tHEcONCH

The Emerald Green (Tubastrea Micrantha aka 'Black Sun') is the hardest one - the one that is actually black (Tubastrea Diaphana) is much easier - no more difficult than an Orange (Tubastrea Faulkneri).

Then fewer Discus it is - I understand re the bucket - I change 900 litres a week with an 8 litre bucket. :-?

Cheers! I'll keep you posted

I'd say 4 would be better, maybe 5 if you get rid of all the other fish.

Its an infected bite - Furan2

Yep, I'll think I'll have to do something similar - the factory 'cooling' fan is useless because not enough air can escape unless you leave the hood up, and there is stuff all venting for the lights / ballast etc - Looks as if most of the corals are OK apart from one patch on a sun coral and one bubble looking a bit sad.

Apparently you can get a third corpse free if you buy two others on a Tuesday... :lol:

Looks that way to me...

Given the price of a chiller, I'm wondering if I don't just buy another heat pump/aircon unit for the house :lol:

And the staff member will probably quit next week... :lol:

That's a fair point, but I think the Max should be a bit better sorted than what it is - there are a lot of glitsches in it. Its a bit like a Microsoft product - kind of works, but needs a few service packs along the way. Maybe there will be a few revisions in the next production run to help sort some of the problems out - lets hope if they do the parts are available as a retrofit kit.

The tank water hit 31 degrees yesturday with an ambient room temperature of 24 degrees. TEH SUXXOR! I guess I'm going to have to buy a chiller - and depending upon what I find when I get home, maybe replace a few corals I wish I'd built a different tank now. :-?

Come and suck on my Turtle tank hose

Don't worry, the evidence will be dead in a week if its anything like the local Animates :lol:

You have to consider how much more agressive Angels are too - the Discus may struggle to get enough to eat whilst the Angels get fat. I reckon choose one or the other and tune the tank accordingly - they are both great fish.

There is one in CRC Salvage in Christchurch bigger than most - its in a dirty 3 foot tank, and has to do a three-pointer to turn around - someone should go down and offer to buy it if they have space (it would be well over a foot long)

Some of you may be aware that I have written a basic article on fish diseases, treatments, and costs illustrated with generic pictures off the web. Just to make sure everyone is happy, I'm wanting to replace those pictures with ones that can have the copyright (ownership) established, so if YOU have taken good pictures of diseases, please post them up here together with the link to the host site and how you want them to be acknowledged. I'll take the fact that you post them here against my request as permission to use them in the article. Please don't post other people's photo's - get them to post them themselves. My goal is to have some sort of resource available so that people can diagnose their fish's problems without having to ask every time. Thanks in anticipation...

So although the interwebby is good for searching out some things, I still like to have books. I've particularly enjoyed Eric Bornemans's Aquarium Corals and was wndering what other good books are out there. Any suggestions?

How often do you change the water? It sounds as if it might have fin-rot, which is caused by bacteria building up in dirty water - change the water once a week, and buy some sort of treatment from the pet store if it looks bad.

No prob - this isn't the first time I've been accused of writing coherent sentences - anyway, cees is going to publish the whole article (this is an extract) in the articles section soon.

Hmm... seems we a running a duplicate thread - it sounds like a fungal infection - treat it with Furan2

That sounds like a fungal infection - treat it with Furan2

The author would be me. The pic is a generic one off the net, so already in the public domain with no copyright infringement, but here's a link to where it is hosted http://eric.petfish.net

Ahem... As I was saying... White Spot or 'Ich' is a protozoan parasite that attaches itself to fish. It is present in water everywhere, and will be in almost all freshwater tanks. The parasite goes through several stages over about 10-15 days (temperature dependant), including a free-swimming stage that can rapidly infect other fish. What it looks like: The visible stage of Whitespot looks like grains of salt stuck to the outside of the fish. It can appear anywhere on the fish but often attaches to fins and gill plates. What causes it: White Spot is invariably caused by poor water conditions in combination with stress - it is a sign the the fish's immune system is failing, allowing the parasite to take hold. As certain stages of the parasite cannot live in water above 28 degrees, it should be less of a problem in a Discus tank as the water should be already be that warm. What to do: As it is often caused by poor water, test the aquarium water to determine if filters etc are operating correctly. Do a large waterchange. Raise the temperature to 30 degrees, but make sure that there is adequate water motion to maintain good oxygen levels in the water (as the temperature of water rises, it holds less and less oxygen) - often you will need to add an airstone.

I'd recommend that you don't handle them if you can avoid it - they don't want to be handled - just leave them be and they'll be happy. If you start picking them up, they'll associate you with danger and hide every time you go near.