michael.qian

You mean bristlenose? Can't find any info on "bottlenose catfish". If it's a bristlenose 26 is fine.

They probably hang around the filter because it produces the current they perfer. In their natural river environment there's a lot of strong currents, so they perfer tanks with fairly strong current, that's why they hang around your filter to be in the current.

Basically all the plants with big and thick leaves they don't tend to eat, I did have a problem with indian fern though they eaten it so bad I had to chuck the whole plant away.

I had an E Orisis plant with my goldfish and it did very well, they don't try to eat it, it needs slightly warmer temperature though and fair lighting, temperature I'll say 16 minimum.

If they look and act healthy, I wouldn't worry too much. they might eventually try it and learn it's food, so next time you feed they'll go for it. it was like this with my bristlenose catfish, at first they didn't really pay attention to the algae tablets I dropped in, even now they'll nibble at it for just a bit before going somewhere else to find some algae to graze on. But they do pay attention to courgettes I drop in real quick!

Ok I've searched google and it seems the dust stuff might be algae as well.

Hi all Well two things actually, one is green hard spot algae infestation, growing on some leaves of my plants, mostly the blue hygrophilas, any idea on how to get rid of these? My tank is in the lounge, doesn't really get any direct sunlight but lounge is always well lit. (by the sun) Also most of my leaves seems to have a layer of dust of them, white and light brownish in colour, got no idea about this one. Ideas appreciated. thanks a lot

what do you mean "changing filters"? if you meant replacing the filter media with a new one, that might be the cause, the new filter media won't have any bacteria to convert the ammonia yet, so he might have died of ammonia poisoning.

Whoa, that was pretty quick. Sorry about the loss. Might have got an internal injury somehow, how old/big is he? Got any sharp things in your tank? Why can't you bury him?

Do you have any fish in there? if yes what kind of fish?

I am not against GE but I like things natural, injecting the danios with dye or genetically modifying them to make them look bright coloured and attractive is definitely not natural and can be detrimental to the health and lifespan of the fish. Plus I do not think they look better in glowing red, green or any other colours, the first thing I think about is "have they been modified?" Things look best in their natural form. So if it were up to me (which it's not ), I would ban all genetically modified fish, but the current fish stock that are been destroyed, I would have them rounded up and cared somewhere but general public and fish keepers won't be able to access them.

If ammonia goes up to 2ppm then a bigger water change would be neccessary to make sure all the fish survive. I would do a 50% water change with ammonia at 2ppm, theoratically this should lower ammonia to 1ppm, from that point on, I would do smaller water changes depending on ammonia levels. I was told when ammonia drops to 0.5ppm or below, don't do water changes for a few days unless it rises again, this allows the cycle to continue without any interruption and your fish will be ok at 0.5ppm ammonia, at least for a while. Also don't do any cleaning, filter or gravel, to preserve the bacteria.

did water change yesterday morning, tested last night before feeding, but it was at night time and couldn't find a good spot to look at against the colour chart, so I think I'll disregard that reading, but ammonia this morning was still like yesterday morning. Will see tomorrow morning, won't feed today, have fed them pretty well in the past few days, even though it was in less amounts. I wish there were a better way of determining your water parameters by the chart card, seems very difficult sometimes to determine exactly where it's at.

Did a 25% change yesterday, maybe I shouldnt have done that because now ammonia have seemed to increased a little, this morning I tested the water though it was back to almost 0ppm like yesterday morning. Still no nitrite, hopefully you guys are right above nitrites produced were converted straight away into nitrate or absorbed by planted. From now on no water change unless it starts to rise again, if I didn't do the water change yesterday it probably would have been 0ppm by today.

what's the temperature? Most fish don't eat much at all when temperature drops significantly below their normal preference, if temperature drops too much they can die.

Discus usually perfer densely planted aquarium, compatible with most community fishes, ie. tetras. Avoid catfish though they might stick themselves to the flat body of the discus and damaging its skin. Make sure your water is in absolutely premium quality before you introduce any discus, they are not hardy fish at all and don't tolerate even the slightest flaw in water conditions.

If you have a good combination of fish in your tank, you can effectively ignore the one inch per galleon rule and still have a well balanced aquarium with a fair biological load that your filter can easily handle, also you've got plenty of plants as well that can help a lot. Idea is you want to get fish that swim in different levels of the tank, ie. neon tetra would occupy the middle mostly, loaches and corys will be on the bottom most of the time, so they won't get in each other's way and the tank won't feel crowed. You don't want to see 50 fish cramming in the middle of your tank while the top and bottom strata are left empty. What was your groundspace again? From what I remeber its bigger than mine. Bottom feeders are important, clown loaches are just fun to have, while corys and catfish do a very good job of cleaning. If I were to go with the one inch per galleon rule my tank would be many times overstocked by now lol.

Your filter cleaning might have gotten rid of lots of the beneficial bacteria that turns ammonia to nitrite and nitrite to nitrate. This is why you should not clean your filter and filter media any more than neccessary, when you do, rinse the media in your tank water rather than tap water, when you have to replace the media, try to replace just half of it and combine it with the old half to maintain some bacteria colonies. Right now test your ammonia everyday, when it rises do a partial water change, depending on the level of ammonia. Hope this helps.

Your tank should be able to handle more than what you've listed. maybe add another 1 or 2 bristlenose, 3 clown loaches will be great for your tank, I would go for 5-6 corys, up to 20 neon tetras. See what I have in my tank below, the tank is even smaller than yours. make sure you add then slowly though, a few fish every week or even every two weeks, so your beneficial bacteria doesn't have to try and catch up to the increased ammonia. Made that mistake myself not long ago and still in the process of cycling my tank properly, but looks like I'll get away with it without loosing any fish. good luck.

Wow that looks great. But I gotta say, the planted set up was my thing, the new setup is very unique but to me is not as visually stunning as you old setup. The pictures on page 5 looked the best I think. Awesome job.

Oh sorry for double post.

Thanks I expected there to be a nitrite spike as well, read lots of web pages they all say there will be a nitrite spike after the ammonia spike. I have lots of plants (not too dense), that might have helped? Cheers

Thanks I expected there to be a nitrite spike as well, read lots of web pages they all say there will be a nitrite spike after the ammonia spike. I have lots of plants (not too dense), that might have helped? Cheers

Don't change unless you absolutely have to, even when you do have to, it might be a good idea to cut a piece of the old sponge off and place it with the new sponge, this way you still have some of the bacteria. Rinse your sponge in the water from your tank, this way you won't lose as much bacteria as when you rinse it in normal tap water. Hope this helps.

It's strange your pH would fluctuate suddenly like like, normally they tend to stay constant, or start at for example 7 and drop very gradually toward your next water change. Are you doing any thing else to your tank? How big is your tank? If you want your pH to rise slowly add a handful of marble chips to your tank, they are pretty cheap I got them for $2.50 a bag from Hollywoods. Also don't try to change your pH too quickly your fish won't like it at all.