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Kellz, if it makes you feel better, my count is up around 100 fish dead in less than two years. Including one that I found today, jumped out of the tank and ended up cooked and dried on top of the glass under the lights. Most of those were in two big die offs of a tank of guppies, 2-3 dozen deaths each time.

If it was any of my fish I'd say it was probably due to fighting. But, I don't know much about goldfish.

I should head off to the dump, maybe someone will through out an athlon 1.7gig CPU, MB and a nice GeForce 4...Hehehe.

Looks good. I'm not sure what the volume of a 30" tank is? But I don't see any obvious problems and it doesn't look overstocked. By the way, I'd forget the 1inch of fish per gallon. It's really pretty meaningless...I guess you could adjust it by putting in some kind of exponential adjustment...But anyway, two 4" kribs do not equal one 8" fish. An 8" fish would be something like two 4" kribs long, two 4" kribs wide and two 4" kribs tall, so it'd be worth about eight 4" kribs. And comparing it to Danios it'd be about 4X4X4=64 danios worth one 8" fish. I'm sure it probably doesn't work exactly mathematically like that, but it's a LOT closer.

Yeah, We knew what we were talking about. But does the other guy know what you're talking about? Though, I really don't care if what I call a Geophagus Surinamensis is actually an altifrons or a whatever. They all look close enough for me.

I'd like some variety. How about chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast, pizza for lunch, pasta for dinner and chocolate sundaes for desert. That's enough variety to make me happy.

I was just contemplating my nitrates problem while feeding my cichlids. I'm thinking I might completely cut out the flakes for a while. The cheap crap flakes I've got just crumble and fill the tank with thousands of little pieces that the fish ignore and that just get sucked into the filter. (I need to clean the filters more often)

Not so easy to feed food to the bottom feeders when most of your other fish are top feeders, middle feeders, bottom feeders and dig around in the dirt looking for leftovers feeders.

That's cause fish as far as the general public goes tends to be kind of like budgies. Hmmm, it's sick. Hmmm, it's dead. Let's go get another one!

It's only about 3-4 months old.

I don't have a problem with getting a steady reading as long as there's no kind of electrical interference. Sometimes it does take a while to get to the right PH, though, seems like I keep stirring and the PH keeps creeping downwards for ages. Normally it's pretty quick though. I think the waterproof meter was over $200 when I was looking.

The upper hutt club's auction is in November, so we'll either get no fish because they've all been sold in Napier or bunches because it got too crowded. I'll definitely have to take a look at those Dwarf flags.

Already done that job...And no, it didn't pay very well.

Unfortunately I can't even come close to being able to afford $250+ for a PH meter. I still feel guilty about spending the $120 on the dick smith meter. *Mutter*Maybe someday if I get a real job...Shoulda stayed in the US doing desktop support...That was a great job...*Mutter*

Only thing I can think of that I can possibly bring is a bag full of Indian fern.

You could always go to your local river and spend a few hours collecting all the free rocks you could want. Well, if it's a rocky river anyway. Or go to a landscaping supply place. You could probably get more than enough rocks for $30ish.

I've never heard of those heaters. What plastic bits would be leaching? Am I right in assuming that the only plastic is basically a piece near the top like most? Hmmm...Wouldn't think that would leach a significant amount into the water, especially since I wouldn't think it would get hot. Could just be that there are chemicals still on the heaters from the manufacturing process, like mold release chemicals. A good soak and scrubbing should get rid of that. But it sounds a bit worrying.

I NEVER miss the obvious. Nah, no way I'd ever do that. I'm far too smart to do that! *Walks away and runs into a closed door* Hehehe.

If you reread what I posted you'll see that's what I've been doing. That or unplugging the tank for a minute.

Yeah, I meant electrical interference was effecting it. It's really not surprising actually. The sensor uses a small glass electrode filled with a solution of a known PH. When that is put into whatever you want to test it causes a very tiny current flow through the electrode into(Or out of) the known solution which the tester then amplifies. Obviously the end result is it's very sensitive to electrical interference. In addition to the heater it also gets quite a big twitch in the PH reading when turning the tank's lighting on and off. The reason I got the digital meter is because I'm absolutely useless at comparing the colors. The meter is supposed to be accurate to within .01 PH, my eye-o-meter is accurate to maybe .5 PH.

I'm getting some really confusing readings from my PH meter. It's just a Dick Smith brand. I was testing my 400 liter tank(after calibrating the meter with the PH 7 buffer) and the PH was at 6.4 so I put about a teaspoon of baking soda in a glass of water and thought I'd test the PH in the glass. Came up as only 7.6, weird should be a lot higher. Then I poured the water in the tank and thought I'd test the tetra tank. I rinsed the glass out and scooped a glass of water out to test. It came up as 8.2, I thought that couldn't be right so I put the tester into the bottle of buffer. That came up as 7 so I rinsed the tester and tried the glass of water again and it came up as 6.8. Odd that it should change like that. I can't think of anything I'm doing wrong. I rinse it with clean water after using the buffer solution and before putting it away, I calibrate it each time I use it. I keep stirring until the reading stabilizes, but I'm still constantly getting confusing readings. I'm not particularly happy with this thing. I can live with it being so sensitive that if I put it directly into the tank just the heater being on causes it to bounce around by .5 each way...But half the time I put the cap back over the sensor it turns the meter back on! Anyway, can anyone think of anything I might be doing wrong or have any advice?

Yeah, I know, this whole hemisphere is screwed up. Hot and sunny in the middle of winter, cold and rainy in the middle of summer, driving on the wrong side of the road and worst of all they spell worse than someone that failed english in 3rd grade!

Mesh is a good idea. Don't want any kids getting into your ponds, they'd wipe out tons of fish with all the diseases they carry. Unsanitary things, kids.

If saying its fins were fine an hour before isn't an exageration, then it has to be due to damage from nipping or some other kind of physical cause, that's way too short of a time frame for it to be damage due to a fungus or similar. What else is in the tank? I'd say nipping is the most likely cause because I don't think it's often that a fish gets its fins stuck on something.

I'm pretty sure I was told it was a madagascar rainbow. Haven't bothered to look up much information on them because I think they're kinda ugly. But, after browsing through fishprofiles.com and looking at the different types of rainbows, this one is the closest I could find. click here That's the right shape anyway, except mine are more of a red/orange all over with not nearly as strong of a black edging on their fins, except one which is mostly just a brownish color. The webpage says they're australian.