xmamx

Sorry for the delay guys and thanks for your help. Well it was a hard few weeks and quite depressing as well, but I learned a few things in the process. I ended up loosing 5 or my 11 clowns and a small glowlight danio. Most of the clowns I lost were the small ones, but the one in the picture also held on for another week before he passed away (he was one of my biggest clowns at about 14cm), he got a secondary fungal infection which is what he has in the photo (the morning I found him dead, he was covered in white fluff all over), I did try phoenix's advise but he didnt seem to respond. I only just lost the 5th one 2 days ago as he got really skinny (still was eating) and also had secondary infection. After my last post I changed a few things. I did a full water change and then did full dose of Blue Circle white spot cure as the Wunder stuff didnt seem to do anything. I did 75% water changes every 3 days and full redose of the blue circle also. The temperature is still currently at 29 degrees as one of my clowns still has what looks to be slight white spot, but also could be secondary infection. I have finally stopped the white spot treatment and now using melafix to help get fid of the secondary infection and it seems to be working. Conclusion: If I ever got white spot again, I would raise the temperature of the tank and would start doing full doses of Blue Circle whitespot cure (the clowns had no negative reaction to the full dose). I would also do the 75% water change every 2 to 3 days and gravel vac everyday. If I had done this in the first place I may have saved most of my clowns. Thanks Phoenix for your advise about the full dose, had I not started doing full doses. I think I would have lost all my clowns. Also thanks to everyone else, just to add Wellington water does not have much chlorine in it and I sometimes use the chlorine remover just in case. I also got one of those tap mixer things you put on the hot and cold tap (put a hose fitting on it) and got the temp right before filling the tank (it works really well and I get no temperature drop).

Here is a pic of one of my large clowns, some of the other clowns do look to be slightly clearing up but this clown and another small clown seem to be getting on their last leg (or fins) which is a bugger. I think i am going to loose the small one. I am going to do another 75% water change and full redose tonight. This big clown has got one crazy eye, was like that when i bought him, hence why the eye looks strange. Cheers, Xmamx

I did the full dose like i said in my last post and did the 1/2 dose today but two of my clowns are looking very tired and acting strange. Still have yet to notice the spots dropping off which is very strange as i have done water changes etc. I will just have to keep on treating the tank and hope that it sorts itself out. :roll:

Thats actually quite a good point, as wunder white spot does not advise anything about harming loaches or harming certain fish and you would think if it was dangerous they would mention it on the bottle. Thanks for your help guys. Cheers, Xmamx

Thats what i normally do but i also read that when you are treating for white spot you should try and keep the temperature from changing to much. Maybe i just read to much and therefore end up contradicting myself when it comes to treating my fish.

Yeah thats what i am going to do today, the full dose as advised on the bottle. Will do that after i do a large water change and gravel vac. I need to find a tap water mixer so i can mix hot and cold into my hose as its hard work filling a 300 litre tank and trying to keep the temperature from fluctuating to much.

I did put in a few tablespoons of salt but not the full amount for my tank ratio which would be 300 litres = 15 tablespoons (think 1 per 20 litres) as no sure if my plants would handle it.

The first time i did a half does due to reading everywhere that clowns dont usually like full doses of meds. After the big water change i did a 3/4 dose and then 2 days later another half dose (wunder advises full dose first day and half dose third day) so i have nearly done a full dose or sorts. When i do the water change today i will do the full dose on the bottle as the clowns did not react to the larger dose i did. Hopefully that will sort it out, i also have a lot plants in my tank so salt could be bad for them and raising the temp any higher could also cause them problems. I also read that plants can soak up the melachite green in meds is well so not sure if that is happening or not. Cheers, Xmamx

Still got white spot on the clowns and one of my 14cm clowns is covered. It doesnt seem to go away, have yet to see the stage where it drops off the fish and its been 8 days now and the temperature of the tank is 29degrees. Will do another full gravel vac and water chage today as well as dose again with the new bottle of white spot cure i bought and hope that the clowns pull through. Non of my other fish in the tank have whitespot just the clowns, very strange why it is not going away.

Thanks guys, just did a 75% water change and dosed the tank again with wunder white spot cure as i read that its best to dose after a water change. The reason i did a half dose, is because I have read that you should always half dose with clowns as the are very sensitive to chemicals and have read that a lot of ppl have killed their clowns by dosing to much. Hopefully it will clear up otherwise i might have to try a larger dose next time. Will also get some more salt i think. Cheers, Xmamx

Hello all, Really worried about my clowns, i have 11 and they all have white spot. I noticed on saturday the 27th and did a half dose of Wunder White spot cure (150 drops in 300 litre tank) and also raised the temp to 27. Then on sunday raised the temp up to 29 and did another quarter dose on Monday (75 drops). The white spot still hasnt gone away and i am worried i might lose some of my clowns (some 12 - 15cms long). Is there anything I can do to help, ie. Water changes etc. How bad does it need to get before clowns will die from it as some of them have heaps of spots on them Thanks all, Nathan

If you do a search for DIY CO2 in google you will find lots of different examples. I just used a 2.25 litre bottle (coke bottle) and 1 cup of sugar dissolved in boiling water and then add cold water to bring down the temp to around 30 degrees or so and then added 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of yeast and 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda (stops it frothing). The liquid should go as high as the top of the label on the bottle (dont go higher as it can froth into your tank). Drilled a small hole in the lid and pulled airhose through it a couple of cm's. I also had a one way valve on the airtube to stop any water syphoning from the tank into the bottle. Another good option is to use a little chi (herbal water) bottle filled with water in line with the main bottle to filter the air before it goes into your tank as well. Put the final end of the airhose onto your inlet or diffusor and wait for the bubbles. Hope this helps, there are lots on picture on google to help you figure it out.

The lights were standard 2 foot aquaone lights T8's with 865 bulbs from bunnings (cheaper option - the cool daylight ones). The co2 was running into the inlet on the filter which smashed the bubbles up enough to get it into the water properly. Also ran an airstone at night to stop suffacating the tank of oxygen. Cheers, Xmamx

Thanks for the responses guys, yeah that is glosso in the foreground. It grew really well until the stem plants shadowed it, hence why i trimmed it back. The main thing with this tank was diy co2 (yeast and sugar) and lots of light. Here are the specs of the tank at the time: 40 litre tank Substrate: daltons aquatic mix and daltons sand with gravel on top Lighting: 3 x 18watt flouro tubes (54 watts in total which is heaps for a 40 litre tank) CO2: diy I probably did use flourish ferts once or twice but never really needed to fertilize it as it seemed to grow fine with just the light and co2. Its possible the aquatic mix may have leeched into the water enough anyway and is the main reason the tank is full of algae now as i pulled out a couple of rooted plants and made a mess of things. I also had ricca in the tank as well on some rocks but it never really held very well and floated around most of the time. Another thing to watch for is thread algae as it gets into the java moss and is nearly impossible to remove without destroying the moss wall.

Wow this thread has lasted a while. Updates on my moss walls. Just did a search through my hard drive and found some old pics of the tank after it grew out a bit. The first pic is probably the best that tank ever was, and the second shows the wall off better but is murky ( i pulled out lots of the plants). It is now a lovely tank overgrown with algae and my new baby neon rainbows. Will strip and start again once i have grown them out. Also the suction cups were from the $2 shop, the ones you use for christmas lights or something like that. There is no medium as the moss doesn't need any medium to grow in. Like lmsmith said crud and fish can get stuck behind. I lost a fish due in this tank due to it getting stuck. So you really need to make sure the sides are tight and there are no openings for the fish to find there way in. As for the crud, the only option is to pull it forward and clean behind with a syphon and then take out and wash in a bucket to clean off the rest of the crud etc. Also SAE's love eating moss walls, they ate most of the wall in my main tank before i removed it. The date on the photos was 15/12/2007, so it was about 2 and a half months after i setup the tank. Here are the pics.

Went to strip the tank down on the weekend and when i pulled out the breeding mops i saw some eggs. Then i looked in the tank and saw a couple of fry . I took out the parents and now i have about 20 - 30 fry swimming around, i have been feeding them liquifry and will start me brine shrimp culture tonight. YAY :bounce:

Thanks guys looks like i will be tearing down the tank and starting with a nice fresh clean tank, will be best for breeding and cleaning anyway. Will hopefully have some baby rainbows sometime this year. Cheers, Xmamx

I am currently trying to breed some neon rainbows with wool mops and there are quite a few snails (the really small brown ones that have a brownish see through shell) on the mops and in the tank. So do these types of snails eat fish eggs?. I think that some eggs have been laid but as the mops move in the water i cant be sure the eggs are still there. The tank has plants in it and also has green hair algae also (the slimy stuff), so therefore do i tear down the tank and make it completely bare and sterilize the equipment and start again or should these types of snails be ok. Thanks for your help, Xmamx :lol:

This may have been asked before, but is it possible to list all the current fish available in NZ (there would be heaps). We could seperate into catagories and people could post pictures (like the plant thread) of the fish that are around. Obviously it would be a large thread but it could be put on the sites main page so people could see what fish they would like for their aquariums, this could also include water conditions etc so people could plan different types of tanks etc. I know this would be a large task, but it would be great for all the nz fish keepers. :lol:

The one in johnsonville looks like it has changed owners and they have cleaned the tanks up as well. Went into there today and they were quite helpful. Still not a large range of fish though. Another shop if not mentioned is the one in the mall in Wainuiomata, sometimes has fish you dont get in the other shops. Xmamx

One of my 3 clowns likes to put holes in leaves (i have seen him clicking away at them heheheh), sometimes he does it more than other times (depends on how much he has had to eat and how soft the leaves are as he loves the new shoots). Maybe put some algae tablets in for food and they might leave the plants alone or just buy lots more plants and then he will have to much choice and you wont notice the damage as much (this is what i did).

Thanks guys he usually sits up the front of the tank on a big leaf so i setup the tripod and got a decent shot with my Fuji Finepix S9500 camera (the cameras a SLR type digital, but not a full DSLR camera as they are really pricey). Was messing with photoshop the other night and the top picture was me trying to see if anybody noticed my strange looking SAE. Here is the original shot, sorry if i tricked anybody .

Managed to get a pic of my SAE tonight. Here it is:

wow thats a crazy sized bug, any idea what it was. Wasnt one of those ones you find in ponds called hydra was it.

What sort of bugs are you talking about, the little ones on the surface?. If so a lot of people have those little bugs on the surface and they are harmless. I have got them in both of my tanks and they are fine, sometimes the fish will eat them if they can catch them.