Whiskas

I went out to my pond yesterday and found one of my small females all covered in algae stuff. It looks just like te stuff that collects in the pond, the grungy stuff. It happened almost overnite, she went from normal to being completely covered in teh stuff. It was only 2 days since i last saw her (at least i think it is the same one) and she was fine then. I was unable to save her and was a lil confused on what treatment to use. I have seen finrot, tail rot etc before but this was so weird looking and really thick! It was only 2 days since i last saw her (at least i think it is the same one) and she was fine then. What could it have been? And what would have been the best treatment? I tried Melafix but it didn't seem to help.

ashbo - i have a pond (no where near as cool as Caryls!) and use bird netting over the top to stop my cat and all the other neighbourhood cats getting into it. The neighbour has no cover over the pond just lots of plants for the fish to hide in and around, although she has noticed that she only has brown goldies left now. Give it a go its heaps of fun and you dont even need to dig it out if you already have an empty one sitting there just waiting to be filled!

Or rather than putting a net over the entire thing if you make it hard for the kingfishers to dive/swoop safely they apparently won't. So i guess you could do this by putting a strip of net or a line of string across the pond so that the kingfishers don't find it as easy/safe to catch their tucker there. I personally use bird netting as i have a cat who loves nothing more than to go fishing - along with all the strays!

i would recommend borneo suckers/chinese hillstream loaches. I got 2 they are really cool, very playful so you need at least 2. And they keep the algae down.

the shags are worse they will damage the fish by stabbing them and then realise they can't swallow them and just leave them to die!

probably the swim bladder. Dont know much about fixing it but once when i was younger i managed to cure a swim bladder problem by putting the fish in a donut shape container so that it couldn't float on its side but could still swim. If you wanna give that a go or wait and see if anyone else has any better ideas

didn't know what a Endler Guppy was so Googled it. I found this http://www.aquariumhobbyist.com/endlerslivebearer/ which is quite interesting.

yep they the one, sea cucumbers realised what i had written and thought d'oh :roll:

Just been to Lady Elliott Island (snorkelling the Great Barrier Reef) and learnt that sea slugs are good filters. They suck in the dirty sand and then poop out the clean sand. They are from the same family as sea stars (starfish) and sea urchins. Dunno how they do in tanks but if someone wants to give it a go...

Hi all, Just wondering at wat size do people reckon it is safe for young killies to go into the adult tank? I have some approx 2cm Epiplatys Dageti and their parents are full grown in another tank, 8 of them at about 4-6cm each. Are the littler guys goin to be safe if i was to ut them in with their parents? Or would i be better to put them in the community tank with guppies, platies, hillstream loachs and neon tetras? I want to move them cos only got the one spare tank and have some more eggs and newborn killies to go in it.

Rozski - I have seen that killie, the one in Wet Pets is the one you are talking about eh? He is very cool! I have 8 Epiplatys Dageti (bought from Aquanut aka Tim), they are out most of the time - usually chasing each other or bits of debris stuff in the hope that it is live food. I have 2 Bristlenose catfish in with them and so far there have been no probs. I did have a Golden Algae Eater in with them but for some reason he just died, dunno if this was due to the killies or some other reason. There mouths can open quite large so any fish you put in with them will need to be the same size or bigger or be able to swim very quickly. Tested this (accidentily, thought they would survive) with some deformed guppies that had grown to about 2.5cm and they still got eaten! The killies are about 5cm. Lots of the stuff i read before i got them said they were really particular about water conditions but I havn't found them to be too fussy at all. They definately prefer to have places to hide and plants to get in the "shade". They are very fun to watch and are very curious lil fish. If i put my finger on the tank glass they will eye it up and either come over to investigate or swim quickly away. Just remember if you do decide to get killies for your display tank to COVER THE TANK, they are jumpers.

Also note that if you take oxygen weed from waterways it may be the invasive kind, so when cleaning out your tank make sure you dump the old water on your garden not down the sink. If it is put back into the waterway it may just take over a place that was once free from it.

seems obvious but dont drop your tank! It will shatter and glass will go through all the stones, which basically means either spending ages picking all the bits of lil glass out (and glass cuts are not pleasant) or throwing the stones away. Plus it can be expensive to fix and if there is even the smallest amount of water in the bottom of the tank it will seem to spread everywhere! Did this last nite, am sooo gutted!! Luckily there were no fish in it, hadn't even had a chance to set up (this is what i was in the process of doing!!). Also was very lucky it wasn't the curved side of the tank but the flat side so will be cheaper to get fixed **fingers crossed**

Wat type of fertiliser would you recommend? Sorry to hijack your post :lol:

Go ask you local pet shop what they would take off your hands (buy from you) and then if you breed something and have way to many the surplus could go to them. I have taken some of my baby platies to the local pet shop and he has purchased them off me for a reasonable price.

dare i say this - we had a fish at work that had something similar. We tried salt baths (to minimise the swelling) and furon2. They would fix him for a bit (maybe a week or 2) and then he/she would get it back. Eventually he/she died Hope yours just has bruising from sitting on the bottom of the tank or something. Good luck

Okey dokey so these are the ones i have: these 4 are not connected to an electrical plug nor are they connected too each other. these 2 are connected to the same electrical plug but not each other. this one they are in teh same tube but with no electrical plug. Maybe i should sell them to someone who knows how to wire them up....?? and then i have this thing: what is it? I think this is all the bits?

I heard somewhere goldies can get warts, and warts can be contagious. Could it be warts? Or maybe a parasite that lives under the scales/skin and then grows to the point where it 'pops' out. Could be a cancerous type lump but woulda thought it wouldn't have been spreading throughtout the pond? Dunno got me stumped too. Had a search on the net and found this: tumours http://www.goldfishinfo.com/ailment2.htm#tumours Another one i found: Goldfish also sometimes develop coloured lumps on the skin. These are usually relatively harmless tumours known as fibromas, but are unsightly. They can be removed with a sterile scalpel blade if the fish is anaesthetised with "Aqui-S"* and placed on a soft wet surface. Carp "pox" is a virus infection characterised by soft white lumps on the skin which reappear if excised, but is less common. http://www.fish.wa.gov.au/docs/pub/FHinfo/fhinfo05.php?0308

divorce costs like $175 (a friend got divorced) but then there is any split of property... SO it is definately cheaper than fishkeeping :lol:

I will go look a lil more slosely at them tonite or tomoro. Sounz like they should work really well! So could they already be set to the 'right' temp or do they need to be reset each time they are taken out of storage to be used? If i remember correctly they looked as if the person who had them put them together themselves, including some of the wiring to the electrical plug. Would i need to get the connection, between heater or thermostat and plug, checked? Don't wanna burn down the house or electrocute myself or the fish!

How do you set these to a temp? I have some and I am not sure how they work. There are no dials like on newer ones. I think these ones have a thermostat attached (?) Does anyone use them? Are they any good? I don't need to use them anytime soon but thought they may be good backups.

I now have 3 left, 2 are growing very quickly and have their stripes nice and dark the other is much smaller (just starting to get his stripes). When can you tell the males formt he females and how? Do they get their red chin first? I have Epiplatys Degati. I think the 2 bigger ones may have survived fromthe first lot and may have eaten alot of the second lot. But i am happy that i have managed to raise these three and it was a great learning curve for next time This morning i was watchig these 3 dash around their tank and it looked like they were playing tag - one would chase one of the others, catch up to it then swim away as the other turned around and chased it. They are such cool lil fish I am surprised at how hardy they are, i have a problem in their tank with the pH changing alot. At the mo it is really alkaline! But it doesn't seem to faze them in the slightest. I am trying to rectify it by doing water changes but it seems to be taking ages. I found one lil tiny wriggler in the parents tank, he won't last long I can't catch him cos he is soooo fast! So decided to leave him. I was watching him last nite swim flat out around the tank. I noticed that when one of the adult fish went near him he would 'play dead' and just float on the water and then dash away when the other fish swam away. Is this some kind of survival technique? I just added an algae eater to the adult tank, he has a golden head and tail and a brown body.

I get some of that feather type acrylic wool from either the Warehouse or 2 dollar shop. Because it has the main bit of wool and then the strands coming out it creates a really nice flowy looking mop. It is very easy to go through to spot the eggs. There are a couple of different feather-type wool and i find the one that is less fluffy and more cord-like is best (hard to explain the one i mean). Best of luck

The pet shops like to get them at about 2.5-3cm. They will grow as fast as their environment allows. That is depending on size of tank, amount of food etc.

Good idea Alan! When i was little i had some of my goldies floating on their sides and since i had grown up around sheep farms and new that when they get cast to turn them on the other side to reset their organs i thought i could do the same with goldies. Instead of making a harness i got a container and put another container inside it, thus making a kind of moat that the fish can swim in. The moat was narrow enough that the fish was forced to stay upright. (does this make sense?) The fish recovered, including Whiskas who was eaten by the cat!