sharn

on a trip to hamilton once we stopped on the kaimais and caught some shrimp. i put a few in my axolotl tank, a few got eaten but over a month later their still going strong. im not sure what type they are, just little see through ones about 2cm long max but id say this type is pretty hardy. i think theyre filter feeders but im not too sure, my axie tank is just a plain old cold water tank with average parameters

i LOVE tannins (the browny tinge to your tank). they look real natural to me and certain fish really like it. it will get less over time so dont worry but if it annoys you a few extra water changes wont hurt or just keep boiling it until it doesnt leach much

dont worry bout the brown stuff, thats just dirt and stuff from the tank that your filter wool has got out give it a rinse in a bucket of tank water every month or so (or when needed, water changes make a good time to do this rinsing cause you can do it in the bucket that youve just put the old water into) and pop it back in, it lasts for a few washes

i would get one of those breeding traps or another tank and put it in there, if the tail starts to grow back youve got some guilty fishies in your tank not wanting to own up :lol: if it gets worse you might be looking at fin rot

good to hear! well done and a big pat on the back to ya, its stressful having sick fish and heartbreaking to lose them but when you manage to bring em back from sickness you feel like youve won the lottery (or is this just me lol). i hope everything continues to go well for you and keep us updated

are they breeding? if not i would probably suspect somethings up, havent keep these before though so dont know if they have any of those funny traits like clowns etc tillie- i dont think that angels are supposed to swim upside down, might be worth looking more into that

hope ya got a biiiiig tank... i saw a silver on TM for once (didnt that go to monaro?) that was something like 76cm!!! if you go by the 4Lx2Lx2L (L being length of fish) and silvers reach around 60cm thats a 240x120x120 tank (probably dont need height but you know what they say about big volumes of water being easier to keep stable and all that). the width might be slightly excessive but they are big fish that need the space. so when you get this big tank are you sending out invites to all us locals to come around and get jealous :lol: p.s. did i contact you bout the club? my minds gone bust tonight and i cant think who ive contacted :oops:

i agree, very good advice rtm. also when doing water changes try to get it as close to the tank temp as possible, dont wana have the heater screaming at ya everytime :lol:

often it can spreed diseases/bugs up, thats why people do it for things like white spot but then it helps if fish arent eating etc as it speeds up their metabolisms which is supposed to make em feel a bit more hungry. i wouldnt personally want to speed fungus up (though apparently the main fungus bug -sapro somethign i think- prefers colder water but is oppertunistic so will take hold even in warmer temps), so overall this probably didnt help much lol, sorry and i hope someone can put things right for you soon. good luck and hows it holding up?

blue has one of some variety i think, they remind me of borneo tigers and apparently they go nuts over guppies (says blue hehe). www.fishprofiles.com might have something there?

be careful with dosing them shelly, theyre pretty sensitive (i learnt that the hard way on golds), i knew theyre were sensitive ( but not THAT sensitive keep in mind blues are hardier though, havent had to medicate blues so cant say how sensitive they are) :-? id do a half dose and see if things improve, if they still seem to be handling it you can try a full dose but watch em for a while (i admit to sitting and watching my sick golds for about 3 hours to see if they reacted :oops: ) and if they get funny do a water change. read up on the net bout HITH, theres lot of info around and theres meds for it, i think they use metro for it which also used for hex. i assume its the same for all fish as to why they get it and how you treat it. can you see actuall pitting in their heads, like somethings eaten away at it or its been gouged out? also depends what 'mildewy' looks like, id imagine it would be fluffy? which would be fungus. didnt manage to treat the golds for fungus cause they died of something else sooner but furan 2 might help? giving the tanks lots of water changes and giving lots of variety for foods will help them recover from HITH if they have it, oscars are prone to it and theres the 'beefheart' recipe which is real good at combating it as it has a wide range of stuff in it, pretty messy to make even for a large fish but blending beefheart into ram size bits would pollute the tank big time :-? if you read up and think it might be worth a shot theres lots of recipes around, some people use special vitamin powders and all sorts and its a good way to get meds into them which need to be fed and cant be soaked into food. i hope things work out and dont stress too much, ill bet your a top fish keeper and will do everything you can to try get em back on track, good luck and i have my fingers crossed for you

id say 25-26 would be ok for all of them, just my opinion though

aros are pretty notorious for jumping, ive been told of a few people that have had 8mm glass lids shattered and others with aros that have pushed lids off with bricks on top they are some mighty strong fish thats for sure. aros will often jump when they see something on the lid whether it be a food can or a fly, is your brother putting anything on the tank so that the aro would associate him with food? im not sure if that could be a possibility but it seems funny hes all of a sudden started jumping for no reason. do you have bright lights on the tank in a dim room? fish cant see out too well when the lights in their tank are brighter than the room, they see reflections pretty much and sometimes ive startled my fish when ive gone to feed them, maybe hes getting freaked out? for the damaged mouth i wouldnt think melafix would hurt but im not up on aros to know if theyre sensitive to meds or not so probably best to double check on that one, keep an eye on it though incase it develops any probs

ok, im sorry :oops: ive only found 3 people out of about 20 LFS that know what theyre talking about thats all, people on here know alot more and can give you more personal experiences, its hard to start on what 99% of the LFS tell you and its often only when things start to go wrong that you look for further help and find out they mis-led you, ive felt real sad about this when it happened to me because they are there to sell fish and help you but often they dont... im going to edit it now so it sounds a bit nicer

ive got a 1.5cm girl with a 2.5cm male (realy bubbas) and i can already tell the sex (well im hoping that her red tummy means shes definatly a girl) so if yours have red tums its quite likely theyll be females. theres also something about the colours around their dots on their sides or something like that. i try to get the most colourful and happy looking fish in the tank if i get them from LFS, often they arent colouring up to their potential anyway cause theyre stressed. im not sure about the chemicals (do ya mean hormones) to colour, we dont have dying in the country that i know of and i dont think we have too much hormone feeding etc going on? rams are pretty easy to get breeding but its apparently looking after the fry thats the hard part, ants just bred some and his babies are going strong. my pair are looking like they want to make babies with the male picking out two spots and hanging around them basically 24/7 and theyve both gone real colourful. if your fish are nice looking and healthy dont stress if you breed them, as long as theyre not deformed etc. you want to try get the nicest fish you can to breed so you let out other nice fish

im sorry if i came across as rude, i didnt mean too i try to put my smileys in and make it look welcoming but its hard, especially in writing, you make up the tone in your head when you read it, so once again i apologise, we just want to get to the point so you can help your new fishies out, if things get going smoothly it will be alot nicer for you, often people give up on fish keeping cause the LFS gave em bad advice and all their fish die, its not THEIR fault its the stores fault and we wouldnt want to lose a fellow fish keeper cause ill bet youl be hooked soon enough with at least a mild case of MTS :lol:

depends what you wana keep, i say 25-26C for your tank but what else will be in the tank?

greeblies caryl? :lol: is this a real word or one of those words only caryl knows about?

seems the ladys at the LFS isnt too up on fish, its a common thing sadly, are there any fellow fish keepers near you that can reccomend good places? sadly those cycle products dont do much good either, itd be soo cool if they did, would be less work and patience for us all :lol: it wont do your tank any harm but it probably wont speed up the cycle the ladys a wee bit off about doing 2 water changes a MONTH for the cycling tank, it would be ok if there was no fish in it but your look at water changes at least every 3 days with fish in there of around 20-30%, probably daily would be best if you cant get those rams and clowns back. during a cycle ammonia, nitrite, and nitrates can build up pretty high, to lethal levels so you want to keep the levels down by doing lots of water changes, itll make it much more comfortable for your new fishies on 99% of tanks you need to do weekly water changes at least, rams need very clean water so if you keep them see if you can do water changes at least every 3 days, aged water is best too as theyre very very sensitive to meds just like clowns, they will love you for those water changes and youll see them blossom to the pretty little things they are. sucks that lady put you wrong, happens to far too many people but at least you found this site and youll be on the right track from now on note- is this edit ok now :-?

tis true, spent hours and hours (and i mean like 5 hours a night 5 times a week) reading about fish, i still do it every day and ive got about 7 forums i frequent, gotta learn lots bout your fish to take good care of them

if they can interbreed (not sure) DONT let them (remove eggs/cull fry)!! your mixing strains then which will un-do all the work that was put into them to get them peppered, mixing colour strains when your not trying to create a new line is IMO very very sad, dont wana sound mean or anything but im sure a fair few colour strains have been wiped out from mixing

welcome lorrainel ok, so your tanks not cycled, i wouldnt expect the rams to live thru that so just a heads up unless your wanting to do alot (and i mean like daily) water changes, rams are pretty senstive fish and you could find your clowns might get ick (white spot), theyre pretty prone to it and a cycling tank is rather stressful even with water changes, they also will need to have more added to the group (wait till after the cycle!!), do best in three + and will need to be moved out along the track (no doubt by then MTS will have set in so youll have heaps of larger tanks lying around for them :lol: ) as they can hit 30cm but they do grow VERY slow. neons should get thru the cycle pretty well if you do your water changes, your looking at around 20-30% every 2 days i think, its going to slow down the cycle alot but your rams wont make it if ammonia or nitrites get up, i dont mean to sound harsh or anything, just gotta let ya know so you dont think theyve just died for no reason hehe. for plants you need the lights on for around 12 hours or so per day un-interrupted (apparently it takes about 2 hours to work up their photosynthisis). im going to say maybe 2 angels in that tank with that stocking list, try and get them from a reputable person and check their tummies and bottoms out, angels are pretty prone to worms these days, if their tummies look large or they have red worms hanging out their bottoms dont get them. and walters right bout the neons, they could become snacks :lol: ive only had one out of four angels ive kept that eats neons but he ate a fair few! he just snapped their heads off or tummies and left the bodies lying around it might not be a prob but if you see your neons start to dissappear youll know who to blame :lol:

ronnie is by far very very reasonable, im only 16 so i cant afford to spend 120+ per discus from the local fish shop, he doesnt straight out price each lot of fish, he'll be reasonable with you and charge according to size and how good they are (theyre all good but you know what i mean). honestly, pm him or something or pop around if you can, you'll probably be pleasantly surprised

its because we get sent the mass produced ones from asia that are all inbred, it weakens the genes and when people breed these theyre just letting more weak fish out into the hobby. blues are ALOT more hardy than golds, if your having problems with blues i wouldnt suggest trying golds, the only ones i saw (i purchased some to have all 4 die of unknown causes in 2-3 months when the blues charged on) are in HFF in auckland. keeping blue rams is just like keeping other fish to me luckily, i havent had any problems with my blues, of course they are in a discus tank so have clean water so i cant really comment on their difficulty of keeping in other tanks. we dont get german ones here as far as i know as i wanted some, no one imports them. the only reason so many balloons are around is because people buy them, if noone bought them wed have none in the market, theyre selectively bred for this stupid look, its the same with flowerhorn (dont get me started on these) and parrots, once you bring in new fish people go nuts over them and it damages the beginning fishs' stocks (see trimac industry in US now from FH). its the way the world works sadly, the only thing we can do is let others know about these fish in the hopes it will be one less person buying them. if you want to breed rams and get better stock out to the country find someone that can import germans, ive been told theyre real tough compared to most, im sure we have a few good ones around but the parents probably wouldnt be for sale. and like ant said- how often were you doing water changes? rams are more sensitive that discus IMO and wont be too happy on once a week water changes.

if you have all male guppies with it i assume theyve been biting each other? they do get pretty stroppy at each other from what ive seen? if its dissappearing and its not a fish (isolate him and see if it gets worse) you might be dealing with fin rot