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What size is your gravel? Is it about fish mouth size? :-? You can tell their breathing rates by how much the gills are moving I think.

As annoyed as you are about having to rebuild.. I bet you're complretely chuffed that you caught it in time!! Good spot!

Hi there.. I'm betting folks will want to know how often and how much water you change out

Hi all, I'd like to pop in if that's ok Will be nice to meet you and good to know some folks that I can talk 'fish' to

Yup.. definitely no good for any fry in the tank. That's part of the reason I was considering leaving my 35L for breeding or fry raising Do I see a 3rd tank in my future? Nah..I'll either have to settle for not breeding the jordanellas or keep using plastic bins to raise fry which should be fine during the warmer months. Any later fry will have to swim fast or get eaten! (I did it with my goldfish fry and they coped just fine!) You are a terrible influence Wilson.. I'm sitting here thinking I could go buy a male Jordanella tomorrow and pop it in my new tank until the girls are cleaned up! I think a male with no females shouldn't be aggressive towards your fish when I add them at the weekend!

Thanks Wilson I'll keep Organism in mind. I tried to buy some from them before I got mine from Carla but they didn't have any. Good to know I might be able to get some locally though. I've never seen them here. (I had called everywhere!) I saw that you were bringing a couple platys to the TT meeting but I think I'll wait until my heater is freed up from my quarantine tank (what a shame!). I've dropped it in the 35L to speed up the fluke lifecycle so it won't be available for several weeks yet. Wouldn't want to freeze the platys and their little ones!! I also don't have the borneo suckers yet.. just planning ahead I filled my bigger tank last night to make sure it didn't leak. I'll be setting it up tonight with gravel and plants I'll let the tank settle for a while after I get the fish from you and then add my existing fish after they're clear. When that's all done I'll see what's around and how they're all getting along before buying anything new (by which time I'm betting alll the fish I want will be unavailable from the shops again! :-? ) What do you think about having keeping the platys with the minnows and leopard fish?

could it be cyanobacteria? is it bright green? does your tank smell very musty?

I'm surprised that you have ammonia registering something other than zero? When did you last test? Have you added new fish lately? Have your grown signigicantly? Your filter should be coping. The ceramic noodles should never need replacing. They shouldn't need cleaning either. These noodles house the bacteria you work so hard to build up. If you changed them when you changed your gravel then you must have triggered a whole new cycle with a full tank load of fish but surely even if you did it should be finished by now? (very odd!) I don't know about the AR850 but if its the same as the other types the most you have to do is rinse the very top layer of filter wool. The carbon probably isn't necessary, from what I've been told, if you add fertiliser for your plants, all the stuff you add just gets locked up by the carbon. It's useful if you've been treating with medication and stuff but probably not necessary the rest of the time. Get some plain filter wool to put over the filter sponges. (I actually cut the old wool off the plastic cartridge and tipped out the carbon and kept the plastic tray to hold new carbon if I ever needed to add any! Very handy!) How long has the phos-zorb bag been in there?

12!! Really.. ok that's interesting to note! I currently have a small cold tank but am starting up a 90L one (planted) this week (buying wilsons coldwater stock!) so just investigating my options. I posted in the freshwater thread but didn't get any bites. :oops: The tank will have leopard fish (7) , wcmm (9), a couple borneo suckers and MAYBE my fin nipping jordanella floridae (3). I was planning on running my heater at the minimum temp (18 on my new Jaeger heater) to just keep the chill off. Wanted to keep my current 35L tank more or less free as a breeding or fry tank otherwise I would dedicate it to my jordanella girls and maybe buy them a boyfriend (they're awesome fish actually!) I thought platys (platies?) might be a good size, not big enough to trouble the wcmm, short enough fins and quick enough swimmers to be spared by nippy jordanellas. (but pretty enough to add a splash of interest). What do you guys reckon? Should I keep a bigger school of leopards and/or wcmm? Or should I add some platies? The 35 L was my first tank so I'm still pretty new at this

What minimum temp are they comfortable at? Are they fussy about tankmates? Are they slow moving fish and what tank level to they prefer to hang out at? Are they happier in groups? If I buy different colour strains I guess they will breed with a mishmash of colours? How about M/F ratios?

Could some bad bacteria have been stirred up when you changed the gravel? You said you never really had to gravel vac before so I get the impression you didn't do it regularly? Perhaps there were pockets of anaerobic stuff that the fish have been fighting till now? Have you done any water tests? Could your newer gravel be affecting your pH?

I have some Lilaeopsis Nova Zealandiae (or something like that!) in with some goldfish. I have some indoors and some in a pond outdoors. The fish don't eat it and it can handle low light and very cold temps it seems It can get fairly tall though I've had some as tall as 10cm I think! Not a hugely spectacular plant but a good filler and probably good for trapping eggs and sheltering fry! (Mine came from a garden shop that sold pond plants)

Have finally been forced to buy a heater so am looking at moving to a subtropical type tank soon. I am also confining myself to shorter finned fish (I have some fin nipping Jordanella Floridae) and was looking for something with a bit of colour. I thought some platys might be good. Can they handle 19 degs? They'd probably be sharing the tank with WCMM, Leopard fish, Borneo Suckers and probably those jordanellas. (I like my jordanellas so much I may give them their own tank but I'd better err on the side of caution for now Alternatively I was thinking about cherry barbs? They seem smaller and seem to have shorter fins than Rosy barbs from the pics I've seen on the web. Can they handle it cool?

Good job dcase. You've obviously taken to it like a fish to water Do you have to be careful when you take nitrazorb out? (I don't know anything about it)

I really don't know this from experience might it be safe to assume they jut more sensitive to really high nitrates?

That sounds pretty ideal actually !!

With a screwdriver huh and you just had to keep tweaking them till the temp was right? I ask cause someone once offered to loan me one of that type.. trying to talk me out of a cold tank. I didn't know what to make of it and felt too stupid to ask The white rubber caps looked like they had been melted on and off several times over :lol: It had a dirty great big white cable and 2 wide but short clear glass tubes. (Not exactly the most stylish accessories ever made!) I'm all for vintage by the way.. they sure don't make stuff like they used to and you really have to admire stuff that last and last and lasts......

Did you need a separate temp controller? OR did the thermostats that you set up have a sensor built in to cut out at some specific temp? (ie: you chose the thermostat you required at the time?)

Ripe?! :-?

I'm treating with drontal for flukes (hence the pink water!). One of my jordanellas trailed this 'mother of all poos' for most of the night!! I was wondering if she's just been eating heaps or if there could be tapeworm in there? There are some white bits in there but i suspect that's from the tabletting agents used in the Drontal. They spend all day eating algae but normally drop wider shorter bits off!! If it was tapeworm would it necessarily be all white?

I don't know anything about kribs unfortunately But I've read heaps about salt and if the kribs can handle it I bet a bit of it might be good. I think it helps take the pressure off their osmoregulation system when they're stressed (I think that's right!). Also it would help make sure she didn't develop a secondary bacterial/fungal infection (IF they can handle salt of course!!) (Hey.. just found this on a google search: http://www.fnzas.org.nz/articles/generalarticles/salt/ ) Do kribs tolerate the low pH you had in your tank? Could her gills could be 'burning'? I think they can get pH burn. If her colour is back then that's good news anyway. Keep us posted

So how are you getting on Sorcha? Have you manage to drop your nitrates any yet? How's the krib?

Thanks guys. I guess I should have been more specific but I get the point. I was thinking about my very cold tank possibly at 14 degrees and the minimum setting on the heater which may be 20! If I was buying a smaller heater I'm guessing the tank would warm slower but I think I'm in luck as the forecast for here tomorrow is quite warm so I may not have to worry too much. I tried to buy one today but I've obviously not been paying attention.. went out on a work break to Organism and they were shut!! SO disappointed!! 1 degree per day sounds good though and will keep it in mind if I want to raise it to more than the minimum temp so thanks. I don't think I'd take it over 22 at worst. Any of you guys ever dealt with flukes before? My fish looksa bit better today and I'm about to add some more prazi just after I feed them. My little guy that was hiding in a corner for the last while is out with the others! Yay! These guys won't be going anywhere near my new tank until they've been clear of symptoms for 6 weeks maybe. So effectively my tank is in quarantine now! No shared nets or tools or buckets or anything! What a drag!

So Ianab what you're saying is that a BN would be better suited to the water quality in your typical goldfish tank? That's good to know and thanks for clearing up the BN vs. pleco size thing too!

Hi all. I have been posting in the disease section. I'm pretty sure I have gill flukes in my coldwater tank. I need to warm the tank up the speed up the lifecycle for treatment I'm switching to a bigger tank as soon as I'm sure these buggers are gone and was going to buy a 100w heater for that. Can I just drop a heater that size into my 35L tank to speed up the life cycle. Will the fish cope with the sudden temp change?