whetu

Well if you don't want to breed them, then don't take the parents out of the tank. They will just eat up the eggs and you won't end up with any more than you have already. They are definitely friendly, peaceful community fish, but they are also omniverous and will eat any little fish that can fit in their mouth. I had some in a tank with platies (many years ago) and they didn't eat any platy fry as far as I could tell. Instead I ended up with a platy over-population problem! :roll: I found that my rosy barbs liked a lot of green vegetables in their diet, and it was fun to try them out on new foods like peas, cucumber, lettuce, spinach, etc. Maybe your arm resembles a cucumber?! :lol:

I bought a large piece of wood off trademe several years ago. The woman said she had had it in a pond originally, but it had been out of the pond sitting on her lawn for a few months. She said when it was in the pond it had stayed completely submerged on its own. I have been soaking it for about five years now and IT STILL HASN'T SUNK!! :evil: :roll: Originally I put it in a bath of very hot water, weighed it down with some rocks, and changed the water repeatedly. I also scrubbed it with a wire brush as it was a bit muddy. Then I put it in my tank with rocks on it, but it was so buoyant (sp?) that it kept throwing off the rocks and shooting to the surface! (In a glass tank with glass covers this is a pretty nerve-wracking event.) So then I tied the rocks to it with fishing nylon. When I moved about a year later I thought surely it will sink on its own, so I untied the rocks. Nope! Still floating! But at least I could just stack rocks on it by now and be reasonably sure it would stay down. Next time I moved (about 18 months later) I screwed the lid of a plastic ice-cream container to the bottom of the wood and piled aquarium gravel and rocks on the lid. It stayed that way for another 18 months. Unfortunately the tank had an outbreak of BBAlgae so when I moved to the flat where I live now, I broke down the tank and boiled and scrubbed everything. The driftwood got boiled, scrubbed and microwaved. At that stage I didn't put it back in the tank. Instead I filled a large plastic drum with water outside and the wood has been in there (with rocks on it) for about a year. Now when I take the rocks off it stays about 3/4 submerged. THAT'S PROGRESS! :bounce:

Eh? You don't like rosy barbs? So why are you breeding them then?! :lol: Sorry I must have missed the thread saying that you don't like them (and why). Rosy barbs aren't aggressive fish at all, just bold and curious. That's one of the traits I like best about them. They are really good when you have other fussy fish in the tank because rosies think everything looks like food and they will go and investigate and start eating it, then other fish will come along and try it too. I'm sure they aren't really 'nipping' you - they are just trying to find out if you taste good! :lol:

phoenix you might need to be a bit more specific than that! :lol: eg your definition of "a load of salt" might be very different to someone else's and of course fresh water fish can become dehydrated if they have too much salt in their water. Yes it's true - fish can get dehydrated!

My heart goes out to the people in Samoa who are facing devastation as a result of the earthquake and tsunami. There is a lot of archaeological evidence that giant tsunamis have affected New Zealand in the past (big enough to bowl huge kauri trees) so it's highly likely another one will happen at some time in the future. I am very happy to be over-warned rather than under-warned! Hopefully this event will have a lot of people thinking about what they would do "in case" of a big one, and planning for the safety of themselves, their families and the vulnerable people in their communities. (What about the elderly couple across the road who don't have a car? What about the woman next door with three little kids whose husband is at work all day? etc etc)

Rosy barbs scatter the eggs all over the bottom of the tank. They will probably be too small for you to see, but they will definitely be there! Take the adults (and all other fish) out of the tank after you have observed the spawning behaviour, otherwise they will eat the eggs and fry. Now keep your fry tank gently filtered (with a sponge filter etc so the fry don't get sucked up) and wait and see what happens. If it is a planted tank with gravel on the bottom, there will already be plenty of infusoria (micro-organisms) in there for them to eat so don't worry about feeding them at first. Once you can see them darting about, you can add tiny fry food, and then when they are bigger they will be able to take finely crushed flakes.

Hey, are you people all forgetting the itty-bitty tetras in this tank? There would be carnage if you added some of these suggestions!

Don't depend on them all getting eaten! I made the mistake of doing this once and soon the tank was overflowing with guppies! I ended up catching them alland giving them back to the shop within a few weeks! As far as I can see you have no large carniverous fish in there so chances are a lot of guppy fry will survive.

sensitive new age real women calculate everything in nanametres: "what would my nana make of this?"

*Hops on the first available flight to Blenheim* Save some for me! :bounce:

Happy Birthday Grant! And that really is a brilliant cake! I'm going to save these photos and ask for a cake like this for my next birthday! :bounce: Oh darn, I have to wait until next June before I can have one though... :roll: PS Caryl, does Grant's tank-cake have algae?! Do you think he might like an algae-scraper for his birthday? I'm sure we can all chip in!

I can't seem to use the chat room (haven't been able to for ages). I click on the link but it just doesn't open. Consider me there in spirit.

I use different methods to sterilise different items depending on what kind of abuse the items can stand up to! My first choice for things that can handle it (for example gravel) is to boil it. I even boil spawning mops because I know boiling will not leave any kind of residue. My second choice (for tubing etc) is to bleach it. Use a plain chlorine bleach or peroxide bleach with no added fragrance etc. Dilute the bleach according to the instructions on the bottle and leave the item soaking for as long as possible. Then rinse very thoroughly and ideally leave it in direct sun for a while before using again or putting it away. For general cleanliness (for items not damaged by UV) I like to just rinse, dry, and leave it out in the sun. For example I do this regularly with all the towels/cloths that I use on the tank. Sometimes I use a strong salt solution. For example when I was sterilising my filters I ran them overnight using a bucket of very salty water. I didn't want to use bleach, but I wanted to be sure I had cleaned every part of the filter. I have heard potassium permanganate is very good but I do not use it myself as I'm scared of staining everything! I hope that helps.

Wow - after all that it would be too bad if you managed to kill them, Sam! :lol:

I have also heard that more complex sugars will help the process last longer. Some people recommend using raw sugar instead of white sugar, or adding a bit of molasses to the sugar mix. I haven't done any controlled experiments so I don't know if it's really true.

Welcome Petra! I'ts always great to recruit another enthusiast to the ranks! May you have many years of happy fish-keeping ahead of you. :bounce:

Ooooh that looks lovely and soft and velvety! I would ask if I could stroke your rocks but I might get banned... :oops:

This may be true but I think it depends more on the individual house - for example whether it has insulation and/or heating! My Canadian Sis-in-Law never ceases to be amazed at how cold our Kiwi houses are. An indoor 'cold water' tank in snowy Canada would be much warmer than the same tank in a house in faux-tropical Auckland. :lol: Just because we run around in mumus and bare feet doesn't make the place warm! :roll:

Well done Simian Great opportunity to promote good fish-keeping practices, and maybe help people to know where to turn for advice.

You can get incontinence pads from the chemist. Elderly folks like you often have problems like this but it's nothing to be ashamed of. Oooh... that could be him. He sounds nasty. I wonder what size tank Paul H. has, and how long he has had Havoc for. Sounds like there might not be any suitable tank mates for the hungry fellow!

Hear hear! I am very impressed and encouraged that there are so many people on here willing and able to offer help to a poor wee animal that is suffering. Good on you all and good luck to the patient.

Havoc the Attack Fish is apparently yellow and eats Silver Sharks. What kind of fish is he? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdqXt-Wdqxs

Can you post a pic of the tank with its current bracing? It would help to be able to see exactly where the existing bracing is and how it is secured, before being able to make an educated assessment.

I have two Eheim cannister filters on my 200 litre tank, and I find having two filters is great. It means you can be pretty rough with one (over-cleaning, changing all the media at once, etc.) and know that there will be no problems because the other one is still running fine. As for over-filtering, I don't think that will ever be a problem for your fish! Think of the streams and rivers some of them spend their lives in. They flow much faster than that. With a large piece of driftwood in there I'm sure the fish will have plenty of sheltered spots to hide in when they need a rest. The plants might be a problem though. When I mis-directed a spray bar in my tank it ended up moving all the gravel substrate around and leaving part of the glass bottom of the tank exposed. You would need to be careful that you didn't end up with the water digging up your plants and flinging them around the tank. But by careful placement of the output hoses, that doesn't need to be a problem.

A milk bottle won't be nearly as strong as a fizz bottle (fizz bottles are designed to be under pressure). Personally I wouldn't use a milk bottle as it might split!