jn

Yeah.. them not being in the own tank is surely the biggest factor. 2nd would be plants... I'll start with that. She's calmer today but still puffing a bit.. still eating like a horse too so she's well which means I'm happy. 1 fry died 3 others still looking fine and swimming around strongly enough. I'll be happy if even one survives

Ok. Thanks everyone. I decided to just leave her be and will be better prepared next time. Maybe sometime next week I'll take all leopards out and put them into the other tank where there are fewer hungry mouths as a start. It's smaller too so should be easier to build up some cover. I have very little in the way of fine leaved plants for now. I still have mainly stem type plants so very little cover for fry. Will see what I can do about that soon. What plants do you like best for cover? I have a tiny bit of java moss that's growing in but what else would you recommend? Caryl, she was definitely keen for a fresh snack! I watched her eat several fry. One she ate before it even hit the bottom of the breeding net! Popped it out, turned around..and down the hatch! I can see though how it would be harder for her to eat them if they were falling into the gravel carried off a little by the current but the white backdrop of the net was like a sushi bar setup for her! i know she ate at least one more overnight cause I saw one hanging out as I trundled off to bed yesterday... who knows how many more she ate. I never really intended to use the net for them to drop their fry...was just going to grow them on in there for a bit...I just seem to have left out thinking about the bit before that Never mind.. I'll do better next time Alan, I've seen the picture posted of the big breeding trap inside a tank (I think Billaney may have posted a pic some time ago.. made of plastic type mesh with the sides all woven up tight !!) ...It might be time for me to go scout some materials. Maybe even a small breeding tank that I can buy a filter for. My tanks are aqua one tanks. They make hanging stuff from the sides very awkward... and the flow is not really ideal for floating plants. Maybe just a small glass tank with a clip on light that I can pop an internal filter into when I want a better chance at breeding.

Thanks for the tip Caryl. I didn't realise. It seems the breeding net though just puts the fry closer for her to find and eat I don't think I have anything I can drop in as a fake floor either. Plus I've not got my 4 fry in the net now to keep them safe and I don't have another!! the fry spent last night in a yellow maggi stock container which I was floating in the net overnight but this morning got tipped into the net when I took 'mum' out! DO you think moving her to the other tank would be ok if I acclimatised her slowly? I have a media bag I can put over the filter outlet there. So she wouldn't be confined and there would be less chance of other fish eating the fry.. although she still might. Tanks are both at room temp and have the same gravel etc so the environment is probably reasonably simliar (and the water parameters are very similar too) Oh.. actually.. maybe not.. that one has planaria in it I need tank #3 or at least net #2

ok. and if she's still round does it mean there's still fry? or does it just mean she hasn't lost the baby belly yet? I was thinking that having left her all day to recoup from being 'trapped' I might pop her into my other tank with the borneo suckers where there might be fewer other fish to eat any fry she has left to drop. Would that be too stressful on her? (and do borneo suckers eat fry??) She's with WCMM and some american flag fish. I'm sure there is little chance of any fry surviing in the company of those little piggies but don't want to keep her in a net for days.

Hi all, Have a leopard fish that was dropping fry yesterday evening. I noticed her huddling down at the back/bottom of the tank and chasing away anyone who came near (she came up to eat twice though so I was pretty sure she wasn't sick) I popped her into a net breeder and was sucking the fry out as I spotted them (she got to several of them before I did though! Yum!). Anyway... left her in there overnight cause she seemed pretty relaxed about it (I put some small floating plant bits in there so she didn't feel too exposed) but there wasn't any point leaving her in there all day today since she was eating the fry anyway (I don't have a live bearer trap). I also figured she would have been finished by this morning. When I took her out.. she went back to the spot I caught her from yesterday and was still panting. She still looks round. Could she still be dropping fry? Or is it just stress from the activity? I caught a whopping lot of 4 fry :lol: .. I witnessed her eat at least 3 others. I assumed they didn't drop in huge lots. How long might it go on for?

yeah.. that's what I meant there are some DIY plans on the net for various types of home made filters that will sit out of the pond. You can use irrigation type tubing to make spray bars etc etc.. but you know.. if you find a sale on somewhere it might not be worth the trouble of trying to make your own http://www.petplanet.co.nz/shopping/pgm ... d=465&=SID That's a very tidy enclosure for your filter Caryl

Do you want a fountain or just water flow? (I know this is old but I just spotted it!) If you have room and it suits your p ond design you could design a trickle type filter that sat at the edge of your pond....the pump would sit before it.. and drop the water into the top of the filter.. which would flow out by gravity flow back into the pond.. giving you gentle movement. yo ucan plant around and/or in it.. and the filter is all there out of the water for cleaning and maintenance. You can then design the filter in a range of ways.. either with horizontal layers or with vertical dividers. If you divide it vertically you'd be able to have the filter hold water when the pump was turned off (ie: like an overflow sort of design rather than just an outlet at the bottom) That's what I would do personally Either in a big rubbermaid sort of tub or a very large planter of some type. and just sit some pots around it to protect it from the sun and make it look nice. You'd just ahve to make sure that if for some reason the filter busted that you wouldn't end up pumping the pond dry somehow... Could be easily done with a float switch on the pond or something.. or just making sure any spillage from the filter gets redirected back to the pond.

Could be a cross breed couldn't it?

Mine Came from Carla on here. Billaney bought a breeding trio as well at the same time.. dunno if he's had any success in spawning them. I like these fish alot.. but they are a bit rough which is fine if you plan for it. They are fin nippers but don't swim real fast so my other fish can get out of their way *most of the time*!. I have mine with WCMM and leopard fish but I think I'm going to take them out and put them on their own. I want to swap in my borneo suckers and there is no way the jordanellas would leave any food for them. I also suspect they might hammer them to bits fighting over the sinking pellets as I've seen them do with the odd shrimp pellet!! They're sort of like little bulldogs! (look like them too really!) I was thinking of putting them with a few red mollies for colour. I think they're about the same size and mollies don't have flowing fins so should be safe. (I wouldn't get sailfins though!). Their colours are subtle and pretty but would benefit from something else to set them off I think . I may just leave them on their own though Maybe buy a proper male as I think in my situation I just have a female acting macho! They're real characters and fun to watch. They eat algae off the glass and plants and stones.. but if they run out of algae they will turn to the softer leaved plants as they require some vegetable matter in ther diet. I use spirulina flakes and the odd pea. Oh.. and mine made it quite happily through the winter in my cold tank which was down near 12 for alot of the time (with good colour and in very good condition) so they don't need a heater.. some websites say they like tropical temps but if you look at their origins they would be quite used to the winter variation in temps. I've now got them in a tank with a heater set to 20-21.. but if I swap them out they'll be going cold again this winter if they're on their own.

This might sound a bit mad...I'm still very much a plant novice but here's my situation and I wonder if the same might apply to you. I had some decent plant growth for a while... then it stopped suddenly, then the algae growth sped up quite a bit...I added small doses of ferts (ferropol) and the plants are now growing again and the algae has taken a back seat ....I was having fine hairy sort of green algae growing especially quickly on the glass I tested nitrates and phosphates, neither was particularly high (10 and <.5 respectively) So if your plants aren't growing well.. then any available nutrients seem tol be taken up by algae (obviously algae has simpler ewquirements!) What I'm saying is you don't necessarily have too many nutrients.. maybe your plants are just having trouble using them properly ? Oh.. and anubias is very slow growing (dunno about val), but maybe you uneed some quicker growing stem plants who feed from the nutrients in the water to keep them in check.. like hygrophila or whatever suits your light conditions. I have ludwigia repens.. its growing at a pretty decent rate and doesn't get excessively straggly looking

ok JK.. so you can forget the tick I just gave you in the box for the most boring job (and delgate the tick to one of your box-maker auditing staff)

DOH! JK I think you just won most boring job! :lol: :lol:

Well they're black But not THE black boxes... no BUT.. THE BLACK boxes could be recording some of the stuff sent by the stuff on our boxes

Yeah but all the chicks would swarm around and take care of it

OHMYGOD! OHMYGOD!!! OHMYGOD!!! I do wish I hadnt' seen that....I'm already feeling like I have creepy crawlies all over me now!!! I believe Caryl....spiders are evil and I bet they would take over the world if they could agree on how to do it (hence the meetings I guess!)

I write the software that boxes which that hook up to other boxes works on. (Not games though! The software that helps real planes fly from a to b without bumping into each other)

I don't mind doing gravel vacs. My smaller one was a breeze.. self started in 2-3 shakes (granted it was VERY small!!) but too small to be practical on my bigger tank and I wanted to be able to have a 'clean one' for a quarantine tank so I don't have to share any equipment or nets if the need arises. Really don't fancy sucking on the tube thanks. Some of the meds I've had to use over the last few months were not things I wanted to accidentally swallow! I know I could submerge the tube to fill it with water and hold one end as I drop it into the bucket.. but that disturbs the plants I can't see the mechanism in the marina self starter.. but I'm thinking it might be a ball bearing, the aqua one just has a plastic flap which doesn't close fast enough or well enough to stop the water seeping back down the tube...I have to pump like a maniac to get it going! Just hopeless!

Caper I've been wondering the same thing I get that you have to supplement them.. but by how much eh?! And if you supplement too much.. they stop eating the algae! You have otocinclus right? Do they eat algae off your plant leaves? I have some borneo suckers and don't seem to attempt any feeding from the plant leaves. What's their behavious like? Do they swim around much? or do they mostly stay latched onto something?

Wrong kind of paint!!! UGH!!! I bet you weren't a very happy camper! I'll have to wait till this heat passes.. it's been about 30-35 here for the past several days! Not a good time to be wrapping my tank up in blankets! (paint would probably dry before it made it to the walls too!)

Ha Yeah.. I know what you mean....but I'd never used the aqua one versions so was just curious.. actually.. I can report back I guess I bought an aqua one model.. but I think its too big for my tank.. its an absolute right pain in the ass and I actually think its the worst purchase I've ever made. It's actually put me right off water changes! I absolutely dread it now! (my old cleaner is strictly for quarantine use only now!) Is this because it's aqua one? Or because its too big? I don't know.. But the self starter won't start and the hose kinks where the tube meets the hose. I'm more than a little disappointed... so I'll need to buy a smaller one.. and to be sure.. I'll be going back to a marina brand.

Thats the most entertaining post I've read in a long time Loopy I can almost see it, it must have been an absolute riot to watch!! Kribs are egg layers right? The fry would have been tiny I guess...livebearer fry should be ok then... I haven't taken out my gravel yet but I've done a couple of big gravel vacs and changed the filter wool and reduced the feeding by a lot (about a week ago) I think I'm seeing less of them already.

Thanks for that.. with getting rid of the gravel I wasn't so much expecting that to rid me of the problem but that it would help reduce any build up of detritus cause by the feeding habits of my fish basically to help keep the tank cleaner and starve them of their typical food source (hopefully help control them) I could just gravel vac any crumbs out of the gravel every day but I havn't got the time or the inclination With a barer bottomed tank the fish would be able to eat up all the crumbs or the crumbs would hopefully get swept up the filter. (or they would be easy for me to see so I could do a quick pass with the vac or a turkey baster! :lol: ) I have some bigger rocks in there that the borneos spend all their time on. They're more often on the rocks than on the glass. The only reason I have any gravel in there is to anchor my plants.. and its also helping me wedge some thin flat rocks up at an angle so the fish can hide behind them but I can still see them if I need to I've bought some tiny terra cotta pots that I'm planning on putting my plants in (still with gravel). I can lift those out and clean them easily. Then I thought if I replaced the rest of the gravel with some more large flat rocks I could just vacuum under and around them when I clean. I can probably add some drift wood too and grow some java fern and tie on some java moss too. (again, mainly trying to reduce the number of spots that uneaten food can sink into!) I read somewhere that planaria can eat immobile (newly hatched) fry. I just wondered if anyone had had any experience. I guess livebearer fry would be big enough to not be targeted. So you don't know if they are suitable as a food source? (not that I would encourage them! Still want them gone but wondered if not feeding my fish would be ok if they'd eat the bugs instead!)

I've got planaria in my tank with my 3 borneo suckers. I will do my best to get rid of them but in the meantime I was wondering if the suckers would be eating them? (there are no other fish in the tank) I know they come from overfeeding etc. My gravel is the culprit. The tablets I'm feeding (LBL tabis) eventually break apart and bits get in between the gravel where the suckers can't get to it. I'm doing weekly gravel vacs and now feeding significantly less so it may pass soon with any luck. (One of the fish was terribly skinny... so much so I thought he wouldn't make it but he's filled in alot in about a month so I'm more comfortable restricting the food now) I may remove the gravel completely and just keep large rocks which will make it easier for any leftovers to get eaten or sucked up but if the planaria will be getting eaten I could conceivabley feed almost nothing and let the suckers munch away on the unwanted little wrigglers! Or maybe I should add some different fish who can pick at the food bits in the gravel? I have leopard fish and WCMM in another tank.. the leopard fish might be better candidates, the wcmm never pick at the gravel at all, the leopards do a litte.. they would do it for food I think.. would fry be safe with the suckers in there?

Try the yellow pages and look up irrigation supplies.. sometimes those poeple also do pumps and stuff for pond and dams. You can also try PGG-Wrightsons the farm suppliers. You might also be able to look up 'water garden' on google (NZ sites) and it might bring up a few specialist places. I think theres a place called stone and water world and a place galled wrights water gardens, the might have the stuff. (Or can at least tell you exactly what you need and then yo ucan price compare once you know what you're after.

HA! Yeah.. that would would be great Till you sobered up and saw the disaster you'd created and realised you had to start over again. I'll just have to settle for some loud music instead. I'll save the alcohol till after the job is done!!