SpidersWeb

!!!!!!!! wow, err sorry I used VitaPet AllWormer not Drontal though, and none of the fish showed any signs of distress at all??? eck well clearly a bad idea I removed most of mine using a gravel cleaner, adding carbon got rid of the light pink colouration within two days. Only did it once on a main tank, and subsequent times used 1 or 2 pills in my 30L hospital tank. Haven't had to re-use it since then. Wow, feel really bad about that honestly I didnt have any problems :( , after hearing that I guess its best to use Liquid Prazi as suggested and avoid the weird methods wonder how big a $100 bottle is.

I never flush fish before the gills stop moving. My picks would be the vodka method or the freezer method. Preferably the former because I have a big enough issue with Tuna in there. In the past, I've never once intentially helped kill a fish, just let nature take its course. Obviously if there is a chance of recovery (irrelevant of the fish type, size etc) I'll do whatever I can, even if $18 of Furan2 is needed to save a $2 fish, which is stupid really, but yano the whole 'pet' thing.

I had a RTS when I was a kid (~10-12yrs ago), and I remember it being a problem harrassing other fish, I dont remember the specifics but I have this automatic 'NO WAY' reaction to buying one now. I remember him being fine younger, but a huge problem when he got older. Also remember when my tinfoil barbs had a swordtail lollipop :-?

I run a pH of 7.2 and using DIY CO2 I get no pH drops. The easiest way to prevent pH drops is to put coral sand in your filter. I got a bag of it from Hutt Pets for $45 (its a huge bag though). I worked out that 1 handful per 200L of water in the filter increased carbonate hardness (KH) by 3dH, and did not cause a raise in pH (tapwater is 7.2, and tanks stay at 7.2 now). I use a 6dH KH in my tank with DIY CO2 and no pH swings, and no air pumps on timers, and no sick fish, and minimal water surface movement. The tank is certainly responding to the CO2, and runs at about a bubble per second in to the diffuser during the day (where the yeast is heated), and I turn the heater off at night, and it slows down the bubbles but they keep going. Not sure if that helped at all. Setting up a proper CO2 setup with the timer solenoid etc will cost $300+ where you may find (on a budget) that money is better spent on lighting and ferts. Also Hutt Pets has a 90x70x70 2nd hand tank for like 70 bucks or something around there, but you could get a brand new 2'x2'x2' (60cm cubed) for around $200-$250.

Firemouth would be fine. They take a long time to grow to 6 inches as well. Firemouths aren't very interesting if you just have one though, so I'd recommend 2-3 males. If they're the same size, they'll be firing up their red gill covers all day They're generally not very aggressive either. I had them with neons, only reason I removed the neons was because they took too long to wake up in the mornings and as nice as the 12 cichlids were, floating food with a blue stripe that doesn't move is too much temptation. So if its slow and fits in the mouth, they'll eat it. I've got a tank of 7 juveniles, 6 are male, and they flock to the front of the tank and dance around like excited little puppies everytime I go near the tank, the adults in my other tank aren't quite as much fun but they're a little smarter and recognise the flake container Angels are another fish I like a lot, I've got six, and all have different personalities. Would love an oscar, and the gf wants a pair, but its a huge tank requirement.

Oh and the equipment was fine too. Jebo 819 must have spent about an full hour pumping pure air. Shark internal must have spent about 2+ hours pumping air. 1 heater operates almost vertical, and ran in water/air most of the night I guess 2 heaters spent about 2 hours out of water, no cracks, no problems. Times are guesses, but DAMMMMMMNNNNN thats lucky.

Hey whetu, Things were going no problems. I'm not sure if it was the carbon, or just natural settling, but the fog cleared in a few hours. The mixture was brand new, and I realise my mistake. 1/4 teaspoon is not the same as one heaped teaspoon :oops: :oops: Nope no baking soda. I also learned an additional lesson, and what a fabulous one it was indeed, first I'll explain my setup. Underneath the tank I have a bucket of water heated by a 25W heater, keeps the yeast at 20C during the day, and I shut it off at night. in the bucket are two 2L containers, each with yeast mix, which go to two air hoses, then in to a T, then up in to the tank and down to the bottom where a Nutrafin diffuser is located. Worked well. Except when I disconnected it, I realised the danger of a syphon, so I put the end of the hose in the bucket of water, effictively trapping air inside the tube, it sat for a day or two like this no problem. Then last night I decide to have an early night, and Helen thankfully shut down my lights. One of my lights does not have a switch, or timer, so we manually unplug it, the plug is a little bent so you have to kind of yank it. The lines to the plugs are nearby the CO2 tubing, so when the plug was yanked, a little unconnected piece of air tubing fell on the carpet. Thankfully at 4AM I got hungry and go down stairs. 'Oh noes' I say as I notice my socks are wet. Thankfully it hadn't finished draining but still got a good 180 or so litres of water in the kitchen, *joy* Oh and I had 450W of heaters (3 x 150) running, so the remaining 30 or so litres in the tank was getting very very hot, the front glass of the aquarium was hot. Thankfully no fish were lost. In fact I think they kind of liked the 90% water change. The tank was refilled and finished at 78F, I'd say the water in the tank was above 90F and with no surface movement except a pleco who was FREAKING out like crazy and splashing the place up, so I'm guessing it was a huge relief for the fish. I consider myself very lucky that the high temp didn't cause any sickness or fatalities. SO yeah leasson learned, if you disconnect your DIY CO2, make sure the air tubing to the diffuser is raised ABOVE the tank or disconnected completely. ugh we're STILL working on cleaning the kitchen, god damn carpet, ugh *curses* I installed a check valve, only to find out it was faulty, so dont trust check valves for CO2.

I kept platties in a 3ft aquarium with a palm sized red earred turtle. We used slate rocks as his ramp, so if one fish was getting picked on there was a resting area, and a safe place to sleep, in between the slates was a good hiding place for the baby fry as well. The platties were quicker than the turtle, but if he got one, there was another twenty or so on the grow. He knew they were food, but turtles aren't the fastest of swimmers, just as long as the fish isnt stupid enough to swim around its nose.

I agree. *pats his Jebo 819* so pretty, whosss my cute lil' jeboooo (on more serious note, its silent, pumps hard, was cheap at $170 retail store, and holds a LOT of media (8 trays), oh and the media comes WITH the filter for FREE and includes carbon, coarse and fine pads, and two types of bio-noodles, also all the piping and spray bar, and a spill tray, plus 2 year warranty) I also have the smaller Jebo 810 ($130) which is great too. I beleive the Jebo 815 (~$150) is the closest to the Fluval 305 (as far as filtration goes, Fluval does have neat little extras) EDIT: Pawz bet me to the reply, and got her filter cheaper than me at $110 I'm going to go have to pop some caps

I kept one in an outdoor pond with goldfish for a year or so, then when the pond was rebuilt and the fish removed there he was, and he was enourmous (as far as Paradise fish go). Not sure if this was a good idea, but I was new to fish keeping back then.

Cheers guys Good to hear its not a drama. Water seems to have cleared up mostly now, and the fish aren't showing any signs of stress, so its looking sweet as now. Did have me worried though.

Ah you said it better than I did. Causing pain to animals for your own pleasure is where I draw the line.

Changed my DIY CO2 mix this morning, and I put in too much yeast by the looks of it :oops: a few minutes ago I spotted some of the froth going in to the tank! The water has gone cloudy as you can imagine. I've cleared the lines, water down the mixtures, and added carbon to the filter to try and pull the foam back out again. The fish do not seem bothered by it, but is there anything else I should be doing? How much of a problem is this? Any other problems besides cloudy water I might face? I did a 20% water change yesterday with rain water, and I can do more today if its necessary, just hard for one person (me) to get the hood off. Kind of concerned because this tank has six angels, and seven Firemouths in it, and I'd hate for anything to happen to them due to my stupidity.

Feeding a mouse to piranha is no real different from feeding guppies to an oscar, except you dont see the guppy get ripped up, it just disappears. So the event itself is fine with me, but I think its natural (and good) to have a negative reaction to visually seeing an animal pulled apart. Some people get a kick out of that image, and that is worrying for obvious reasons, but the use of mice as food itself doesn't bother me. I do beleive that when feeding live food the food should be at least unconcious though but really I'm sure much worse things happen to mice in the wild, just a reality of the world unfortunately. If I was that mouse, I'd much rather be ripped apart in seconds than slowly dissolved inside a snake or something.

Congratulations Keri!

Lime

I'd go down to the Waikato River, and pick yourself a nice selection. The standard grey river rocks are fine, I just let mine dry out and spray with hose, and run over with an old tooth brush. Try to get flat ones for roofs and tall squareish ones for walls if you plan on building any caves. Flat rock slates are fantastic for roofs if you can find any. Only real rock that'd cause you any concern that I could think of would be limestone. If you have any rocks you're suspicious of, poor vinegar on them, if it fuzzes a little then don't use it, otherwise its fine.

Sincere condolences on your loss Krissie. It is really hard to know what to do when you can't take your pet to the vet. As you said, learned something new, did ya best.

I lost my receipt :oops: but from memory I paid $130 for my 810 (900L/hr) including media, spray bar etc, and about $170 for my 819 (1200L/hr). 819 is HUGE, has like 8 trays. Both came with little drip trays too, so when you take the lid off nothing gets on the carpet. My 819 even had a bag of activated carbon with it. Only Fluval I've had before was a 404 about 2-3 years ago, and it wasn't anything special. Never had an Eheim.

Now thats what I'm talking about. Jebo range available at Hutt Pets (I got my 810 and 819 from there), or if you want to get all fancy pants, AquaFunDay at Animates tomorrow, might be able to score a nice Ehiem or Fluval. Jebos come with all the media etc you need, and they're cheap as chips (well granted thats a LOT of chips but yano).

Careful with the Jebo heater, they're known to leak, you can often remove the top cap with a small tug. Friend of mine strongly discourages them, saying that one lady had hers catch on fire inside the tank. But I have a pair of Jebo 2010 150W heaters in my tank and haven't had any problems yet. Just wanted to point out that Jebo heaters aren't as good as the filters. Congrats on the new setup

Got a spare tank with sponger filter but need a big load of moss to cover the button, like say 400x200mm. Yell out if you have enough at your place, I'll put together some change, otherwise I might get lucky at the Aqua Fun Day :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: It looks like the boys were keen, and the girls weren't, found about 3 very fat girls hiding from the boys. 2 were by the filter inlet, which cracked me up, some of the keener chasers are still harrassing them, but they're half-tired, so they forget about the 1200L/hr intake right next to them haha 'oh noes!' thankfully the strainer isnt too thick. I'm guessing this is why you're supposed to seperate the males/females. Oh and I fed them bloodworms last week, that probably did it along with the 28C temp.

Run them seperately. You will get higher water flow, and the multiple intakes will provide for better water collection. Running them in series means you get more media capacity, but this is kind of pointless IMHO because if its THAT big a deal just clean the filter more often. You could use the CF500 for things like coral sand (since they're africans), maybe carbon, lots of wool, and clean it monthly leaving the 700 alone. If you need more media capacity, but dont want any more water flow, then use them in series and yes you can do that. Personally I'd just buy a bigger filter.

I did see this happening also. But no milt or eggs? Using the 'straight lines' are boys trick, I worked out that the chasing and spinning in circles is male on male, but on occasions small groups or a pair would go down near Java moss or maybe just a little bit of dense plant, and would involve a single female and one or maybe 2-3 males, one male would move up next to her, and kind of bump her repetatively side by side, then they'd flick around. But yeah no eggs or milt or anything. Most of them have gone back to schoaling except a few keen ones, although they're not as energetic as they were this morning :lol:

Ahh that makes a lot of sense. They stopped for a few seconds to eat flakes, and went back to it. Has been about 3 hours. Haven't seen any eggs yet. Whole thing has made me want to breed them now haha