Adrienne

I have around 2 litres of unused ceramic noodles which I want gone from storage. Free. Pick up is Epsom, Auckland.

I don't really blame your mum for not being keen. Marine tanks are a lot more power heavy to run than freshwater and more expensive to maintain. Then there is trying to arrange the furniture around the tank With a marine tank you will likely go through a lot of rearranging of the rock to fit corals in with the look you want as well.

How far in driving time are you from the East Cape? There is a mass of the most brilliant hard wood drift wood washed up on those beaches and it looks great in the tanks. I have always just given it a good rinse off but Shilo's advice is good and sound.

The plants you have do not need high light to grow, in fact some prefer the low light. You need high light for some plants and for any red plants. Do not worry what people say - if you are happy with it then pay no attention. I like what you have and it goes well with the backing.

Width being front to back? That is something I really wish my tank had as it is only 51cm and therefore I can't get the impression of a real reef. They should be fine together with enough hiding places and if added at the same time. Like humans, not all fish get along so just have a back up option if it goes wrong.

Hi again When I started out I was told that if you get a group of chromis they will eventually pick each other off until none remain. So I got two and eight months later I still have two. Occasionally the slightly larger one nips the smaller one, a lot of chasing also goes on but they are doing well. Copperbands need to go in a more mature tank - 9 months onwards unless you know they are eating frozen foods or mussels/clams. They like to pick in the rocks for pods which take a long time to establish and will also pick off feather fans, bristleworms, brittle stars and hopefully aptasia which is the pest anemone. With a tank that size you have most tangs as an option and there are a few currently available in the country. There are also two type of Kole Tang (blue eye and Hawaiian/Red Sea which is a yellow eye). When you do add them try and get similar sized ones and add together as this will decrease the chance of aggression. Love the purple tangs - the ones around currently are stunning fish. The best bit of advice I ever got - which you seem to be doing anyway - is work out what fish you want before you buy a single one. That way you can add them to the tank in an order which is likely to improve the chance of survival and lower aggression. Good work.

TBH that tank is a little small - 80 litres is really the minimum size. Tips for keeping them - the water quality needs to be impeccable, the tank requires grouped plants with open swimming spaces and also rocky hiding places and also some smooth larger stones for the female to lay eggs on. The fish can become agressive when breeding (it won't be an issue if you only have a pair of GBR in the tank), both parents share the raising of the fry. Ensure the fry can't get sucked into the filter. Water quality is essential, if it is not kept absolutely perfect the adult rams and/or fry will not survive.

i've kept them. I like them as much as I like Sterbai, which is a lot! Peppered cory leave me cold. Found Julii were relatively slow growing in comparison to Sterbai.

Today I had my first attempting at fragging my frogspawn coral due to its size - much to the horror of my Picasso clowns who host the coral Here are a few pics for those interested in marine tanks. More fragging is required over the next week or so as I want to add more zoa to this particular tank. Whole tank shot Where has the rest of my home gone to? One of the frags

Glass shrimp - from streams. Try posting in the natives section

UV only works on algae in the water column as it needs to pass through the UV sleeve. Given you have a cichlid tank I am assuming you have plants like anubias in there which are prime bba targets as they are so slow growing. You can remove and bleach the plants to get rid of it if needed, otherwise as Markdn says you can dose flourish excel dependent on the fish, and the plants you have.

It would be a miracle if you managed to get rid of whitespot within one seven day cycle nb it will only be a seven day cycle if your tank is sitting around 30. Treat for 10 days and if you see no spots watch for another 11. If clear then, that lot of whitespot will be gone - however whitespot is always in the water, each time the fish are stressed there is the chance it will return.

Flakes or pellets depend on where in the water column your fish feed from. Flakes float and are good for surface feeders ie angelfish, micro pellets are good for the likes of tetras. Bloodworms are a treat and for small fish they are mucky to feed as only a couple per fish is sufficient. Variety is good, research the fish you have and what their preferred food is.

36 litre Aquaworld glass fish tank for sale, shape as in picture. No lids but in very good condition. Comes with a 55 watt Aquaone heater. Barely used, has been in storage in study for 18 months. Looking for around $20 for both but open to offers. Pick up Epsom Auckland.

That is gutting Sterlise all your equipment including filter media, nets, water change containers, stones, and your tank before starting again.

Yes vacuum and vacuum - you will be removing any whitespot/cysts that have fallen into the substrate. If you get them before they burst and multiply you will be winning the whitespot battle.

I can't tell from your photos but google cottonwool disease - this is bacterial and is when infection enters a cut of some sort. I tend to think that if your fish were fine before the heater malfunction - if it got to 36 then you are lucky anything survived - that the stress has weakened their immune systems. Adding replacement fish will have added to the stress of the existing ones and if you didn't quarantine the new fish for around four weeks on arrival they may have been carrying some sort of infection/illness/parasites. Added to that we all know that cichlids tend to be aggressive with each other, even on the best of days. The best thing you can do is keep your tank at optimum conditions for the fish you have, regular water changes to keep the tank clean, really good quality food, and wait to see what happens. Make sure your nitrates are under 5.

True green betta are rare in NZ - unfortunately due to the size of the country and therefore the small orders placed oversees we rarely get anything that is absolutely 'out there' in colours.

30 will be fine but 30 is high for most fish except discus. If you don't want to add an airline ensure that your filter is creating as much a disturbance on the surface of your tank as possible. If you see your fish, particularly the bristlenose coming up to the surface then you need to increase the water movement. 28 won't speed up the cycle much, 30 degrees will but that is the limit that most fish can handle.

TBH there is not much point putting them in their own tank but ultimately it is up to you. Ich is a parasite, always present but only shows itself when conditions within the tank are not ideal ie parameters, stress. It has a seven day cycle and is only treatable when it can not be seen - when it is in the water column or in the substrate. If you can see it on the fish then it has buried itself under the 'skin' and medications won't work until it releases and falls through the water column into the substrate where it bursts and releases hundreds more spores. Turn your temperature up and add an airline to increase the amount of water movement in the tank. Ideally you would treat with tonic salt in the water however your bristlenose won't handle much salt. Turning the temperature up with speed up the cycle so ensure you vacuum the substrate daily to remove any hatching cysts. If you do put them in their own tank you can treat with salt or tonic (works better than white spot cure), once again make sure you put an airline in to increase the amount of water movement in the tank. Once you have not seen any spots for twenty one days then you can consider it is over, until next time. Any idea what caused this outbreak?

Yes they had a stunning pair of gold halfmoons in the shop

There is no point in moving your betta out of the tank (or any other fish). You are best to continue to dose the tank until you can see the situation improving/cleared up. Vacuum everything really well during each water change as you will suck out anything dead and dying and be sure not to use any of the equipment on other tanks unless it is well sterilised. You can sterilise the equipment used by adding one cup of household bleach to half a bucket of water and soaking equipment in it for around half an hour. Then rinse out the equipment until you can no longer smell the bleach.

When I kept mine in small tanks I did not aquascape the tanks. That was just my personal preference. I have seen several betta keepers in Auckland with small and lovely looking aquascaped betta tanks - yours look great. JJWooble on here has/had hers in smaller aquascaped tanks last year but I don't know what she has now. The smallest tank I had that was scaped with bettas was from memory a 54 litre tank that was a females only tank. Made for a stunning effect with all the females colours. I'll see if I can find any photos but they are likely to be on this forum if I do - just pre 2011

Yes it was very cool and yes it is because the ones we have are fancy, not the wild bettas. It was great, we were fortunate to be motorcycling northern Thailand and the monsoon season had started therefore some could be seen in the real wilderness, off the beaten track.

Just thinking - something that is rare Grab yourself something like a turkey baster or syringe and suck out any waste/food off the bottom daily or every couple of days. The sponge filters do a great job of free floating particles but by doing this it will prevent the fins/tail getting mucky when the fighter rests on the bottom. It just helps with the tank hygiene and they do like clean water Not sure why, the rice paddies I saw them in ten days ago were pretty yuck!