Ianab

Yup.. thats a rough neighbourhood for a guppy 8) Not sure who is taking them out, if it was the knife fish it would have been a stealth attack at night and there would be no evidence left But the angel, algae eater, convict and tiger barbs are all prime suspects The danios are probably next on the hit list as the other fish get bigger. Cheers Ian

Small goldfish like that will be fine in your tank for a while 6 months time they might be 10cm long though, and the tank will be looking a bit small. But by then they will be fine in a pond. Cheers Ian

NZ tap water is generally pretty good and you usually dont need to use water treatement in it. It wont harm your fish if you do. The chemicals in it are relatively harmless, but unless you water actually contains significant free chlorine or chloramine then it wont do much. Cheers Ian

I think you will be amazed how fast the plecos fins heal. Mine fight amongst themselves and get ripped fins occasionally, but they heal up again in a week or 2 Cheers Ian

New pleco has settled into the tank and after a few skirmishes they have worked out the pleco pecking order and things have settled down nicely. A face only a mother could love :lol: Cheers Ian

You dont say how big the fantails are, I'm assuming they are fairly small at the moment? As long as they aren't monsters they will be fine in there for a while. You may have to find new homes for some in the future though, they can grow pretty big. If you have had the tank set up for a while (a month or more) it will have got through it's initial cycling. The water tests being 'OK' indicates your filter is cycled and working properly though. Slightly high phosphate isn't REALLY bad, but it will encourage algae to grow. Your plants will absorb some and water changes should take care of the rest. As for your sick fish... If the water tests fine and the other fish are OK then I wouldn't change anything about the tank. You may just have a sick fish, moving it to a 'hospital' tank for a bit of TLC is probably the best idea. Sometimes fish get sick and die in spite of us doing everything as best we can :-? Cheers Ian

They should be OK with anything thats safe to keep with a large angelfish. They get a bad rep because people only keep 1 or 2, then they seem to get bored and make trouble. If you have 6+ they spend all their time harmlessly chasing each other. Cheers Ian

More pleco videos Eating shrimp this time. Video is a bit dark as the plecs aren't keen on bright light, but will come out and feed fine under just the room lights. Cheers Ian

Yeah.. I would go with a bit bigger fish that will be safe when the angels get a bit bigger. What about a bunch of tiger barbs, they are pretty well behaved when they are in a big mob and will be OK with adult angels I have 6 in my 200l tank, they are allways on the go and active. Cheers Ian

I believe they can, but they grow pretty slow compared to the more common plecos Cheers Ian

Yup.. get them bagged like normal, maybe a few less per bag if it's a long trip. Then just put the bags in a chilly bin in the back of the car. That will keep the temp stable and stop them rolling around the back seat :-? Use an old towel to pack around them in the chilly bin if it's not full. Cheers Ian

Sera mikropan stage 2 fry food is good. Should be able to get it from any good pet store. I guess it is really just finely crushed flake food, but it's good stuff and guppy fry do well on it. It's VERY fine, so be carefull you dont drop too much in by accident Cheers Ian

Dont be too keen with the filter cleaning. It may not need to be done every water change. Depends on the filter size and what fish you have. Generally you only need to clean out the filter when the water flow starts to slow down. I think you are doing it right, leave the noodles alone, rinse the sponge in old tank water and wash down the plastic parts as needed. The gunge in the filter also contains part of the bacteria population and isn't harmfull, but too much and the filter blocks up. Most of the bacteria live in the ceramic media, so look after those as well as possible. Cheers Ian

If you are getting loaches, get several. They are a social fish and like to live in groups. The dwarf chain loaches or zebra loaches are good choices for a smaller tank. They will all eat small snails, and you can catch the bigger ones by hand Cheers Ian

Ammonia reading should drop to zero once the tank is cycled. I would avoid using plant food while the tank is cycling, you are probably adding extra nitrogen into the system by doing so. Keep on as you are untill your ammonia and nitrite are zero, then it should be safe to add more fish. The water changes will slow down the cycle but you dont want ammonia building up and killing your fish in the mean time. Cheers Ian

Not an extra large feed - just normal. Normal water change the day before maybe? But yes EK is right, dont do anything unusual that could upset the tank before you leave. Cheers Ian

Large healthy fish will live without food for a week no worries. Give them a good feed and a water change before you go. They might be a bit hungry and have lost some condition when you get home, but it wont take long for them to fatten up again. Not something you want to do to them every week, but they will be fine as a once off. Cheers Ian

From Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish Yes some species can regrow a body from one arm Pretty freaky. Cheers Ian

Yup.. what I suggest is find a new home for the goldfish and get a filter in the tank and running first. Leave it like that for a couple of weeks with just the minnows. During that time sort out a heater and get the temp set correctly for the tropicals. Then you can add a couple more fish. Allow 6 weeks for a new tank to cycle completely. If you can find some Dwarf corys they would be ideal, only grow about 3cm long but a very cute. You could have 2 or 3 of them then. Corys prefer to live in a group anyway. They will be more active and fun to watch if there are several. If you get a pleco, make sure it IS a bristlenose. The other species look similar and cost about the same, but can grow to 30 or 40cm long I have a couple of 2-3 year old ones that would hardy even FIT in a tank your size :lol: I know there seems like a lot to learn, but the basics are pretty simple and if you follow them your fish will be healthy and live a long time (years). I dont have any geriatric fish yet as I've only been back into fish keeping for a couple of years after a long break. The first little fish I bought when we were given our first tank is now a big 20cm pleco and I've recently moved him into a new 200l tank. Another pleco I've been given is at least 5 years old, but its still a youngster too. Cheers Ian

Go easy with feeding them at first. If you put in too many and they dont get eaten they tend to break up and the mush gets lost in the gravel. Rotting food in gravel = a bad thing. So just put a couple in to start with and watch what eats them and how fast. If the fish mob them and clean them up in a few minutes then it's OK to feed more next time. My plecos like them and the guppies, but they will try and eat anything. :roll: Of course trying to feed specific foods to different fish is sometimes pointless. I just fed one tank with dried tubifex for the guppys, a spirulina tablet for the pleco and shrimp pellets for the loachs. I look over there now, the guppys are at the bottom eating the shrimp pellets, the loaches are eating the spirulina tab and the pleco is chasing the lump of floating worms around the surface :-? Cheers Ian

Have a read of this. http://www.firsttankguide.net/cycle.php Fish excrete ammonia in to the water. Ammonia is obviously poisonous and will kill your fish quick if it's not taken care of. The main reason to have a filter is to process this ammonia, first into nitrite then nitrAte. Nitrate is much less toxic and you can remove it by doing regular partial water changes. The conversion is done by bacteria that live mostly on the media inside the fitler. Some live on the gravel / rocks and glass too, if you dont have a filter you have to rely on them, but they aren't as efficient as a power filter. When you set up a new tank you have no bacteria living in it, it takes a few weeks for them to establish and multiply. This is called "cycling the tank". Easiest way is to just add a couple of hardy fish and wait a few weeks, then add a couple more each week untill you have a full population. If you just set up a new tank and add a full population of fish, even with a great filter there will be no bacteria to break down the ammonia. It will build up quickly and probably kill the fish. With just a couple of fish the buildup is slow and the bacteria can multiply and take care of it before it becomes a problem. You can get water test kits to monitor all these processes as they happen, but if you just take things slow and let the process happen you will be OK. Cheers Ian

Best is to set the temp to it's lowest setting, probably around 19C, then wind it up a couple of degrees each day. Of course if it's a warm day and the tank is sitting at 22 anyway, just pop in the heater and stop the temp falling again. I wouldn't risk it - a couple of days of cold weather and they are gonners. Have you got some filtering organised for the tank? You need to get it cycled and running properly before you add any more fish. But yes you can keep WCMM, cories and bristlenose plecos together. Set the temp at the low end of the tropical, ~22-24C and they will be fine. Be aware that the temp markings in the heaters are NOT very accurate. Get a thermometer to double check what the temp actually is and adjust the dial on the heater accordingly

I have done it when I had no other place to stash some big goldfish. 2 problems though. If you have a problem with the water supply (power cut etc ) the cows can drain the trough. Fish are left flapping about in 2cm of water And having fish in the water doesn't help the water quality for the cattle :-? Cow troughs do make good goldfish ponds though, but might be better to just get a couple of extra ones in the back garden for your fish Cheers Ian

Ahh.. OK, that clears things up a bit. 21litre tank just isn't going to work for goldfish, they get too big too fast. Add a small filter like subZ suggested and a handfull of minnows will be fine in there. A couple of snails wont hurt either. Add a heater and you could have a couple of corys etc. I still have an old 18l tank that I used to breed minnows in, worked fine. Its got some guppys and a little bristlenose pleco in there now, but it's a small tank, so go with small fish in it. The bigger tank you are looking at would be better, but goldfish will still outgrow it. Again it will want a suitable filter of some kind. I have a beef with pet shops that sell beginners like yourself those small tanks and fish that just aren't suitable :roll: Not your fault, you were just given bad advice by the shop. Cheers Ian

Make sure the clown is big enough not to get eaten Clowns grow pretty slowly, especially compared to jardini, and you dont want him to look like a snack in 18 months time. Other than that, they should be fine. Clowns are about as peacefull as a fish can be, and living in a different zone of the tank they shouldn't get in each others faces. Suggested tankmates for Jardini: All big but fairly peacefull fish. Cheers Ian