Ianab

Not really. They are big, messy and like live or at least fresh food.. apart from that they aren't difficult to keep. You should be OK selling / finding homes for Oscars. They are a popular fish. They are large inquistive fish... if they can eat or uproot it.. they will. Plants and oscars are a challange. Depends on your definition of cool.. but yes they big, tough, interesting fish... you could call then the Fonz of the aquaruim world I think you will end up with two tanks, one for the Oscars and a couple of other big 'guy' fish (plecos or clown loachs maybe). And a 2nd tank with plants, a heap of neons, guppies and 'pretty' fish for the G/F. Plan on doing that now and things will be much smoother Cheers Ian Ian

I feed my small guppies with Sera Mikropan stage 2 flakes. They are really just very finely ground flake food. You can allways grind up some normal flake food small enough so they can eat it. If you dont have a spare tank then the net is probably the best option for a while. Dont put another big female in there untill the fry grow a bit though, she may eat the ones you have. The bigger fish will treat the fry as a tasty snack. I would leave the fry you have in the net untill they are big enough to handle life in the main tank, then put another female in and repeat. Doesn't sound good for the sick female though At least you got some replacements coming along Cheers Ian

What are you actually wanting to run? I dont know what your setup is so it's a bit difficult to give you any advice. A few more details and people might come up with some suggestions. Cheers Ian

That tank has the bigger guppies that I've pulled out of the other tank, and some small plecos. A few fry do survice in there, but they must be the real fast ones. Cheers Ian

I think you are getting closer flatfish... The corners aren't exactly 45 deg so you have worked out the 'invisible' pieces of the triangle. 1.46 x 0.64 x 0.62 - 0.215 x 0.24 x 0.62 = .547 = 547 litres. Of course this is the volume of the tank AND water. Work it out on the inside dimensions and allow for a couple of cm of air at the top and gravel at the bottom. Cheers Ian

Yup, if you have heaps of plants and feed them well you will get good success without having to remove the adults. But this is my unplanted guppy tank - and I was given 12 of them about a year ago. The biggest adults are in my other tanks, these are all less than 1/2 grown, but even at that size they start breeding, so there are still heaps of fry in the tank. None of them are big enough to hassle the fry yet though :roll: Cheers Ian

As your lower tank is only 3 ft thats going to simplify the engineering a lot. You then only have to span the 3ft. The mulitple 4x2s will be plenty strong enough, and use the ply sheathing as a structual component. Back and sides of 12mm ply will brace and strengthen things considerably. I would suggest you put some small conventional lights above the lower tank as well. The moonlights are cool if the room lights are off, but in normal daylight the tank will just be a black hole. Cheers Ian

Are you having any specific problems with the fish? Is there anything in the tank that could be raising the pH? Limestone, some types of sand or shells can leach into the water and cause the pH to rise. Bogwood should have the opposite effect and lower the pH. Also it may be possible to catch rain water from a roof. Sometimes you just need a big plastic barrel under a downpipe. If you are in a rural area chances are your rain water is fairly clean and it should be very soft and slightly acidic. Cheers Ian

Your Ph is a bit high, but that may be due to your tap water being that way and it depends on what fish you have wether it's a problem. What is the Ph of your tap water? Some species prefer Acid water, Ph below 7. But only play with that if you HAVE to. The other parameters are perfect so I would say your 10% changes have been fine. 10% per week should be OK unless you have a lot of big messy fish. If you get more fish and your nitrates start increasing then you can increase the size and frequency of the water changes to contol that. Cheers Ian

I would suggest she drops just one preggie female in the tank and waits till she drops the young and then take her out again. Once the young grow a little (a week or two) they will be safe with the next female. The young guppies wont eat the fry from the next spawning untill they get near full grown. Once they get to 1/2 grown they can come out of the breeding tank and go with the other fish. Doing this means you save most of the fry and you can have a spawning every few weeks. Doesn't take long to build up the numbers Cheers Ian

I think what he means is that by seeding the tank with bacteria or an established filter and introducing fish slowly you can cycle a tank without ammonia / nitrite getting above trace (harmless) levels. Once the cycle starts the stock of fish can be slowly increased It's a bit of a balancing act, but if you are carefull it will work fine. Cheers Ian

Start em early Lara is 12 weeks old tomorrow, but is already fascinated by the fish. The guppy tank is her favourite, lots of action and bright colours. The plecos are too lazy to keep her interest for very long. Cheers Ian

I agree, dont put any fish in untill the ammonia level reads close to 0 The good news is, your tank now has some ammonia in it, no need to add any more artifically. Leave it with the filter running for a week, test it again and see what happens. Just need to wait for them bacteria in the filter to catch up. Cheers Ian

this pic? Cheers Ian Ohh.. and it prolly doesn't matter about the neons / angels... but a decent school of Neons allways look cool. Angels can be fin nippers when they get bigger too, so maybe hold off on the fighter if you want to go that way.

They could also have come in as eggs on plants months ago, they have only just grown big enough to notice. One of my tanks has small snails that came in the gravel from a local river, they only grow to about 5mm so I haven't worried about them yet. Maybe I need to get a clown loach next :lol: Cheers Ian

If it fizzes with vinegar I wouldn't use it. That means it probably contains a reactive form of limestone and it will continue to react with your tank water and increases the hardness and alkalinity over time. Then it depends on what fish you have if this is a problem, but most common fish prefer the water soft and slightly acid. If it is marble rock then it should be fine though. Cheers Ian

You may find that inspite of the fish you lost that your tank is actually now cycled and safe for fish... But you really need a water test to confirm that. With a small tank, you will need to be very carefull cycling with fish. Larger tanks are actually easier to set up and look after as things happen much slower and it takes longer for chemicals to build up in the larger volume of water. It might take weeks for a couple of small fish to pollute a 200l+ tank, by that time the filters have caught up and you can add more fish. Small tank it will get toxic in days if the filters aren't working properly. Having said that, you should be able to set up your small tank OK, just take it real slow with the fish. I have a small tank that I use from time to time as a hospital or fry rearing tank. It just runs an undergravel filter too, but when I set it up it only gets 2 guppies for those first couple of weeks. It would probably hold 20 guppies once it's cycled, but starting with that number would be a disaster. The tank cycling solutions will help, but it's really just a seed for whatever filter system you have. Getting an established filter or piece of media from another tank is probably the best way to go. But somewhere along the line you need to get biological stuff (fish poo, rotton food or plain ammonia) into the system to grow the bacteria needed in the filter. Doing some extra partial water changes and very light feeding during the initial cycle might help too, just by keeping the ammonia levels under control untill the filter catches up. Cheers Ian

Generally you can assume your tap water has been chlorinated.. the amount varies, usually depending on the quality of the original water supply and how the water treatmant plant is being operated. Sometimes the water will be heavily chlorinated and you can actually smell it at the tap. You definately want to treat that water, or at least let it sit for a while. If everything is running smoothly most of it will be gone from the water by the time it reaches you. Christchurch is a special case, because their water comes from bores where the water has been naturally filtered through the sand and gravel. It's very clean and doesn't need extra treatment to make it safe to drink. Most city supplies come from a local river or lake and gets filtered and chlorinated to remove the duck crap etc :-? Cheers Ian

Once they get to an inch or so long they should be fine to sell / ship / move about. Of course if they get cold you might loose some, but that would go for any size fish really. Cheers Ian

Seems to be an artwork rather than a practical fish tank, but as long as the new owner understands the limitations of that size tank there should be no problem. They have fitted it with a filter and airstone so thats a good sign. Pic seems to show a couple of small goldfish in there, that seems sensible, untill they outgrow it anyway. Probably be great for a handfull of white clouds too. Cheers Ian

I like Caryls idea with the ration boxes. Your fish will survive on 1/2 their normal feeding fine for 2 weeks and it reduces the chances of anything going wrong with the tank water. My fish aren't allowed to get fussy Cheers Ian

A few thoughts... The algae itself is unlikely to harm your fish directly, but it may be a sign that you have water problems.. ie high nutrient levels. (Nitrate and phosphate etc) Hence the advice to increase your regular water changes. Of course I'm not sure what the quality of your tap water is like, I have heard it can be a bit suspect in Cali? Other ideas are less light, more plants or some proper algae eaters Lots of fish are called algae eaters, but some only play at it. A couple of small plecos may help get the algae under control better. I would avoid algae treatments and rather try and find the root causes and fix that. Pouring more chemicals into water thats already suspect cant make things any better for your fish. Cheers Ian

How big is it? Probably has a bearing on the price. Be aware that they do grow to a foot long so make sure you have space They are neat, but a bit expensive for my liking. :roll: If you just want a nice pleco look out for a L001 gold spot. Not as pretty as that one, but I got mine locally for ~$16. I dont think the L18s are bred commercially yet, thats got to make them expensive wild caught fish. Cheers Ian

They get used to whatever happens regularly... I usually have to push my big pleco out of the way when I vacuum his tank, and allways have to check the bucket for small guppies that have done the pipeline trip :roll: Ian

Depends on what part of the Nth Island :-? Inland Taranaki, our swimming pool used to ice over.... The goldfish living in there handled it OK, but I dont know about others. Ian