Cricketman

inch per gallon = :digH: It may give a rough guide (and by rough, I mean ROUGH), but I wouldn't write it in my bible anytime soon.... Comes down to how much maintenance you want to do, many small fish will excrete more than 1 big fish, but you are limited in terms of space for them to grow into. Plants also go a long way to helping water quality. In your situation, I would be tempted to go for a heavy planted tank with a few neons/cardinals or similiar, and a feature fish (fighter, or other solitary, peaceful fish). Oh, and get a 10 000k (cool white) energy saver-bulb and a wharehouse desk lamp. your plants will be able to photosynthesise under this. Reasons being: 1) less intense cleaning schedule. (that said, you will still be looking at 20% water change a week min.) 2) easy growing, hardy plants are easy to get hold of, especially from people on the forum. 3) will look absolutely smick with a little effort/research/trial & error. 4) will give you a good idea on where to go next. 5) you can get away with an airstone/ air-driven filter. 6) all above = CHEAP! Good luck

:thup: exactly what I mean, and do. Fussy fish eh? lol

They can be territorial little *****... may be the result of a fight, but agree with Squirt, tank too small, hard to keep water quality constant in that amount of water. Temp, pH, salinity, NH3/4, NO2 etc will all fluctuate very quickly in a small amount of water. Good luck.

Marine biologist but you are indeed correct, as I mentioned, it was a broad generalisation. :thup:

I have a inane problem with "staple diets" and "complete nutrition" - Just because it is written on the tin, does not make it so... with so many species of fish, it is impossible to say that any 1 food has 100% of thier dietary requirements. regardless of what the sales pitch says. Variety is the spice of life, I would get fed up with same thing over and over in my diet, I don't see why my fish should be subjected to it.

use tineye.com, reverse searches for the image and where it is being used on the web. also... :digH:

There definately would be a difference in the amino acids available between fish based protein (and by fish, I broadly include shellfish etc) compared to mammalian proteins... What they would be and how they would affect growth/health/longevity between them, I couldn't do more than speculate, but, I imagine that like anything that gets metabolised by almost any animal, the useful parts are seperated and absorbed, the rest is excreted. As long as you feed a broad, varied diet, and not rely on one source of protein/fats/carbs etc you should have lively, healthy fish. Ox heart, liver, shrimps, prawns, greens, pellets/tabs/flakes , worms, live foods, etc etc. There so much out there, there no reason to stick to one particular feed.

DONT TREAT UNTIL YOU HAVE HOSP TANK! :an!gry or at least a seperate container to act as hosp. tank. That way, you can leave loaches in your main tank and only treat affected/infected fish! avoiding causing more damage to your already fragile system. :thup: Even better would be multiple small hosp tanks so you can seggregate the loaches and treat them(if they need) at your 1/2 strength. I still reccommend a thourough clean of your entire tank (pour boiling water through your substrate would be better than my earlier suggestion) and be prepared to cycle the tank from scratch. Only add fish back to the tank once they are healthy. Also, when getting new fish, it pays to isolate them in a portion of your tank water (siphon off like a water change into a hosp tank) to acclimatise and to quarantine them before introducing to your main tank. Hope this all helps.

HI! much goodness and info to be had! You've started well, and with a flick through some threads on here you should be Bro-fessional in no time. :thup:

:digH: you realise this is now a binding agreement... :thup:

when I get a reef tank... :happy2: and that aint gonna happen this week.. :tears:

Getting more fish would be the last thing I would do when you've obviously got problems. The number of treatments that you've put through your tank make me think that you've probably killed off the nitrosomonas bacteria, causing a NH3/4 cycle, probably the cause behind the flashing (irritated gills/mucosa), leaving your fish prone to infection/infestation (low immunity due to stress). This is why hospital tanks are important when treating fish, as the anti-biotics/chemicals used are often not very nice in a community tank, and can cause problems like you are experiencing. treatment is also cheaper/easier in a smaller volume of water, and you can do a 100% change if necessary in a short amount of time. All I would recomend for a hosp tank is an airstone (keeps water moving, more than anything) and a heater. Up the water changes to 20% min almost daily, (after you run a full screen on your tap water). Add your prime, look into "stress-coat" too. A small amount (say, teaspoon/10L) of salt won't be concentrated enough to cause any problems, but if you are not comfortable with it, don't stress it. Dont move fish when you have illness unless it to hosp tank. also keep seperate nets for your hosp tank to avoid contamination, or clean them thouroughly in a 5% bleach solution between tanks

Thats hella-flush... :smln: :rotf: :thup:

something definately sounds off... Stress-coat is different to prime as far as I'm aware... now obviously it hard to try come up with answers without looking at the fish and testing myself, but her goe anyway: Discolouration sounds like loss of slime coat, or the start of something else. erratic swimming then back to panting sounds like high NH3/4 or NO2... Reading through your other posts, It sounds like you've had a bad run of it. Personally, I would be putting the fish in a hosp tank till you know exactly what thier health like, see if anything else develops. while simultaneously de-constructing your display and scrubbing with salt and warm water (thin watery paste) and start again from scratch, throw out your substrate, and don't put fish back till they are healthy again. I know it really frustrating, but believe me it does get easier as you learn the little tips and tricks. Good luck...

Yes mum... :rotf:

dont finish work till 7, but I'll attempt to put in an appearance... :thup:

check temp? :dunno: sometimes it is the simplest thing... What are your parameters? have you done a test on your tap water? Flashing usually a sign of skin irritation, have you noticed any surface evidence of an infection/parasite/ loss of slimecoat? stress-coat is a good product for healing and replaceing slime-coat on your fish, but obviously you need to determine a cause first. When they flash, are they opening thier operculum (gill plate) / gasping ? as that could be a sign of gill-flukes. Try get a closer look at the gill filaments themselves (easier said than done) see if they are discoloured or if you can see anything out of the ordinary. The fish on the bottom, do they look like they are panting? Behavioural observation should give some clues hopefully.

hah! punny! :slfg:

!drool: !drool: !drool:

warewhare for a disposable charcoal bbq!! :nilly:

self fulfilling prophecy... :facepalm: :roll: Good to see the status quo hasn't changed.

DIY boxers or briefs?

today I finally got round to using the forum again. I also was recently succesful in aquiring a new job. :happy2: :happy1:

Until the 5-0 show up...