Jennifer

I can send you a couple if you like? I only have a couple in the other tanks with no loaches but they will breed in no time if you put them in a container of water.

Good idea! I will try that! There is a lot of sludge they can eat...(what is all the sludge from?)

I figured it was overfeeding as well, but as I mentioned above I have been very careful. The cardinals are underfed if anything. The ottos may be the culprit. There is no algae in the tank anymore (used to have some brown algae). Every few days I put algae wafers in a disc of courgette to feed the ottos and generally leave that hanging in the tank for a few hours - I am thinking I should leave it in for less time in future. Don't worry, it is a tank and I normally hardly clean the filters at all and if I do I rinse it in tank water. I was just so overwhelmed with the number of worms and the thickly clogged tubes that I took it out to the lawn! I have dwarf sag (subulata, not microfolia) and very healthy hairgrass that has covered all the foreground substrate. I have a CO2 system, f. excel and fert balls. I have only seen the worm cases on the lower hairgrass stems and in the filter on the sponges and noodles. Have never seen them floating. There is no rotting food in the hairgrass but obviously there is fish faeces that I don't vacuum out of the plants. I set up the tank 3 months ago using mature media from my display tank's canister so this tank only had a mini cycle. The water parameters have been fine, as I have been checking them out of concern, but recently I have upped the water changes to see if that might help.

I don't clean my other canisters more than every few months but this one just keeps stopping so I had to get the flow going again! That is great advice though Stella. The plants are new and growing very well - I haven't noticed any bits floating around (unlike my other tanks) but I will get a sponge over the inlet and see if that helps. I do wonder about the worms in the filter sponges and those that I know are in the substrate under the plants....and yes, the smell is terrible...

How soon after the water change did they die?

This has been going on for at least a month and I haven't seen anything else around so far, aside from the large red worm that mysteriously happened to come up just below the basket I was rinsing, but nowhere else on the flooded lawn.... I will keep my eye on it though. BTW, I don't normally rinse things on the lawn, but I just was so grossed out I didn't want to do it in the house!

Well then, I guess I am happy to just let them be, however something is making the water smell very bad and the filter tubes keep getting completely clogged. I seriously cannot see what could be clogging it up but the filter sponges had thousands of those worm cases in there both times I cleaned them out. I wonder if they are rotting and smelling up the place? I would like to find a solution for the lack of flow so I don't have to keep dissassembling the filter every 3 weeks!

Unless I have missed something, I don't think they are those, the cases don't appear to have a head and the worm that comes out is small, red and very wriggly.

Yes!! The big one looks just like that, the underside is paler. I am guessing that maybe it didn't come from the filter and just popped up out of the grass and somehow is still alive in the jar of water now. Still though, I KNOW there are worms in the filter and they are amll and red, so small it is difficult to see if they resemble the large worm...although thinking about it, they seemed slightly segmented, but not like a tapeworm.... any idea what those are??

One of my tanks has a very weird (totally disgusting) problem that I discovered recently in the substrate and the filter: The tank is approx 40L (Aqua One 418) tank with 10 cardinals and 2 ottos. It has been set up for 3 months. It is densely planted so that no substrate is visible. There is a Fluval 204 canister filter and the tank is at 24 degrees. Lights are on 10 hours a day. I feed once daily, thawed brine shrimp, or flake, or frozen tropical tucker or sometimes frozen bloodworms. I feed only as much as the cardinals can eat and very slowly so that none falls into the plants to rot. The ottos get a piece of fresh veg studded with bits of algae wafers every second or third day. Three weeks ago I noticed: 1. Almost complete lack of flow from the filter 2. A funny rotting mouldy smell 3. Little (1cm) tubular brown things along the hairgrass stems 4. Normal clear water and happy fish I was really grossed out and began a half day cleaning process. The filter was full of slimy brown sludge (well, not full, but it was adhering to all the surfaces and clogging the tubes). I noticed that the sponges had dozens of the brown tubular things as well and when I probed one a small red worm came out (in the top photo the blob next to the worm is the tubular casing it came from, bent around on itself). I realised that cleaning would be near impossible with the plants. I figured it could be an abundance of nutrients so carried out water changes every 4th day, fed every second or third day and am even more careful when feeding (but I really, really always have been very careful not to overfeed). My other tanks do not have this problem yet they have the exact same diet. Three weeks later (today) I noticed the filter is slowing down again! So I got the filter all out on the patio and hosed it out. Still more worms and I just decided to hose out the noodles too, a lot of worms came out and then I found this on the grass under the basket I was hosing out: I am not 100% sure that it didn't come from the lawn, but I really don't think it did. It is flat on one side, much like a fluke, and I put it in a jar of water and it is still alive several hours later. Also the small ones I captured are alive in the jar too. They are all red...and they are grosing me out! Any idea what these are? Aside from tearing down the tank and starting over, any ideas what I can do to get rid of them? Really hate worms...eww *looking for the vomit emoticon*

I know, ain't it great! That way we keep you guys on your toes so when you do manage to please us you are so pleased with yourselves...see how well that works? :lol: 8) hee hee

+1 I know! It was sounding like a blokes room in here for a while. Good on ya Stella! 8) (not that I want to go and sob my eyes out in a movie, sorry P44) :roll:

I have helped many vet clinics to set up their own laboratory incubators (for growing baterial colonies on culture plates). The following is a good website that tells how to make one (and I bet you already have all the supplies!). This type of set up will usually keep the temerature around 28 to 32 degrees depending on drafts and how well the dorr is sealed but you can experiment with different bulbs and dimmers to get it lower or higher. You may need to consider humidity for eggs though - a bowl of water and a hygrometer should help. http://www.umsl.edu/~microbes/pdf/Incubator.pdf HTH

Nice!!! :bounce: :lol:

What were you planning to put in it? You will have plants with those great lights right?

Well regardless of how you got it....you will have a new tank soon!!!! Woohooo!!! :bounce: Bet you're excited!! Planning and preparing.... you'll have to keep us updated on your progress. *sigh* maybe I need another tank...... 8)

Seriously! I have a SUV so easily could have picked it up on the 8th December and dropped it off to you down there - I have to go down for my student's graduation anyway! Could have saved you upwards of $500! :bounce:

Stunning!!!! :bounce:

Yeah, I would wonder if it was worms too. Couldn't hurt to treat them just to be safe. Could also be a bacterial infection. If it is a bacterial infection nutrition may be playing a part. Animals that eat vegetation usually have much more developed digestive tracts than animals that do not (I am generalising here). These digestive tracts are designed to work hard at metabolising cellulose (vegetable fibre) and if there is not enough cellulose in the diet the gut can go into stasis or develop gut flora imbalances - among other things - and this can result in a failure to absorb nutrients which can cause weight loss, infertility and decreased resistance to disease. The more the intestines work, the better the normal gut flora will be and this will enable good absorption of nutrients. I feed my GBAs all kinds of vegies (pumpkin, cucumber, courgette, carrot, parsnip, turnip) and algae wafers and my loaches always spend a lot of time also eating the vegies until they get very round bellies. Most of your cellulose eaters will have round bellies with lots of intestinal action (and large poos). :roll: Just look at my fat happy Ottos that look like they have beer bellies.... So, if you aren't offering lots of cellulose to supplement a varied omnivourous diet, that might be one area that can be improved. Keep in mind, commercial diets are not always sufficient. Take rabbits for example, they have commercially 'complete' rabbit pellets but rabbits just do not thrive without a diet composed primarily of hay (as a source of cellulose). Also, the food must be in a form that is edible, i.e. not hard as a rock.... Of course I am not a fish expert, so others may have some more specific advice. Anyway, I hope that helps a little.

Just don't try brushing your teeth with a tube of silicone..... :lol:

Riccarton is a good location, central to most fishy shops. There is the massive Riccarton mall for the shopping friend and the nearby Ilam Road houses the shop Organism. Also, the nearby Tower Junction Shopping Centre has some good shops and an Animates with some knowlegable fishy people. Redwoods is 'relatively' close to Riccarton compared to some other areas, but really Redwoods is out of the way from most suburbs and as you know, there are no other shops at all near Redwoods.

Your farm???? WOW what an unreal place to live!!! Stunning!

Wow, awesome idea. I reckon that will look fantastic. 8) I was just camping in Greymouth last week and there was some great driftwood there, lots like that pic you posted and some with great holes in it like cactus wood (if you have ever seen that, it is very cool). Only about 3.5 hours from here to there.

I'll be driving down (from Chch to Dunedin) on 8th or 9th December, if you haven't gotten it by then, feel free to let me know. I would be happy to pick it up and bring it down with me.

Very nice! :bounce: