ally07

Sweeet.. Thanks for that, haha, really boosted my confidence haha.. They're still being conditioned so probably won't go in till another week or two.. Cheers!

Hmm.. Maybe I'll try it anyway, and if it works, I'll post it here haha.. :-?

I'm currently re-arranging my fish in my different tanks and I was just wondering if it's possible to breed bettas in a tank with fine sand in it? I know that bare bottom is best, but I've got a tank ready to go but with sand in it, and I have no place to put all the sand! Would the male be able to pick the eggs off the bottom and blow his nest? Thanks for any advice..

Congrats! Nothing beats the feeling of discovering eggs or fry that you'd been hoping and wishing and praying for! Well done! :lol:

Personally, I prefer buying fish from a LFS, rather than a pet shop. Based on experience and visual judgment, shops which specialise in fish usually tend to be more knowledgeable and sell better product than pet shops which sell a variety of pets. I think maybe it's because they make a higher profit off dogs and cats compared to fish, thus they focus more on the former than the latter. Perhaps it also reflects how people view fish as (relatively!) inexpensive and short-lived pets compared to dogs or cats. So it's really up to the staff of LFS and pet shops to inform the public and further the fish-keeping hobby in NZ. Just over the weekend I was browsing through the fish tanks at a pet shop (not Animates) when I overheard a couple asking the staff, "How many neon tetras are needed for group behaviour?" Curiously I glanced at the staff, who simply had a blank face. Rather than let him make something up and up-sell the couple, I stepped in and answered, "5". Sometimes I really wonder if pet shops include an aquarium section just to appear more 'well-rounded', even though the staff have no passion or information about aquariums. Logic would lead one to the realisation that passionate and informed staff = less dead fish = more sales, wouldn't it? :-?

Drop eye isn't caused by undersized tanks, but by fatty diet, so maybe the owner is feeding the right food, but forgetting to provide the right living conditions.

They may look healthy at the moment, but that could just be due to diet. Once the aro gets older, you can start to see signs like a curved spine or gill curl more obviously. Another thing I've noticed about aros in pics even on this forum is that many have droop eye, indicating an excessively fatty diet. I don't want to imagine what their livers look like! I guess people like the idea of keeping aros without taking into consideration how much tank space they really need. Ideally the length of an aro's tank should be 1.5x the length of the fish and the width should be at least 1x the length of the fish. I wonder how often LFS ensure aros are going to proper homes before they sell them off at such exuberant prices..

:bounce: *Clap clap* Bravo!

Jaide, not sure if I can sway your decision, but personally I would not set up any tank without a filter, even a sponge filter in the corner is better than nothing. To me, the main purpose of the filter isn't to generate water movement (an air stone will probably do that more efficiently) but to maintain stable and safe water conditions for the fish. I hate meddling with my filters, and I only give them a rinse once in a long while, and my water readings are still looking fine. Imagine being in a room. The air inside is only replaced once a week. Over the course of the week, minute amounts of carbon monoxide are being released into the room. At the end of the week, new air in the room. It's pretty much that way with your tanks. Being closed environments, ammonia in the water has no way to get out without the beneficial bacteria. Sure, they won't die unless the ammonia goes through the roof (and that probably won't happen with weekly water changes), but they won't like the ammonia 'build-up' and 'reset' every week. They also won't be as comfortable in their environment and might not live as long. Waddya say? Give the ol' filters another go? For your babies!

Great, thanks for that info.. But what if the new arrivals have worms, wouldn't the treatment kill them as well?

Well, I came home this evening and my puffer didn't greet me. When I looked in the back of the tank, there he was on the floor, motionless. I've taken the body out of the tank, and I tried to do an autopsy, but I didn't see any worm-like creatures, so maybe I just don't know what they look like. The procedure was emotionally taxing to say the least - having to mutilate a pet's body is not something I care to repeat. What is the most effective course of treatment now? How long should I continue it for? Thanks for all your help..

Yeah, I know, but even if I throw in half a mussel it's too much for him to finish in one "sitting", and quarters are too small for him to get much biting out of it. If he makes it to get bigger then I'll definitely feed him more shellfish. I sorta suspected a parasite as well, but I don't know much about puffers' parasites. Now that you've mentioned worms, it sounds plausible, because the lump in his side looks like a coil, almost like a worm is coiled up in his body. Is there anywhere I can get the "surgery" done? I highly doubt if I could successfully perform such an operation, but I don't think vets do these kinds of things either.. It's not what I wanted to hear, but thanks for the input, at least now I know what it is. He still seems quite happy in the tank, swimming around and eating well, so I'll try to make him comfortable before he eventually becomes fish food.

I did read somewhere that insects are a part of puffers' diets in the wild, so I don't think that is the problem. I would feed him mussels and shrimp, but he is still really small, so I have to cut the shellfish into ridiculously minute pieces for him, and even then he's not as keen on shellfish as insects. I do throw snails in, but as I said, due to his size, I can't get snails the size of his eyeball. I think that would be the size of a . He prefers to suck the snails out of their shells anyway, which is quite annoying once the empty shells start piling up. I have tried fasting him for 2 days, but his stomach just "deflates", leaving the bulge on the side. I suspect it might be an internal parasite, but I'm not sure, and I don't know how to proceed to treat it either..

He is fed frozen insects (they're actually turtle treats) which he enjoys, 6 days a week. I'm not sure if he's deflated properly or not, but he was fine before, then this came up, and he hasn't been taken out of the water or anything.

Current water condition: ammonia - 0 nitrite - 0 nitrate - 1.0 I notice a coil looking lump or bump on the left side of his body with abit of redness. He has been behaving normally, eating well. I've tried using salt treatment but there's no improvement at all. what is wrong and what should i do?

I used to have the same problem with green water in my outdoor tank as well. Whenever my schedule got hectic and water changes were pushed back to once a fortnight, that's when the water would turn a shade of green. I was using a canister filter which had coarse sponge for mechanical filtration, which worked fine, but I had to rinse out the algae from the sponges each time I did a water change. After about 1-2 months, the sponges would have gone from white to yellowish-green, and the water would gradually become greener. After I replaced the sponges with new ones, water cleared up again (for another couple of months). The good thing about the canister is that it also had space for loads of biological filter media, so I was able to replace the sponges without crashing the bacteria levels. My advice would be to increase the percentage and frequency of water changes and keep an eye on your filter sponges. Once algae gets into the sponges, your filter basically becomes an algae factory. 2c~ :bounce:

Erm, hate to be a nit picker, but you really shouldn't fill the tub straight from the hose.. I'm not saying that's what killed the fish, since they survived so long, but I'm not sure if it did play a part. Just throwing ideas out here.. Maybe the sudden change of water caused a temperature difference and the chlorine from the hose water wiped out the ammonia nitrifying bacteria in the water, causing stress and massive ammonia spike due to the number of (messy eating) fish. Or, if it wasn't the ammonia, maybe the water change stressed the fish and gave an opportunity for infection to spread. I'm slightly more inclined toward the first possibility, because I once let someone else help me to do a water change (90%!!!) and the beneficial bacterial death caused an ammonia spike and killed half the fish within the same night. Also, if there is an infection, you should be able to see signs of it on the remaining fish. I would suggest dechlorinating your water before doing water changes (if you're not already doing so) and not adding any more fish for the next month or so (at least) to allow the beneficial bacteria to control the ammonia levels in the bathtub. Just my 2c! I enjoy anomalies lol~ :bounce:

If you haven't already bought the fish, why don't you consider fish-less cycling? I was originally taught by the school of thought that cycling only starts when fish are in the tank. But after doing some reading on TFH forum, I've found out that it's quite inhumane to use fish to cycle tanks. Just think about it - you're cycling a tank to make the water suitable for fish to live in, so why would you put fish in to achieve that? Instead of using fish, just throw in some shrimp or fish food. The whole idea behind cycling a tank is to jump-start the ammonia nitrifying bacteria in the water. Ammonia can also be achieved through decomposing matter (ie fish food), rather than fish waste. The ammonia spike and dip followed by the nitrite spike and dip pattern of cycling is the same with fish food as well as fish. There are many arguments on both sides of this topic, but I just thought I'd put out a different view on the cycling process. Save a fish some discomfort today!

They are actually really smart fish when it comes to feeding! What I do during feeding time is to turn on the light and turn off the filter. Over time he's become accustomed to the habit, so now when the light is on and the filter's off, he swims near the surface expecting food. It's also good because whatever I throw in the tank is instantly assumed to be food.. He even tried some flake food last night haha. Their stomachs are definitely the way to get to their hearts!

Oh, alright. I popped by the LFS today and mysis shrimp were going for $10.90 for a pack of frozen cubes!! Is it cheaper to buy them from the supermarket? Or are the supermarket ones too big? Just a quick update - after BARELY 48hours of fasting my puffer is now happily chowing down on mussels haha.. It was tough, I'll admit, he gave me those "puffy eyes" like a dog begging for a treat every time I glanced at the tank, but tough love worked haha.. Cheers guys!

Thanks for the replies! Yeah, my puffer is really on a McDonald's only diet at the moment haha.. Alright I think I'll have to starve him for a couple of days and see how it goes. The snails I got were pretty small, so those were gone, now only the bigger snails remain, so I'm hoping he will pick off the baby snails as they appear.. Probably too small to eat mealworms, but I definitely want to make that a part of his diet eventually. He's only about 4-5cm at the moment, so most of the foods I offer are often bigger than his body size! At the moment I'm feeding him 6/7 days, I read somewhere that one day fast is good for them since they're always so greedy.. Where do you guys get crabs/ frozen shrimp? At the moment my freezer has bloodworms, daphnia (which I can't feed too much of either) and marinara.. I've also got live mealworms but they're too big, so they go to my cichlid..

Hi guys Wasn't sure whether to post this in Freshwater or Saltwater lest it spark debate as to the suitable salinity for a figure 8 puffer, so I posted it here. (FYI I'll raise salinity to low-end brackish once he gets a little older..) At the moment his (maybe her, I can't tell) diet consists solely of frozen bloodworms. I've tried mussels, but they've gone untouched. I did put in some small snails, some of which have disappeared, so either they're hiding or (s)he's been snacking on them.. Is this bloodworm diet appropriate for the long term? I do think that (s)he should get a variety of foods but (s)he isn't accepting other foods. How can I encourage more variety into the diet?

Nice aro! Great body shape and nice fins.. Look out for its scales as it grows older, the colouration will start to kick in later on and approach the higher scale levels.. Also, avoid using mealworms as feeder, 'cos even though it's good protein, I've heard of aros dying from mealworm shells getting stuck in their gut.. Not worth losing a few grand over a measly mealworm shell haha.. Keep us posted!

Really?? Wow.. That's tough.. I never knew females could die from, well, egg overdose?! One lives and learns..

Try raising the temperature slightly, in a tank with plenty of leaves, undisturbed water surface, and stuff him with as much bloodworms as he cares to eat.. Barring that, put another male into the tank and see if he tries to embrace the male! :bounce: