Naz_Nomad

Try taking a picture and posting in the diseases section where you'll probably have more luck with an accurate answer. Does this look disease-like or perhaps damage from a bit of a tiff with another denizen? Is the 'peeling' by or on his gills or elsewhere around the head? Is there any white fluff around the 'peeling'? Any inflammation around the area? Is he behaving as normal and still eating or does he seem lethargic and off his food? Does he sulk and hide or continue to patrol his aquarium?

PM'd, thank you Carla.

Yeah, I called it a diffuser as it had the excellent property of breaking the bubbles down into right tiny little ones whereas the ladder was letting huge bubbles up it's length.

The 'thing' is the CO2 diffuser I used, I found it a lot less obvious than the one in the pack which is a huge ladder thing, which I have since lost. Just stick it in the water on the end of the CO2 line and make sure it isn't screwed too tight. The recipe they include in the pack is the two little packets in the set. Just add them to tepid water for CO2. Be careful you don't put too much water in or there will be white scum down your pipe. Personally I found it better to use about 1/4 cup of sugar, 1/3 bottle of tepid water, dissolve well, add half a teaspoon of the active yeast I also sent in the bottle and stir well. That made CO2 for about five days in a steady stream from that diffuser. It takes a few hours for the CO2 to start bubbling. Fist time you make a mixture, keep an eye on the pH as CO2 lowers it quickly if you're too generous, and watch out for yeasty scum down the pipe - turns the water white and plummets the pH. Trust me, I have experience with this! Good Luck!

Warren recoomends the books... ...I recommend checking out Amazon and seeing if any are available second hand. There's often some bargains to be had there and the exchange rate is favourable.

I have two Eheims, 2215 and another I can't remember the model of. Both are silent and run perfectly, easy to get into to clean if required. Spares are available easily at most fish shops. So there you have it. I will always recommend Eheim, others might say Fluval or Aqua One. Eheim are expensive but you get what you pay for.

Does anyone have any young males they are willing to pass on/sell/whatever? I found a young female all alone in a shop in a tank of Rosy Barbs and felt sorry for her.

For cheapo mesh, just tie and old stocking over the inlet to stop fish getting into the plumbing.

I say do another water change, thats always a good thing to do. I also reckon a dose of TLC wouldn't go amiss if you've cleaned your filter media, but thats just me.

Hi Adodge, While you're dragging that bucket through the house, you could do a 50% change. However, this will raise your pH more than a 30% will, but will lower the ammonia more. You could try dosing with TLC or similar to give a bacterial boost for your filters too. The trick is to find out why the ammonia has risen - I assume you're still very fastiduous with vacuuming so a dead thing in there wouldn't be a possibility? No plant life trapped in your filter and rotting?. I presume this is in your huge tank with Discus? Won't they be more sensitive to the ammonia than the pH if the shift is minimal? Good luck with it, let us know how you get on.

When and where is the next meeting? Do I need to bring muffins? Cheers

200 Litre 4 Bristlenose 14 Harlequin Rasboras 9 Keyhole cichlids 5 Bronze Cories 2 Pearl Gourami 2 baby clown loach 2 Coolie Loach, probably. 3 baby Kribensis 1 American-Flag Fish 180 litre 5 small angels 2 Bristlenose 1 Featherfin Catfish 5 Bolivian Rams 2 Ap. Eunotus 3 Swordtails that I can't stop breeding! 2 SAE 3 Neon Tetras 1 mystery cichlid I am currently waiting to sell my house so the 450 litre tank gets set up and the 20 breeding tanks get set up, then I will be adding two Discus to the above collection and getting myself some killies as well as spreading the fish out some. The plan is One 'display tank' with the discus, angels, keyholes and cories; one Asian tank in the study, one community tank and the rest will be breeders. Until I can convince my darling wife we need even more big tanks. So if anyone wants a nice three bedroomed house in Beach Haven, feel free to offer me wads of cash. For the sake of the fish.

Keyholes are great in a community set-up. Not too fussy about water parameters, peaceful and so full of character. They change colour when frightened, they have a hierachy amongst themselves which is fun to watch being set up and constantly challenged without the fighting. Drop a shrimp pellet into the water and watch them pick it up and run round the tank with all their tank mates in a convoy trying to get a nibble. On top of that, if you ever get them breeding they are excellent parents, as are most cichlids. I love Keyholes, they're my long-time favourite fish for any tank.

Apparently it's the cost of running a shop in Browns Bay, or so one of the young assistants told me.

I bought her a bigger house! That was the deal - I buy her a bigger house before I get more aquariums. I have only twisted the deal slightly as I bought the smaller tanks whilst we were looking for the new house. Just wanting to sell ours now to set up my breeding room!

Don't Canadians do what the British do? Use degrees Celsius when it's cold, so a cold day can be minus something, and degrees Fahrenheit when it's warm, so a warm day can be in the eighties?

Yes. Their last day is supposed to be the 31st. There's no tropical fish left - I had the last one of those, but still goldfish. They may or may not have lights - I think I bought all the remaining lights last time I was in, unless they had one on the goldie and plant tank. There's loads of tanks left, just plain ones. Plus there's everything on the shelves, including a small selection of filters and air pumps, loads of light tubes, tank decs and rocks etc. Still worth a visit but ring them if you're looking for something specific, it may have gone. It is quite funny going in and buying bits of the shop up. Oh, and Adodge, they are also selling the tank shelves they use for the display area, which would fit well in your huge fish room. I think they are giving these away free to anyone who turns up with a trailer. Again, phone first as they have had labels on them a while now and may be gone. Everything in the shop is 20-50% off. There's also a large range of pet foods and cat and dog stuff. The usual pet store stuff.

SAE - Siamese Algae Eater T5/T8 etc - refers to light tube types

So you'll be selling off your guppies again then Adodge? Didn't it take you an age to pass them on last time?

Thanks Ryan, One Malawi tank goes into planning :lol:

I bought him for two reasons... 1 - He looked lonely as he was the last tropical fish in the shop. 2 - I wanted to buy the tank he was in. I know he's just the mystery Cichlid, just was hoping that someone could tell me what he was. that way if he turns out to be a lake cichlid, I can work on getting him a better home than a community tank and some tank-mates he can identify with better. I wasn't after a pure-bred anything, just felt sorry for the little guy and wanted more tanks.... MTS strikes again!

At the moment he is about 3cm and very energetic. He seems to eat anything thrown his way but is particularly fond of freeze-dried bloodworms. He seems to be starting to blue up - as shown in the pictures. He may be too young to positively ID yet, but here's hoping.

How about taking the plastic tube out as soon as the eggs appear and replacing it with a clean one ready for the next batch? Baby Discus eat slime off their parent's flanks or something, so the babies would have to go back in with the parents as soon as they hatch. Of course, a Discus expert may be a better person to get advice from, but that is what I would try.

Hate to say it, but I am an old English punker with a black 'UK Subs' t-shirt on and have just finished playing my online game. I am also in my 40's and am allowed all these things due to a midlife crisis. Except nothing much has changed in 30 years. I also have 22 tanks. I had to buy the wife a bigger house to have that many.

I went to Pet Mania last week to buy everything I could lay my hands on as they are closing down. I wanted all the tanks they had on display but one had a single small plain looking fish in it priced at $2 and labeled only "Cichlid". The girl serving me asked if I really wanted a cichlid in my tank because they are renowned killers of their tank mates. I explained that I already had 18 cichlids of various types in my tanks, none of which were killers. I couldn't leave this little guy on his own but the girl didn't have a clue what type of cichlid he was, so here come the pics. Can anyone let me know what type of cichlid this guy is? He is living a happy but lonely life in the community tank at the moment.