Naz_Nomad

Go buy a decent filter. Without one, you might as well not bother unless you're doing huge daily water changes and vacuuming the bottom properly. The water flow from the filter will also cause the surface of the water to move which will help with oxygen exchange. The slimy stuff on your glass is probably not a good thing. Clean it off. Vacuum your substrate (gravel/sand). Do a nice water change immediately. In the morning, go and buy a good filter, one that will adequately filter your size of tank. Preferably one with UV.

The stars are a post count thingy, I think. Mine appeared when I reached 100 posts. Increase your stars by posting. Caryl is a moderator because among others she looks after the forum and makes sure we stick to the rules. Other than that, she's a regular poster here and a helpful person with advice. Caryl also has a nice big pond she keeps us updated with too, see the coldwater section.

If you're still looking for fist fish to start cycling your tank, then I would suggest the guppies. They are about as unfussy as fish get (apart from the miracle-convict mentioned earlier) and cheap. They won't take up too much room in the tank so it's also easy to add to them in future. start with a few, depending on the size of the tank and see how they go before adding more fish.

Thats perfectly normal behaviour, don't worry about it. They'll do the chasing thing til they're ready and then get down to the nitty gritty. It's nice if there's a hiding place in the tank for the female for when he gets a bit vigorous in his chasing, but if the egg tube is showing and she's flaring back, she's about ready. She should also be showing her stripes, I think, horizontal for breeding, vertical for stress. I may have the stripes thing wrong. No doubt Adodge will tell you about stripes better than me.

http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/1-vt24 ... sc&start=0 OR... http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/cycling-vt6898.html Use your search-fu, grasshopper. It can be strong! Google is a good start if you can't work out the forum search engine. Basically, though your filter and stuff is nice and brand new it won't keep toxins from building up in the tank until the nitrogen cycle is fully established. This can be achieved in two ways, by adding a few small, hardy fish (Neons are bad for this, they're sensitive - try guppies instead, they look better anyway) and letting the nitrogen cycle build up slowly, along with your fish and plant stocks. The second way is to use chemicals to cycle the tank quicker, as explained in the first link up there. The most important thing is not to rush this stage of your aquarium building. Rushing things at this stage will cause more problems later, may cause fish death and will probably lessen your enjoyment of the hobby.

Find someone clearing excess plants from an existing tank, or someone who grows them for sale or trade. Or like cheesjawa said, trademe has a reasonable selection usually.

When I kept turtles, they required a largish tank with a beach/sunning area and enough water to swim around in. I would suggest something a little larger than what you are considering if it really is small..

OK, seems I need to do a bit of catching up here.... Do I put my wife in 'private sale and exchange' on here or should I just use trademe?

So my two don't win any prizes then?

I win hands down for the most boring non-box-related job. I am an anaesthetic technician. Operating theatres are like a box....

Crowntail betta - if I can force them to feel randy! Anyone got any viagra I can drop in the tank? He's having fun flaring away at his own reflection though, which I find amusing. Got some baby swordtails this spring rather unexpectedly, unfortunately mummy swordtail died, so daddy has moved tanks and now has a new girlfriend and no modesty.

He can knock together a nest in a few hours. Don't worry, you NEVER buy that rusty vauxhall viva until you have a girl interested, trust me. I have the same situation - just dropped a young stud in with my foxy female fighters. There's plenty of interest and no bubbles. They'll get round to it eventually. Some guys are a little shy and like to get to know a girl before they just jump in and start any major construction projects. I mean, I have been married two months nearly and still haven't started digging my pond. It might be the breeder who supplied your fish, assuming you haven't had them long, might have bred them just before selling them on to the shop you got them from in which case it might not even happen this year. It might be that they're shy, so take Adodge's advice and leave them be. Stop keep dropping chocolates in the tank in the hope she'll get excited and think they're from him.

That works. I added a specimen catcher from out suction units at the hospital. Which of course, I didn't steal at all. Does the same job. Never had another accident and there was the occasional dribble of foam in the catcher. I gave up in the end and started using Flourish Excel.

They are virtually the same. There is less red on the green apparently, and the blue area is more sort of greenish and supposedly more "Brilliant". Green Neon Tetras are occasionally called false tetras, I think. I imagine that unless you're showing them to a real tetra expert, the only true difference will be about five bucks a fish.

Which costs the price of some active yeast, sugar and water from the tap. Set up is the price of a plastic bottle and some air hose plus a bubble counter thingy from trademe for about five bucks. Better than Gluteraldehyde, only dodgy when you fill the bottle too much, the mixture foams along the tube and your tank suddenly turns extremely cloudy, your pH plummets and you end up doing midnight water changes. That didn't happen to me, honest. But, back on topic, anything is better than Gluteraldehyde in my opinion. I worked with it too long to want anyone else to have the smell. Nasty stuff.

Submissive is when he drags her to the nest for the dirty deed. She'll float around just under the nest when she's ready, head down about 30 degrees or so, then he'll have his wicked way with her and WILL NOT call her again!

The molecule chains for the active ingredients in Flourish Excel shown in the article Visionmassif linked to are different from the ones I have found for gluteraldehyde, so Adodge's suggestion that the gluteraldehyde in the product is changed in some way during the alchemy of manufacture seems quite possibly right. I have also found a nice study here... http://www.oehha.org/air/chronic_rels/pdf/111308.pdf That shows Gluteraldehyde is toxic to just about everything. The only place I can find a suggestion it is safe to drop it into your aquarium is on Wikipedia. I know we banned it in hospitals except under strict controlled handling conditions because it was toxic, antagonised asthma and was carcinogenic. It was a huge health issue ten or fifteen years ago and I suggest buying it (even if it is available) and using it as a cheap aquarium fertiliser would be a very bad move in the long run without a lot of protective equipment that might just make Flourish Excel seem cheaper and slightly safer.

We have it in hospitals, but it isn't for public consumption so to speak. In fact, we have to use fume cabinets to handle it, though we probably have it in higher concentrations than asked for here. I did look on Wikipedia - apparently, so they say, it is the active ingredient in Flourish Excell. Hmmm... That sounds like dodgy information, especially when you read this little article.. http://www.npi.gov.au/database/substanc ... es/46.html

I have had a quick look around for treatments. One site recommends copper treatment as if you had a snail infection as the copper will affect all invertebrates. Another site recommends a simple salt bath - four ounces per ten gallons maintained for three weeks. Yet another recommended Malachite green. And yet another site recommended formalin added at a dose of 3-6 drops per gallon dependent on water hardness (3 - soft, 6 - hard). Personally, I would go for isolation and salt, seems the safest. I don't think the copper can do much harm as long as you're very careful with the dosage, same with malachite green. I doubt the formalin method. that just seems a bit dodgy to me.

Surely you jest? This is the gluteraldehyde that causes eye irritation, dizziness and headaches in humans? I dread to think what it's do to fish swimming in it. Is it really safe to use? Where did you get the information from? To get some - hmmm... it's used as a fixative in labs, as embalming fluid (or part of the stuff they embalm with), disinfectant and as a specimen preservative in hospitals. Your guess is as good as mine as the where to get some from outside of a hospital or lab. Good luck.

The bars in the female's colouring change once she's ready to spawn. Keep them seperated (i.e., her in the breeder cage thing) til the "first egg" shows - this is actually the female's egg tube thing. Once that shows and the male is all excited and flaring at her you can remove the female and let her join him. There will be chasing, but make sure there is a hiding place for the lady fish so she can get out of his sight occasionally for a rest. Eventually he will entice her to the nest, she will become submissive and swim head down about 30 degrees or so then they'll get it together under the nest. Once eggs are seen in the nest and he's busy collecting the falling ones, remove her from the tank or he'll get aggressive trying to defend the eggs from her approaches. Once the fry are hatched and free swimming, remove him or segregate him. Good luck with the breeding!!

Personally I say get rid of it, though as always opinion here is split, it always will be in any open discussion forum. In my experience and from anecdotal evidence only, carbon can cause more problems than it solves if left in a filter over a long period. Its only real use is when your are medicating a tank, then it works as a good scrubber to remove the left over medications. Not entirely useless, but not as useful as those that manufacture and sell it would like you to believe.

Here is a good place to start... http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/amazon ... 10616.html ...since it's local, so to speak. A lot of books have biotype sections, so it's worth a look at the aquarium book section in most good bookstores, or even your LFS if they sell books. Otherwise a google search will give loads of pointers. I got 293000 hits on google just typing "Amazon Tank".

I gave up in the end and bought a Heissner 8000 with UV. Now just need the liner and a free weekend...

There's a small silver aro in Pupuke Aquarium too on North Shore. About 8-10cm or so. And at least one knife fish.