sharn

apparently they have fresh water ones? or maybe that was cold water, i dont know lol :lol:

wow, thankyou, i would certanly not say that i know alot about discus, ive only been keeping them for around 7 or 8 months myself but its all from reading and learning off people like discusguru (ronnie). these were the sort of questions i was asking at the start so i know how ya feel it feels like such a large jump because everyone tells you how hard they are to care for, yeah they might require more maintenance but its not like theyre going to just up and die if you feed them the wrong flake or something ya know :lol: when you weigh up keeping them it is definatly worth those few extra hours a week :bounce:

fresh or salt? if its salt the salties will be able to help you in their section, they could probably help you on freshies too

it seems the grid is a UG filter (under gravel), if you had to lift that up you will have some nasty water in your aquarium now, thats poop and food etc that gets trapped under there and pretty much rots and if its let out... well you can guess the effects it would have on your water, id do some water changes just to be sure the BN gets points for managing to get under there though :lol:

shiuh- i think so, alot of people seem to have them breeding so they cant be too tough mat- as far as i know females are a fair bit fatter and have different fins somewhere but i could never sex by fins haha

the drop (i think) should be put onto a cotton bud then applied directly? just put it back straight away into the hospital, fungus isnt too catchy but id leave him out for treatment, especially if you are going to put it in the water as treating unsick fish can be stressful for them. im not really too up on my meds sorry, but you dont want to mix them at all unless youve been given the ok by experts here, dont trust your LFS. hope someone gets back to you soon

i have both glass and a digi, the digi is out by 1C and fluctuates ALOT, it tells me my tanks fluctuating from 27-29 in half an hour!? it could be my heater though which im goin to replace (its a jebo and ive heard they can be pretty inacurate, itll let the temp drop to 27C before turning on and bringing it back up to 29C- according to the digi). i might just go to the chemist but i like to check the temp lots, that would be taping it to the tank or something right? i have a stick on thermom, the ones that sit on the outside and i think theyre useless, they get affected by air temps too much

what type of cichlids though? different ones need different amounts of filtration, and like bill said most of them are pretty messy :lol:

HFF are pretty good i thought but if you can find some good breeders of what fish you want youll get much better stock and info IMO

to be honest i dont think anyone would be able to give you a definate on that, oscars can be real hard fish to figure out, theyll act all buddy with a fish one minute and then decide it has to be killed :lol: getting two oscars that will stand each other in schools of less than about 6 is tricky to say the least, i think youve got four options, you have to weigh them up, prettyness vs peacfulness in your tank 1: get rid of the woose, if you take out a bully the remaining bully might still decide he just dont like him and give him a hard time. 2: get rid of one bully, first you would have to take the one you wanted to get rid of out of the tank, into a spare (you dont want the bullys in the same tank so they can see each other i dont think), to see if the remaining bully lets up on the woose, it could take a week or so for things to be worked out. if hes still giving him a rough time you can try the re-decoration trick. take the bully out into a bucket/whatever for a few days, re arrange the tank and let him back in, it will make him feel hes the newbie in this 'new' tank he isnt familiar with and may give the woose a bit of extra boost he needs, however this doesnt always work but its worth a shot. 3: get another tank for your fave, it only needs to be around 250L and you could have maybe a smaller plec in there, you can never have too many tanks!! 4: get rid of both bullies, that way you can have your fav still and add more fish. often oscars dont mind other fish (ones that have been alone for a while dont often like anything being put in their tank) as long as its not other oscars. my oscar doesnt mind what i put in his tank as long as it isnt another oscar, but like i said every fish has a different personality theres alot of options for other tank mates for oscars, silver dollars for dithers, clown loaches, jack dempsys, blue acaras are often used too. in the end its up to you, if you cant bare to part with your softie it doesnt cost much to set up a new tank and oscars really dont mind being on their own, they are more owner responsive IMO. quite a few options to think over huh? :lol:

males will be very colourful while females (im pretty sure this goes for 99% of all female apistos) will be smaller and a drab greyish yellow until theyre ready to spawn and then they will get REAL yellow. male: http://images.google.co.nz/images?svnum ... acmasteri+ female: http://images.google.co.nz/images?svnum ... acmasteri+ note- is that spelt right lol? and i think the first pic in the second row is a male in the female link

not sure bout where they lay but they dont get pregant as such, they lay eggs which the male fertilises

good point bout the anti caking agent!! thats why i use that rock salt stuff hope you get it sussed!

i beleive, after reading a bit last night on it, its blood posioning? sometimes way back when i had a few angels if they got nipped or something they would get a few streaks near their rip. it never amounted to anything but maybe it could just be that? sorry i cant help you more

i thought it would be a good thing to comepletly clean the filter, what if the turtles had something that could make his healthy fish sick?

i wouldnt get them if you can only get a pair, theyre schooling fish and do best in groups of at least 3, 5+ being best and make sure you have alot of places for them to jam themselves in to scare you and also to hide :lol: keep in mind you will either need a large tank down the line or might have to get rid of them, they are slow growers but they max out at around 30cm they love snails also so if you have any you dont want chuck em in there

ok first off i suggest getting rid of one oscar, third wheel syndrome aint a nice thign to see with oscars, they will buddy up and nail the third one if your oscars permit maybe add a school of Silver dollars or a jack dempsy if youd like another large fish, males are real stunners but do like somewhere to hide. while HITH is associated with poor water quality i beleive it is equal with diet, www.theoscarspot.com has a really good beefheart recipe that you can make up which the oscars go nuts for and gives you a chance to get some vegies and shelled peas in there for digestion. at 20cm or so they are around adolesence size, they can get nasty then so just keep your eye on the little buggers, i was lucky that my boy didnt get too bad during that but ive read about oscars killing their buddies over night during that stage :-? if you have enough filtration on your tank (reccomended 10x per hour with HOB's, internals and 5x per hour with canisters, sumps etc) it shouldnt be too bad, i run two filters and i do one each week but im am slightly under filtered (3000lph on a 360L tank). i see you have a canister, a atman internal? and a sump, sumps would only need cleaning monthly if that, same with canisters IMO, internals every second week or so. get the shop to test your water with their kits and see what comes up, you may have a faulty kit. if not you need to do some serious water changes, i have a friend who was having nitrate probs on his oscar tank and he upped water changes to 30% twice weekly and that solved it. hope that helps! oops, edit bout mate with water changes. it was twice weekly not once, nearly every tank should have weekly water changes

alot of people are suspcious about plecos and discus, i made my mind up after reading that some are more prone but ones like bristlenose (id look into them, plain but still really cool and dont get too large) are pretty good, keep them well fed on fresh vegies and they should stay away. the plecos eat the slime coat when they latch on which can leave the fish open to some nasty stuff. i would stay away from any common pleco, and if you wanted something fancier do your homework first, www.planetcatfish.com has a cat-e-log which would give you some good info though do realise we cant get all of them. your stocking list is fine, but do make sure you do water changes every 3 days at least, if you cant do that then i would suggest looking at other fish, it might sound hard out but really they do need clean water, rams are quite picky about their water also. sterbai are fine. cardinals are also fine. i keep my discus tank at 29C, 31C for normal tanks is a bit high IMO, most people keep their grow outs at that temp as it speeds up metabolism, just something to consider.

your tank mate list sounds good, what species of cats are you looking into? i would get at least 4 discus, preferably 6 if you can, they do better in groups because they feel more secure and then you dont have as much aggression problems, with three two often buddy up and pick on the other one or one becomes boss and nails the other two, third wheel syndrome i call it and 'hybrid' tanks do work well and often still look quite nice, if your wanting easy but still fairly 'natural' that would be a good way to go i think.

not too up on it, think antibiotics help (mind holds onto a teeny link between the two but it might be mixed up with something else). what has it?

i think it might be dropsy also, dont know too much about it and cant remember if it causes sores or not? zebras can handle cold temps right? if so get them out of there into a bowl or whatever, but i wouldnt leave them in there just incase it does spread. good luck!!

i wouldnt, i think its different to normal salt, id wait for someone else to confirm whether to use it or not. do you have any scaleless fish like khulis or bristle nose in the tank? if not you can do a 1tbsp per 20L but that can upset your plants if you have any i think. if youve got a hospital tank id do the treating in there and that way you can siphon the bottom better to pick up cysts. keep in mind it isnt as quick as meds but i think its less stressful, up the temp slowly to around 28C and you should see a improvement in a few days if it is w/s. remeber to mix the salt in a container with water before adding it to the tank, dont just dump it in, have to dissolve it first and make sure you dont re-salt if you dont take any water out hope it works!!!

i dont get over there that much these days but any week day im over ill pop in and give ya my two cents

no, i dont think thats the same stuff...??? i think its super concentrated. i just used the rock sea salt you buy to eat :lol: if you have non iodised table salt thats fine also

upping the temp to say 28C if the other fish can handle it would be a good idea and dosing with salt can often cure quite a few things, tonic salt is just pure salt right? doesnt have anything funky added in, i dont use it, i just use plain sea salt so thats why i ask hehe. i have no other ideas of what it could be, aeromonas would be unlikely i think as it works quick. so it just looks like whitespot but wont go away?