Ira

Eww, yuck, worm squisher. I've thought before that I could tie a string to some worms and go fishing, hehehe.

I'm not not gonna fillet and marinate worms for my fish! They're gonna eat it straight out of the ground and they're gonna LIKE IT! Or they don't get anything! Hehehehe.

It'd be easy if all the tanks were going to be the same height, but I'm making a guess that they'll be stacked instead of side by side? Side by side you could just put the outlet hose on the tank on one side and the intake on the other side then have a couple little loops of hose between the middle tank and the end tanks. That way the water would automatically siphone from the tank the water is going into, to the middle then to the tank it's being drained from. For stacked...Hmmm, I suppose you could do something kind of similar. Have the intake on the bottom tank and the outlet on the top. Have holes drilled in the back of the top tank and the middle tank so when the water reaches the hole it goes through a hose to the next tank down. That way shouldn't drain enough to empty a tank or overflow them...Unless you put too much water in, but it should be pretty stable water level wise. Not sure exactly how doing water changes would work best though. Personally, I think it'd be simplest to just have a seperate filter for each tank. That way you could have different conditions in each tank if you want, quarantine, etc.

As long as the water is staying fairly clear and you don't have any ammonia or nitrite then you're ok. My personal opinion is that as long as your filter is big enough and has enough media to keep all your ammonia etc undetectable then a bigger filter is mostly just for aesthetic reasons, to keep the water clearer. Not saying a bigger filter isn't better, just that I think as far as the health of the fish go you've hit the point of diminishing returns when the levels are zero.

You could try a couple of those feeding blocks. I think for my fish they'd probably be ok for 9 days, but I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving them for that long. Some people seem really against those blocks, I'm not sure why though.

How much do you have? I've only got half a kilo or less in my filter. Well, I'm horrible at judging things like that. Ummm...I'd say throw a handful into the filter and give it a few days, if it's not having enough of effect throw in another handful. I'm assuming it wouldn't be nearly as fine as the bird grit so you'd need more of it obviously...But, I'd say you should get a definite change from a handful or two of your substrate.

If it makes you feel less stupid, Tankmate, I took a bunch of fish to the upper hutt aquarium society auction today...Apparently I put too much water and not enough air in the bags because the 3 sharks and 3 rainbows were almost all floating upside down and gasping for air. We gave them a quick water change and put more air in the bags and they seemed better though. I'm still pretty worried about the sharks. They were in the first group of fish I ever had...I kinda miss them.

You must have a LOT less fish in the tank too.

Hmmm, PH is up to 7.1 today. Might have a bit too much in the filter. If it's up any more tomorrow I'll take about half out.

If my cichlids could see this thread, they'd be jump out of the tank and kiss me for changing their water weekly. Actually, I kinda doubt they'd survive me even going a month without a water change. Let's see...The nitrates would probably be up to about 200ppm by then.

You just need to learn the right way to name the neons. Like one of my wife's coworkers uses to name his cockatiels. Name the neons AJ, BJ, CJ, DJ, up to TJ.

I put an airstone under it so it'd hopefully move a bit of water through all the crushed shells. If it's enough to raise the PH of the tank by maybe .1-.2 per day with the extra flow of the filter, then I'll be happy. That would about counteract the drop of PH. It was only $8 for about a kilo, so pretty cheap.

The water WAS pretty cloudy after sitting in the bucket overnight. Shouldn't be too bad in the tank, at least the filters should be able to filter it out. Looks like after one night the PH was up to 7.7-7.8 from the tap water which is 7.0. So, it definitely has an effect, I only put half of what I have into the bucket, and it doesn't seem like the half will be quite enough, but we'll see. I'll throw it into the filter once I get around to doing the tank tonight, been a bit distracted with other things today.

Pegasus, I got a bag of the bird grit. It's finer than I expected. I've got it sitting in a bucket of water, in a bag, with an air stone for circulation. Tomorrow I thought I'd check the PH and see if it made any kind of difference. I'm wondering how much of a restriction it'll make in the water flow, though, it's really fine stuff...Lots of fragments coming off it too.

Actually, you can have too much calcium. Pretty nasty problems caused by it too, if I remember, but the only real way to do it is through supplements, you can't overdose on milk.

Let us know how the hot water heating works.

So, a supermarket might have it? Hmmm, I actually hadn't thought of checking places like Pak n save for them. Tomorrow after work I'll have a look at a few places on the way home. John, after looking back at my last post, it looks a bit bitchy. Sorry. The end of the weekend always makes me a bit grumpy.

Yes, I'm aware that's what it should be.

Yeah, there is proper PH type stuff. But it would be essentially doing what I'm doing with the baking soda except would cost me if I remember right about $30 for a 1 month supply.

5.7 is definitely NOT what I want it to be. I just can't find a source for anything to keep the PH up other than throwing baking soda in the tank every couple days. Maybe I should take Pegasus up on his offer to send me oyster shells, because I can't find anything like that locally. Maybe I should take a drive out to Porirua, I think a landscaping place there had crushed seashells a year or so ago, nowhere local does. The fish are, more specifically, 2 gold severums, 1 green severum, 2 Geophagus Jurupari, 2 geophagus surinamensis, 1 pictus, 1 redspot pleco, 1 striped mystus, 1 silver(Now dark green) mystus, 2 bristlenoses, 1 firemouth and 2 blue rams. I think that's all of them.

And turn up your aeration! I don't know much about gas bubble disease, but within reason, you can't have too much aeration unless the bubbles and splashing are upsetting your fish, especially when they're sick. It definitely sounds like the problem was started by throwing heaps of fish into an un cycled tank. The levels might be ok now, but the damage has been done.

Hmmm, if it's a new tank, am I right in assuming most of the fish are very small? Even with small ones I'd say a 400 liter would be a minimum and would quickly become too small.

Yes, I'm absolutely sure of the 5.7. They're mostly south american cichlids, by the way. And there is no way I'm throwing away most of a weeks pay just because the meter gives me an occasional odd reading.

OUCH. I thought I'd stop adding baking soda to keep the PH up for a little while to see if it would settle somewhere not too low(Ok, and I got a bit lazy too). So, I tested today after 3 weeks and it was at 5.7. The fish seem ok, but I think that's definitely a too low.

I believe, with hole in the head, the "Cure" simply stops the hole from getting bigger, unfortunately the holes don't go away. So, I'd say your discus is probably cured, but basically still has the scars from it.