tukituki

my fish looks much worse than this photo so I think he must have dropsy. he has gone down hill over the last few hours so i'd say is pretty much doomed. a shame he is such a beautiful fish that we bred ourselves. since our female fighter died several weeks ago he seems to be depressed, maybe he is dying of a broken heart... i think i will just leave him to die naturally. poor boy.

My male fighter is about 18months old and lately I've noticed that he looks like sort of like he's filled with eggs, or very swollen/inflated looking. He is not moving around as much as usual either, I think perhaps he is sick. What might be wrong with him? Cheers.

the ornaments are looking great after a soak with watered down bleach, thanks for the tip there. i will rinse them heaps before they go back in the tank. i have been continuing my low dose of flourish, and will continue daily for about 10 days. all fish fine, including the loaches.

the loaches are preparing to return to their tank (currently caught and waiting to go back in). i will start with 1 capful for my 160L tank, which is less than stated but i think its safer so as not to shock the fish, i'd rather have algae than any deaths. the ornaments i'll see to tomorrow although i think they quite like the ones i've put in for now. i can add the same dose daily for 5 days perhaps, and see how the tank & fish are looking. does this sound ok?

thanks. i'll use some bleach on the ornaments. i have several amazon swords, 5 in total in my different tanks. i have removed most of the algae leaves but not all of it is gone. can someone advise on the correct dosage please? start with 1 capful for a 160L tank, or 3? thanks.

i used to have 3 sae's, one with gold and a red stripe, 2 normal. when we moved from the north island i sold the 2 normal types and just kept the nicer looking one. maybe this algae is too overwhelming for him! i've not realised its taking over until quite recently. so perhaps i should move the loaches back? how long would it take for the flourish levels to settle down so it would be safe for them to return? i'd ideally not have them in my breeding tank for too long. would be best to have them in their usual tank if its going to be safe. i have not added any flourish yet. i tried to scrub the ornaments but nothing seemed to get the algae off. i'm considering adding 1-2 capfuls of flourish to the ornaments with them in a bucket. would it do the job? i've put some other ones in the tank for now. is it best to start with a triple dose of flourish as stated on the label? this is what i'm reluctant to do... i fear for the fish!

thanks for explaining it. i have some flourish excel that i bought today. my plan is to remove the ornaments and scrub them to then return to the tank. i will also move my loaches to my breeding tank which will i will add flourish to at a later time. i will also do the same for my very small tank which just has guppies and a couple of baby bristlenoses. are there any other fish i should remove at the same time? i have silver dollars, a flying fox, guppies, a siamese fighter, bristlenose - normal ones and golden, the 3 botia angelicus loaches, neons, and i almost forgot but i have a khuili loach (a worm like loach). should i remove every leaf from the amazon sword that has any evidence of algae? and initially should i add just the recommended dose of flourish? i did a water change yesterday of about 40%, it says to initially add 1 capful per 40L, so that would be 3-4 capfuls for my big tank (I think it is 160L), and probably 1 for the small tank (approx 35-40L). does that sound about right? then it says every day or two to add 1 capful per 200L, so that would be 1/4 capful for the little tank, and 3/4 capful for the big tank. do my calculations sound safe for the fish, or should I be doing it more gradually? when should my next water change be?

i think the algae problem has become a lot more obvious since we moved from a rural house on tank water, to town. i've thought about it overnight and will move loaches to the breeding tank that is large, the fish in there have not bred yet, loaches will be happier. they sell for $36 here so a lot. i wouldn't be so concerned doing a small dose if the algae disappers, in order to keep it at bay. lets hope the sell the flourish around here.

the loaches are botia angelicus, there's not a great selection of fish around here so they were a find! i'll see if i can find the flourish over the next couple of days and if so probably move the loaches to the small tank, its about the size of display tanks in pet shops so should be ok for a few days. i only have 3 of them. i'll start scrubbing tomorrrow though.

How long would I need to float them for? I do have 3 tanks but one is too small, the other is a breeding so I'm not so keen to put them in there. Maybe I could set up a 4th temporarily...

Thanks. I will scrub the ornaments tomorrow, the plants I have removed nearly all the leaves with algae. The glass of the tank I scrub but the spores then end up floating around the tank, yuk. How much roughly is the flourish excel? I have 3 loaches in my main tank I do not want to harm, they are beautiful, unusual and were very expensive! If I stick to the recommended dose do you think the loaches will be ok? The loaches survived an ammonia incident I had several months ago, silver dollars didn't (now have 3 new ones).

Oh and a better description of it would be moss like!

I have attempted to take a photo of the algae in the tank and I've found it very hard once again to take a decent pic, must be a combination of a rubbish camera and poor photographic skills! This was the best of the bunch: You can see it growing in particular on the plastic castle. Any idea what type of algae it is and how I can get rid of it?

No, I've had that type of algae before and thats what the flying foxes cured. This stuff is not so stringy, it is more like a carpet if that makes any sense. Thick and close together, about 1mm in length. It seems to love to cover anything - plants, rocks, plastic ornaments, plastic piping, the filter, glass! I'll try and take a pic of it in the tank but my tank photos are always pretty bad, maybe I'll get lucky this time though!

There is very little algae in our bristlenose breeding tank compared to the other two tanks, so I guess the young ones will eat it. Here are some pics of the algae ridden leaves I removed earlier today:

We have 3 tropical tanks, each with 1 or 2 amazon swords. All of the plants are being attacked by algae. I have taken off all the affected leaves and am not left with many now to be honest All 3 tanks are out of direct sunlight, are not over populated, and are kept pretty clean. The algae also sticks to the glass sometimes, as well as ornaments, and pipes for air pump etc. The ironic thing is I have lots of bristlenose catfish (aka algae eaters) but they are not doing their job! I have one flying fox in one of the tanks which I bought a few years ago to cure an algae problem and worked (I had 3 at the time), any ideas what I can do this time? I have snails so not keen for any product that could harm them. I don't overfeed either as we only feed 3 times per week. Thanks.

hopefully the girls aren't scaring him! he has been living with brown female bn's before, and either him or his brother must've bred with a brown bn as we had some fry in our main tank, there were no other mature males in there at the time so they must be brown x gba. this was the first lot we have ever had in the main tank (all brown), i find they usually prefer not to be around the other bottom feeders when they breed. patience eh, and it will happen when you least expect it!

We have been breeding brown bristlenoses for a few years now and finally have some GBA's that we would like to breed instead. I have put the GBA trio in the breeding tank but no luck so far. The breeding tank is fairly large, it has a massive piece of driftwood inside that acts like a cave, a few plants, and the only other fish are some young brown bn's and a few guppies at the top. The tank is at 24 degrees and is aerated. The 2 females got sent a few weeks ago, and the male we have had for about 2 years (he was one of 8 we got as youngsters and ALL turned out to be male! i also have his brother in my main tank). Is there anything I can do to encouragh them to breed? Or am I just being impatient?! I see the 2 females out and about in the tank daily, but the male just hides in the driftwood. Thanks.

All my others are golden all over, was just the one young gba who had a black eye, now we have 2 like that. I guess its not so bad but I won't breed from these 2 once they are older, will most probably sell them on.

I think it would look more cool if they had 2 black eyes, like the panda cory!

I take it that its not such a desirable trait?

I bought several young GBA's a few months ago and one has a black eye (black patch around its eye), I got a few fish from the same breeder the other day and another young fish has the same marking. Does anyone know why they get this? Cheers.

Thanks Caryl

i like the guttering idea. there is loads of random old stuff in our sheds the previous owners left behind, i'll look and see if i can find something suitable. where do you get the light fittings from though? the small (breeding) tank is newly set up and is going to be used for my fighters. i always cycle newly set up tanks with guppies.