tHEcONCH

Seconded - It will be fine

I'd say that up till now your Nitrite was very high - but has now subsided. All good from this point hopefully

But why? Is it really that much fun compared to bigger tanks? p.s. it has fallen over now!

Sever its spine at the base of the skull - sharp Knife or meatcleaver

Some people feed then flake exclusively with good results.

From my experience with an 8litre, it can be done, but it is a huge amount of work with a very limited return - you spend A LOT of time trying to keep the water right, and if you do whatever you have in there will outgrow the cube in a very short time - I decided it just wasn't that much fun.

Although those tests are very useful, if you are on a budget then the Nitrite test is probably most important - it is the most dangerous toxin, and if you can detect Nitrite you know that the Ammoninia is being converted (into Nitrite, and the bacteria that converts Ammonia to Nitrite grows quickly so any Ammonia will cease to be a problem quite quickly) - and if you can't detect Nitrite, and you have being doing water changes (which would remove/dilute any Nitrate), then you know there must be Ammonia. In any event the solution for water problems is the same - do lots of big water changes, and add a bacterial culture like 'Cycle' or 'Filterstart'. Good luck

You will really need to test the water before you can sort out what is going on. If you can rule out water problems, then you can start isolating other factors like disease.

The yellowness in the water is harmless - it will disappear in time. The thing that is killing your fish is probably Nitrite - your tank needs to run for a week or two before enough bacteria have built up in the filter to cope with the fish. Nitrite is invisible, but you can buy test-kits for it. In the meantime you will have to do very large (80%) water changes each day for the next week. Do a google search on 'the nitrogen cycle' for more info on 'cycling' a tank.

Or in the freezer - you can buy them in frozen packs from 'Biosuppliers' if you just want them for feed.

Its there now... I have a nice new Stag... :lol:

The trouble is that it is a Goldfish - they are so inbred that often their internals are likely to twist / block / rupture, like some breeds of dog. You could try Prazi, but it might just have a twisted gut and be doomed (sorry)

You can buy little netting 'breeding tanks' that go in your existing tank - cheap, easy, and safe.

Yep, my RSM still suffers from the occassional plague of diatoms etc, although it probably isn't helped by my 'generous' feeding etc. There have been various 'plagues' of other critters too, but I guess everything will fall into equilibrium eventually. Since intoducing the big office fan into my fishroom and keeping the temperature at about 26 it seems a lot happier / stable - I suspect that temperatures around 28-29 meant it was easy for reactions to get out of hand before I could do anything. What temp is your tank?

New stuff in at the house of O today, ladies

He had a half dozen originally, and there were still some there yesturday

I have a brittle star that does a good job of eating / shifting / stirring random crud from under the rocks. There are a couple at O at the moment.

Yep, standard light, although I suspect that it is barely adequate - I feed the anemone quite often, so hopefully I can meet its energy needs that way. The Elegance is growing - so much so I had to sell the Zoos etc that were in front to make room. I'm going to put the clams higher in the tank - Acro level if possible, because I'm concerned that there isn't enough light at the bottom (If mushrooms like it down there, it must be a bit dull, right?)

It isn't intended to mislead - the reality is that my fish has gained weight and seems perfectly happy in the RSM, but I do feed the corals prepared food that the Mandarin very likely eats, and I have deliberately selected 'honeycomb' rock that has a big surface area and lots of places the fishes can't get to - there are still masses of pods and creepy crawlies in my tank. I suspect 1kg of porous 'honeycomb' live rock supports squillions more pods than 1KG of relatively solid rock. Tank volume and rock weight may or may not be valid indicators of what is minimally adequate - that is why I'm asking the question.

What - was that one of those 'hint' things...? :lol:

There are some green and 'gold' maximas on the way...

No, not mine - it had a bit of a nip though, that one!

Our bill dropped by about 30% after we put a heat pump in and stopped using the log burner - the house is just like they say on the adverts - warmer, dryer, and it costs a lot less too

Here's how to tell them all apart: http://www.thekrib.com/Fish/Algae-Eaters/