TommySharp

Well my tank has had it bad for about three months now so there must be something else amiss?

Well I had the master plan to try the "algae fix" product to see if it got rid of the problem..... Put in the exact amount as per the instructions..... Alas all but one of my Brichardis kicked the bucket..... Still lots of algae though.... Would the golden algae eat survive in high PH water and just wondering if Brichardis would give them a hard time?

Tank is almost 3 months "settled" now and just wondering what this rust coloured growth could be? would be okay if it was just on the glass cause i could clean that but it's on the plants and now the lovely rocks too..... Any sort of fish/creature that would control it and also survive the Brichardis and their high ph water? Will post photo once i work out how..... http://db.tt/yHzi51a

Living in Avondale so if anyone close by has any comments on water quality? I emptied most of the water but kept all the filter media during the move. However for my big tank I have started completely from scratch with a brand new external filter with new media, gravel, decorations etc.... Did keep the noodles from the old filter though. Has been running for about 6-8 weeks now and everything looks good except for the fact that quite a few fish I put in there have died off... As far as I can tell I'm doing everything the same as I did at the old place.

Do most people just use plain tap water? Have contemplated some sort of rain capture setup....

I should hope so cause we drink out of it..... Filter is about due to be replaced soon though.

I'm not sure if anyone can help me out here but I have a strange problem with my fish ever since we moved house.... In the old house on the other side of Auckland I filled the tank from the tap and added the standard product to remove the chlorine, I also did fortnightly 1/4 water changes and my fish were happy as larry.... Guppies breeding like flies and even had some baby dwarf gouramis appear the day before we moved house. Now this is over a year ago now and we have since moved out west into our own place. And since then my tanks just haven't been up to scratch, I've had a fish dying every other week and no babies from anything.... My guppies have actually died out, can you imagine that! Regular testing shows my PH is is 8.0 for my cichlids and 6.5 for the tropical tank. 0 nitrates and nitrites.... 0 ammonia.... Temp is 26.5 steady... I also fill the tank from a counter top filter in the kitchen hoping this would be better quality water than out of the tap. In setting up my new cichlid tank a few months ago I have noticed one thing.... If something dies, or even if I drop a piece of cucumber in there within a matter of hours it's coated in a cotton wool type growth... Just shocked me how quickly it appears and was wondering if this might be something I should suspect.... Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated... Tommy

Do we think that the Brichardi and Jullies would fight it out or live peacefully? Am doing a bit of reading online to try and find out too... Okay didn't take me too long to figure out that's probably not a good idea. Am kind of liking the idea of getting a group of Julidochromis ornatus (The Golden Julie) and see if I can end up with a breeding pair. Anyone know a good place to get some smallish fry? Anyone keen to adopt my 4 remaining cichlids?

Hmmmm wonder if I should put some salt in? Any ideas on what is a good level to put in? Salt might knock if the little pleco who lives in there too?

Fish shop guy was adamant that their cichlids are in Ph 8.0..... I wonder if all their tanks just run the same water?

Well all the water tests are fine so far. Am just waiting on an ammonia test kit which will hopefully rule that out. The tank was a tropical setup and I cleaned the whole thing out and wiped down with white vinegar and then rinsed throughly a few times before setting it up again. All the water is out of the kitchen betnch top filtered tap so hopefully it's better than straight out the tap. My tropical fish definitely didn't do very well either since we moved out west from Onehunga to Avondale. I'm constantly wondering if there's something else wrong with the water out this way, have even considered trying to catch some rain water....

Unfortunately the two smaller ones haven't made it. Put them in a smaller tank on their to try and give them some piece and quiet bit didn't make much difference. So just 4 similar sized fish left, all very skittish and hiding a lot. Anyone got any thoughts on some different fish that might suit this tank more but which would be okay with the PH of about 7.5? Spent a bit of money on the sand and rocks so don't want to get rid of it..... Looking for something with a bit more character than guppies etc....

Thanks Guys, Did a 1/3 water change yesterday and water is sitting at 26.5C...

Thanks, I did think of the air stone so put on at the back. My testing kit doesn't have ammonia so not sure what it is, will have to get something to test that on the weekend. Not sure what the other two "random" fish are but will try add a photo. Could these symptoms be a sign of bullying?

Thanks Matt, I'm used to the little tropicals where you know it's pretty much "bye bye" if they start swimming strange.... Not sure how many fish would be a good number for the 620T tank.... It's not super wide but it is tall however most places say the wider the better so don't want to crowd them too much....

I've kept standard tropical fish at various stages over the years and recently decided to try my hand at malawi cichlids. After much online reading I decided to go with electric yellows in my 620T 120 litre tank. I went crushed coral and aragonite for the floow and some nice big rocks to make about 6 decent hiding caves. I then let that tank settle for 10 days applying some "medicine" from the fish shop to help cycle the tank quickly. I kept the noodles from my tropical tank and placed them in the brand new Aqua One canister filter to try and help it cycle better. I purchased a pair of 4 inch sized electric yellows from the Hollywood fish farm in Auckland and from day one I could tell something was wrong as the very next morning one of them was constantly floating around the top corner. They haven't been eating at all too. Did all the tests to make sure the water was okay.... Am using the stick based tests to PH is a little hard to judge but it's definitely over 7.5. Nitrate - 0 Nitrite - 0 PH - 7.5-8.0 The fish haven't died except one of the has a very curved spine all of a sudden and swims kinda weird. We thought it might have been stress as to being the only fish in a new tank so got 4 more fish over the weekend. 2 slightly smaller yellows and 2 zebra type things from Hollywood again. The tank seemed to liven up straight away and everyone was actually eating the flakes if I made them sink to the bottom. But this morning the 2 smaller yellows are lying on their sides on the bottom not looking to good. And one of the larger yellows is back up by the heater. Any hints or suggestions would be greatly appreciated as this is very concerning for fish that are supposed to be pretty hardy.... Do I need to get my fish from somewhere else? Regards, Tommy

Every morning I wake up he's made a little bunch of bubbles but it never gets any bigger than that. I even went as far as to put a cup lid in like they do with bettas but no joy..... Maybe he is too young? He's only half the size of my other honey gourami (dwarf?) in the community tank. Anyone got any other ideas? Will keep updating with the progress....

Anyone know if the light should be on or off?

I ended up getting what I think are a male and female dwarf red honey pair, a little on the small size but the male is a wonderful orange and red fire colour and the "female" is a much lighter silver/orange colour. Hopefully the guy at animates got it right. Put them in the smaller of my tanks and noticed the guy building a little bubble nest this morning before I headed out to work only to find it disappeared by the time I got home. Wondering if it's the guppies being too energetic? Anyway, have removed all but the two gouramis and also reduced the tank to only 6 inches of water so will see what happens next. Also had a bit of a read online and saw something about increasing the temperature a few degrees so will do that in the morning. Also saw something about switching the filtration off once the babies are free swimming so will give that a crack if it ever gets to that stage. :-)

So far the only fish that have bred in my tank are the guppies.... And boy do they breed.... I've got a single, what looks like, male honey gourami and am interested in trying to breed them. Has anyone done this and got any quick tips? First off I'm finding it really hard to find any females in the shops, does anyone out there know where I could get one or two? Any help with this would be awesome. :-) Tommy UPDATE : I'm finding some topics while searching the forum so will list the related ones here.... http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/honey- ... t1383.html