Adrienne

Oh Aaron - what are we going to do with you!!!!! :roll: Too much food, not enough water changes. If you only want to water change fortnightly you will need way bigger filters and about 1/4 of the number of fish you have.

Why a plane to Wellington. If they are going with a person you will need to check with the airline as they will probably need to go as hand luggage. Some airlines say no, some will let you. If they go in a suitcase as check in luggage they will be chucked around. If they are going with a courier company they most probably will be trucked down overnight.

this reply may be too late but when this happens with my fighters I use an icecream container and very gently scoop them and the adult male into it. Then I leave them in the container floating in another tank until they are free swimming and able to be released back into a tank own their own.

If you are using a healthy established filter and half a tank of water from a healthy tank you should be able to top up at least another 25% as it would be the same as doing a water change. If the fish are okay you should be able to put them back in. Just watch your readings over the next 2-3 weeks and water change frequently. Discus love fresh water anyway.

Not sure how long they last. I lost 50 guppies (approx) and a 10cm bn at the weekend to high ammonia. They weren't in a tank near our house so I didn't realise until it was too late. I also had an ammonia spike just before Christmas which cost me a discus and 10 cardinals. They were gasping for air and the discus eyes did start to cloud over. Cause in both cases - clogged filters.

Although your test was fine I would tend to think that it was ammonia causing the problem. I dose with flourish excel and it has no effect on my discus. Once the ammonia starts to rise, fish will come to the surface to air breathe and particularly if your pH is high. When do your kits expire?

I assumed that as he was a biology teacher he would have had a better idea of the need to keep the fish environment healthy. But then, just because my husband is a chemistry teacher it doesn't mean he is infallible either as he has been know to cause rather large explosions at times! However, when the eel arrives in the next few weeks I will be doing regular trips over to 1. check its being fed correctly 2. check the water changes are being done properly. 3. check the filter is running correctly.

Could be the temperature of the tank due to the hotter weather.

Nice idea but I think you would find the cost of setting up your own quarantine facility huge, unless you have a suitable set up already. I don't know of anyone who has what you require unfortunately. Good luck.

The planted tank you like the look of is certainly achievable but just make sure that you don't purchase fish who will wipe out plants. As for taping the tank, how bad is it. If you set it up nicely with good landscaping would you really notice the outside edges? My tank is in no way perfect but every one is so busy staring at it that they really don't notice. :roll:

Marble are $22 up here. Silver $32.

I wasn't going to admit this :oops: :oops: but then I decided that if one person learns from this I'd do it! :roll:

I have been working on getting a number of guppies - approx 50, of varying ages and colours for the tank in the school biology lab. I left the teacher to set up the tank, i.e. clean it out, partially fill it (about 8cm), turn the filter on etc. This was done a couple of weeks ago. Yesterday afternoon I added the guppies and one 10 bristlenose, plus lots of floating plants. I added all the water from my tank and used the cannister filter which had been running on it. This filled the tank to about 35cm. Went to look this morning - all dead!!!! Not one survivor. Got my test kit out and the ammonia was at the top of the level I could test for. pH also at the top of the low range kit I have. Discovered - the existing filter had not been cleaned by the teacher since the eel died last year (about 6months ago) and had been sitting in a dirty tank until put in this one. In fact the filter had never ever been cleaned at all despite my instructions. Lesson - 1. never get someone else to do something for you without explaining word for word what you want and checking its been done. 2. never ever add fish to a tank without testing the water parameters first. I am fanatic about cleaning my tanks and filters. No wonder the last 3 eels didn't make it!

so they haven't cooked then!

I feed them once they are free swimming. Green water works too.

easy to keep going and look after. Can get smelly though but great for fry.

I don't have any set up at the moment. I use a small tank - about 15 litres, and fill it to 6 inches deep. You can use any sized tank but a smaller one keeps the female closer to the male. A heater turned up to 28-30 degrees. I add a polystyrene or plastic lid and tape it to the corner to hold the bubble nest if the male wants to use it and a plant to float in the top so the female can hide if she wants. I use another drink bottle with top and bottom cut off to hold the female when I add her.

Brilliant!!!! :lol: :lol: :lol:

Heres the pics you asked for. The containers (drink bottles) I keep the males in with holes for water circulation. In the tank The whole tank pic My growout tanks I also have about 7 other tanks from 100 litres down to about 11 litres. Hope these help

heater burn?

thanks - didn't know I'd sent to you (or I don't remember, old age!). :lol:

You will need more than one tank, at least two, and depending on the size of the spawn you can get up to 500 young fighters. I have had 250-300 on several occasions but not recently. Depending on the number of males you get, once they get bigger and start to fight you will need to house them individually. Sometimes you can keep them together until they are big enough to sell or give to others but more often than not once they reach about 3 months old you will need to separate them, each into their own container. You can have just one male and one female and if they are put back in a heavily planted tank of a reasonable size after spawning the female will most probably be okay. If the male continues to annoy her you will have to split them as well. It all depends on the nature of the fish you have and each one is definately not the same. If you have more than one female in with a male they will still spawn but the young will not survive. Look at sites like www.bcbetta.com as I have found them to be spot on with their advice. Be warned, raising fighters is very very time consuming (the containers need to be cleaned regularly) requires a large amount of space and money as the tanks either have to be heated or the individual containers kept in a warm enough room. PM me with any other questions if you like.

My tanks are off the top of the thermometer charts lately. I have no lights on during the day and the door of the shed is left open when I am at home. My fish are okay but I have had to run airlines to the non-fighter tanks. If it gets really hot try leaving your lids up - from what I remember you can't take them off as they have filters in the lids.

I also get this but only when I try to post too many pics. Trial and error has shown that I can get 3 and sometimes 4 pics per post depending on size and resolution. You may have to fiddle around to work out how big your post can be and if it needs to be bigger then split it into 2.

You're pretty safe. Of the last 3 spawns in my tank with other fish the furtherest they have got is to the wriggler stage before another discus has made a meal of them.