SpidersWeb

You'd only really need a fan if using convection was impossible. Convection is also the cheapest method as all you need to do is drill a couple of holes (hot air rises, sucks in cold air below). Ballasts are designed to get quite hot, so I wouldn't worry about that unless they give off a smell. Setting up fans would be beneficial at summer time though if you have fish that dont like the higher temps (africans or natives) by using the fans to blow over the water surface. If you wanted to get all fancy pants you could get a thermostat wired in, so that the fan only cools the lighting when tank temp exceeds 28C or something.

25 degrees is perfect in my book. My tanks vary between 22 and 32C but for general communities, 24-27 is the zone I prefer. I'm not sure about stock levels, I'd probably need to look at the setup to know if it's too much. Depends on how planted it is. I wouldn't recommend you add any more fish, but you'll be able to tell if everyone is happy or starting to get squashed up, just make sure that everyone has an open area to swim around in. Time for another tank perhaps ?

They get quite large too (around 15cm or so), and are annoyingly territorial as they get older. I'm not a big fan of them myself. From http://www.fishlore.com/profiles_rainbow_shark.htm

Nope, not contagious. Will usually heal up unassisted if conditions improve.

Diatom filter would be worth a try as well if you have access to one. Our club has one that we can borrow out like a library book.

Yeah thats why I suggested dosing with pure ammonia, to build up the bacteria quickly and in large numbers. Also a higher temp would help, like 28-30.

Impressive Sounds like you've got one character there. My Firemouths have done some silly displays before, but the only one I've seen that flared up at humans was a huge one that was for sale at a local pet store - sold before I could buy it though

What I would do would be to take some gravel etc from a mature tank, and set it up in a new clean tank (remember water ager first though). Install all of the sponge filters in the tank, squeeze some filter juice out of some filter pads from your other filters, then tip in some ammonia, preferably a reasonable amount to make sure that all the filters get fed. Once the ammonia is 0 and the nitrate is high I'd say they'd be pretty well cycled. Haven't tried it before, just seems like the fastest way to me. The bacteria would breed like crazy.

I use 6500K. 6500K is also used in the food indsutry etc so you can get replacement tubes from electrical wholesalers for $6-10 a tube. Anywhere between 5500-8000K is good.

I've sometimes had a problem with cloudy water where the water was cloudy due to tiny air bubbles. Pain in the ass but it cleared after a while, overnight from memory. Last time I had a bacterial bloom (went on holiday :roll: ) we did 3 large (30%) water changes over the space of two days and it cleared, also removed all the excess food out of the gravel. If it's bacterial then something is feeding it - could be something that was accidently dropped in, someone spilt fishfood and doesn't want to own up, dead fish etc

I've never had any problems with fighting however if the male is in a cave, and the female keeps trying to go in but he kicks her out its because she wants to breed and he isnt ready to settle down just yet. Only time I have fighting is when the female wants some, or two males over food. If they're chasing each other around the tank you've got a problem though. Try adding more caves?

umm the internet said so? :lol: :oops: I know for oscars and discus you say homemade food and 'Beefheart' is always the first thing out peoples mouths. Although lots of other goodies are normally added too like spinach (oh yum),garlic,shrimp, few peas etc Our angels lay eggs when they've had mosquito larvae. Lately we've been feeding unbranded "Cichlid Pellets" - no idea whats in those but everyone eats them, think they're probably for africans though. Also treats of shrimps, insects, earthworms, and the occasional fish culling. Their favourite is ramshorn snails at the moment, they go spaz if they see you holding one through the glass. Everyone is healthy and happy. Only food related health problem we've had was Anabantoids + Frozen Bloodworms.

haha I had to look it up to see what it was! For those who didn't recognise the name, he's talking about a red coloured Dwarf Gourami. Cool looking fish and full of personality (some of them anyway). And yep, females are grey and have very little colour. Not normally imported because they're not attractive (harder to sell) and because it would encourage private breeding. Well at least that was what I was told when I asked. I've got a big plump female who snuck in with some boys. Dont actually have a boy to breed her with just yet, her husband-to-be got dropsy and I haven't been able to find another good male since, seems to be a dose of the uglies going around.

If you can sit on it, it'll hold your tank fine.

Yeah it's certainly a hard situation, paticularlly when you're attached I had to put to sleep (clove oil) a red crowntail siamese fighter, who was as gentle as can be, yesterday due to a kidney problem. I hope its for the best and your Hex problem goes away forever.

The dominant male gets all the ladies, so I normally have 1 male per tank. Since the males look after the eggs, you get more eggs this way. Non-dominat male gets ignored, and I've noticed is the last to be allowed near food too. My dominant GBA would let the females eat, but the other male was only allowed in at the last moment.

If everything is in good order and your other fish are healthy then it shouldn't be a problem, their natural immune system will keep it at bay. Raising the temp and doing extra gravel vacs will decrease the risks by a fair margin. If the problem does spread to other fish, you may want to setup a treatment tank. Edit: Alan replied as I was typing. Ah ok, yeah I've never had a problem with it spreading like you see in pet stores etc. Oh well treatment tank it is then. Alan has been keeping fish a lot longer than I have, so I'd certainly take his advice

Yeah that was the idea I dont trust cichlids the first time around, once I've bred something then future breedings I leave alone, but first time I always remove the eggs. Was just wondering if the fry would be ok together, sounds like they will be. I've had to move my Apistogramma Agasezii in with my week old GBAs already, they seem happy enough together so far. On another note, 3/4 of the angel eggs went white, looks like daddy needs to improve his aim, and mummy needs to stop laying eggs on the filter outlet :roll: Naturally convict eggs are perfectly fertilised. Need to remove these soon as the Jag could fit Mumsy in it's mouth if it wanted and it's not appreciating being told to Get Lost.

Dont use meth blue (or whitespot rememdy) in your aquarium. If kept in good water conditions with places to hide/sleep they'll fight it off by themselves over night and no problem will spread. If water condition isnt great, (e.g. tank hasn't matured) then the white spot may be a problem. Loaches are scaleless, so salt etc isn't a great idea. If you have a spare tank I'd do this: Keep it bare-bottom Set it up with fresh clean water Set the temperature to match your existing tank Put in some decorations or whatever so the loaches have somewhere to sleep Add loaches Raise temp on heaters to 30C, make sure there is good water flow, air stone+pump would be great Partial daily water changes (~20-30%) vaccuming all the crud (and Ich cysts) off the bottom. If you dont then I'd do this: Increase temp to 29-30C Make sure there is good water movement Do daily or every 2nd day partial water changes (20%) using a gravel vac They'll fight it off straight away. I purchased some Clown Loaches from a store that didn't look after them very well once, skinny as, got them home and they developed Ich/White Spot overnight, but the next day it was gone. In good conditions they'll do it by themselves High temps increase the life cycle of the Ich so it has less chance to re-infect. Clean water improves the fishes natural immune system. As part of its life cycle Ich sits in the gravel, so vaccing it out reduces the numbers.

Hey all, Our convicts and angels laid at the same time. Since we haven't bred convicts before and they're in a tank with a rather nasty Jag, we wanted to remove them, and the angels are with bristlenose who like to eat at night, so want to remove these eggs too. To cut a long story short I only have one tank available. Since the eggs were laid the same day, will the fry be OK hatching together? Angels are the silver two stripe (wild) type, so they're badass angels not fancy types if that makes a difference. Cheers, Jono

I just wanted to be the first to say ewwwwww I dont mind live food provided it can be swallowed in one go and doesn't stress out the food, watching an aro 'chew' a big mouse isn't my cup of tea lol I'll email those pictures to Helen though, she has a thing for fish that eat animals apparently. She saw a baby Arowana the other day and yeah guess what our next fish is :roll: :lol:

Personally I dont think there is quite enough discussion about American Cichlids to make it beneficial. People generally dont like clicking too many times, so will often avoid forums which have less discussion, so eventually nobody reads it. We love them with all our heart, but just dont see enough american cichlid talk. Normally I'll try to squeeze my american cichlid chatter in to 'General Breeding', 'Diseases',and 'Freshwater' (NB: I'm just a mod, not an admin, so what I've put above isn't an official response, just my quick thoughts on it).

haha I was thinking the same thing

This topic no longer needs to be in Off-Topic yey for the new section!

Common Plec and Redspot Plecs are very hardy fish and can tollerate and even thrive in adverse conditions. I wouldn't expect any problems with a high pH. Highest mine have been in has been about 7.8 but they didn't even blink at that. If you're looking at fancy plecs or bristlenose it may be different, although I do know of one family of regular bristlenose that are breeding in pH 8.2.