid IME good luck picking your new fishies

i prefer fishless, its easy enough to avoid stress put on fish by being patient and it gives you time to fine tune and get everything perfect before the fish go in. the ammonia way is a good one and used alot, not sure exactly how to go about that but theres alot around on the net bout it. good luck with your cycle :lol:

if your filters are small enough fill a bucket with tank water (with lid) and just chuck the whole filter in there, lid on and move it. if the media dries out or is subjected to other 'trauma' the bacteria colonies will be damaged, you wana keep as much of that as possible to help it get back on track. also if you can keep your substrate wet that will help too. bag clowns and BN all seperatly, one in each bag as they have spines and can hurt each other. clowns arent so bad but BN put out their spikes when stressed. you could transport in buckets with lids if you had em though. good luck moving, make sure everything is well planned cause you dont want unexpected interruptions

ahhh, that columanris is nasty. i think furan helps for that though? sorry for your loss

ohhh, you have white substrates huh? fish will often try to camoflage with their surroundings so its probably what your seeing here. fish will lighten to try blend in to lighter substrates and vice verca. as long as hes acting find and eating ok i wouldnt worry about it, not sure if its stressful for them trying to camoflage or not though?

me too- im an oscar nut and luckily theres sites out there dedicated to them. i hear so many stories and have to help alot of people out of nasty situations where the LFS sold them three (very bad number, third wheel syndrome) and gave them a small tank to put em in. i have friends who have oscars pushing 14" and its not easy to house such a messy large fish, especially if theyre hyper agressive (IMO oscars are not aggressive fish, theyre territorial sometimes). my boy is hitting 11" or so now and i wouldnt imagine trying to put him into something smaller than 300L. i go on the rule of 55gal min for one oscar, 75 (preferably 90) gal for two, dont even bother housing three and around 150-170+ for 4. i house one oscar in a 360L along with a sev, a shark and a stunted pleco and once you own a fish this size you see why they need that room. theyre not like angels needing tall tanks, theyre 'prowlers' and like to go up and down the tank watching their domain. i have great faith in the beefheart recipe for feeding, oscars are prone to HITH and good diet is the start of preventing it or curing it. you can find it here- http://www.theoscarspot.com/smf/index.p ... 062.0.html oscars are the bottomless pits of fish IMO :lol: i see people going 'oooh, theyre such agro fish' but theyre not, theyre gentle giants that can play up sometimes :lol: not many fish go thru obvious puberty but boy do these guys!! talk about getting snotty at 6" or so :lol: my oscar lets me put any fish i want in his tank as long as its not another oscar and i guess im blessed for that. it all depends on personality. good to see another oscar nut around here, most people laugh and think im silly when they hear about Frankie and his night light (he goes funny in the dark and will bang into stuff causing him to freak and nearly knock himself out) but they really are like dogs. there isnt many fish that are going to greet you so enthusiastically whenever they see you move lol its good to see another oscar nut around, im on theoscarspot if you wana come and check us out (not advertising for that site or nothing), this site still rules!!

pair would be good, not sure if theyre harem breeders or not. they get poopy with other fish when theyre breeding so would probably have to be kept alone if thats what your intending. other than that dwarf apistos are always good, cockatoos are nice but one male per 3-4 females so not much colour. very interesting breeders though, apparently the male has his over all territory and the females have their smaller ones inside that and he 'makes his rounds' :lol: rams and bolivians are cool too. good luck picking which fish to stock it with

got sand in my planted tank but with sand comes a new set of probs with substrates. you need to make sure you either have enough plants to keep the sand from going anerobic or airate it yourself. im going to get malaysian trumpet snaisl for my tank soon cause they do burrow down and keep it nice for you apparently also the roots can apparently get cold as theres not much water flow down there, i havent had a prob with that but yeah. with gravel you probably have less chance of the aquatic mix getting out as long as its a thick layer unless your careful with gravel vaccing, also if you have fish that like to dig (BN in my experience lol) it will make it harder for them to get to it. sand compacts and forms a tighter layer to keep the mix in but is easier to get moved by strong filters, fish etc. easier to clean though IMO as food particles dont get down into the bed and you just need to hover over it to get the bits and pieces. so theres good and bad points for both substrates, its really up to you which you prefer. cant use UGF with aquatic mix or sand, youd have to put the aquatic mix on top of the UGF and you dont want it getting loose in your tank (massive brown cloud if it does lol) like it would as water would have to flow thru it. sand is just going to go thru a UGF. good luck with setting up your new tank and the choices that goes with planting- its a whole new side to fish keeping

crikey! thats a fair whack!!! i was thinking off cuts of wood (easy to get) sanded and painted :lol: oh, and some nice handles like yours! i might try talk my grandpa into helping me when he comes down next, i have the ideas and he has the skills :lol:

haha yeah- forgot to mention that one!! i didnt know at first but on my jebao you follow the inlet thru the top and then it has like a pipe thing thats part of the baskets that goes down to the bottom so it goes from bottom up (if that makes sence lol).

if you can put some of your existing filter media (from the old tank) into the new tanks filter that would help. personally i dont like adding fish until the cycle has finished but some people will slowly add it, no advice on that one :lol: cause i never do it- any ammonia and nitrite is stressful for for fish, why do that if you can avoid it? if you could let the new filter with a bit of old media in it run for 2 weeks or so and test weekly you could probably start adding after that depending on readings. all new stuff needs time (and gunk) to start the cycle and by jump starting it you could take a week or two off. as long as the murky water isnt like sharp dust (from the stones) it probably wont matter too much but if it is it could irritate fishs gills. as for sterilising i soak in boiling water, or pour lots of boiling water over it and let it sun for a few days. have fun with your new tankies!! :bounce:

i thought taking sand from the beach was illegal?

could be due to stress from a cycling tank? what is your water like?

this is just my thinking and it could be wrong, it works for me though thick sponge on the bottom-this traps all the large gunk fine sponge (or filter wool, whichevers least fine)- this traps the medium gunk then finest sponge (filter wool)- this polishes the water then bio media (noodles and balls) that way you dont have to rinse your bio media very often and disturb the colonies, the large gunk is going to get trapped nearest the bottom meaning you just have to rinse them. JMO

bummer- it aint nice loosing fish but fish like oscars are even worse *hugs* seems like one of those wierd things that you will never figure out

you build that paul? you know im looking for a tank stand and i dont mind paying labour :lol: