Adrienne

Okay - well I am going to invest in some new lighting for my 5ft planted discus tank. My plants grow but only slowly. I've read the sticky and am still confused. There seem to be many different brands of T5 lights on the market. What exactly am I looking for, are they all the same as far as lighting goes or the cheaper the lights the lower the lighting or is it the cheaper the lights the shoddier the casings? Does anyone have a brand they recommend or likewise a brand that they would prefer not to use and why. Thanks for your input into this.

:lol: :lol:

They ate the good bits and buried the rest - look under where they are sitting for the skeleton On the serious note - are you sure thats she's not wedged between something like rocks or plants or is her body floating up the top of the tank.

Good one - keep it up for at least 7 days as it is a 7 day cycle. Treat it like this - once you've had experience in dealing with whitespot you'll be ready to move on to the next thing Fishkeeping is great, you will learn so much. I remember thinking when I first started that it was normal for fish to drop dead all the time. Nowdays I am unlucky if I lose more than 1 fish a year.

Okay Cichlid7, what exactly do you have in your tank, what size is it and what filtration. Looks like your cardinals are going to be the first to be goners! :lol:

Hi, I haven't had any problems with adding the water ager to the tank and then filling from the tap. I have to turn my filter off as its an FX5 and I half empty my tank. It sounds like a waterfall!. Good thought though about the bacteria and one I hadn't considered.

Sorry that last post didn't make a lot of sense. Depends on your fish - I add it to the tank before I turn the hose on but thats because I have discus and don't want to upset them.

Hi, it looks very nice. What sized tank is it? I would also hide the heater but I know its not always possible. What other plants do you have in there? If you have valisineria (sp?) go easy on the flourish excel as the plant will melt (dissolve). There is also another option for feeding plants depending on what they are and that is to use some fertilizer balls which push into the gravel at the base of the plants. They are really good for plants which take up food through the root system, however you do have to be careful when cleaning the tank not to disturb them as they can turn the water muddy looking (temporary).

Not in the evenings, only in the mornings.

I'd take out the healthy looking ones for now and see how you go. From experience I do know that the faster you act the less problems. Of course that may not be the problem with yours.

agreed, but water changes will take ammonia back to 0 reducing the stress on the fish. Don't let this put you off fish, everyone gets whitespot at some stage. I hate to think how many fish I probably lost when I first started due to it. Sometimes the stress of bringing them home from the pet shop causes an outbreak!

Is that what it looks like with the naked eye or have you used a really good camera with a good lens?

Lovely :lol: :lol:

Is it sunny down your way today. My boys started blowing nests about 2-3 days ago before the weather forecasters said rain. At the time the nests were only loosely scattered big bubbles but today its very overcast and humid here. I have noted this afternoon that the bubbles are thicker, smaller and tighter than what they were and the nests are now in all the containers so I figure it will rain tonight. Male fighters are really really good at predicting thunderstorms!

I have had this happen on and off - it seems to be a random thing. The only advice I can give is that you change as much water as you can and add some salt. Bump the temp up a bit as well. Unfortunately I seem to lose all the fighters it happens to (as in once the tails clamp they don't open up again) and it spreads fairly rapidly through the tank but in most cases a small number escape having it happen to them. It usually happens around 7-9 weeks old. A very young breeder on here said she thought it was linked to ammonia build up but I have noticed that the lighter the fish the more likely it is to happen.

weather has been too warm lately - if you get a good cold front coming through the nests will appear.

As the title says and I am I correct in thinking there was a plec labelled as 'bumblebee plec' or was it something else. If so what do you think it was as I can't find any plecs known as this. Thanks

could be the change in weather i.e. low pressure system approaching as fish are sensitive to this. I know my male fighters started blowing nests 2 -3 days ago so I knew before it was forecast that there was a colder front coming.

nz couriers is open however I would wait until after new years before I send if I was you in case of delays

Welcome. To answer your question I have looked through the posts and if they are here in NZ no one on here appears to have them.

aaron - if you want to come and get a heatpack off me send me a pm - I'm in Epsom, not sure which suburb you are in now.

You need to aim to keep the ammonia at 0 so you really need to water change a smallish amount everyday. Because doing this is going to negate the white spot treatment using salt is probably your cheapest option. Ammonia will stress the fish which in turn will not help whitespot which is caused by stress and too much ammonia will kill your fish - which you will know anyway.

If you want to use salt add it at 1 gram per litre of water. When you waterchange take a note of how much water you take out and replace it at the same rate. The reason you need to note how much you take out is that water evaporates and salt doesn't. The fish you have listed will be fine with salt but use rock salt not table salt.

Well, according to this I am only 54% stocked. The only thing I disagree with is that it puts the temp range at 22-25 degrees and my fish include discus.