annae

Great thanks alot. I'll just go put it in then : )

I just got a terracotta pot from the supermarket, I have broken it and want to put it in the tank to give the fish some hiding places. My question is do I need to do anything with it first? Or is it okay to put terracota straight into the tank?

Well its good to know that the ph should adjust itself... wish I read that before I went out and bought the ph down doh! Oh well, luckily I only used it once and it didn't really do anything - probably because I am doing lots of water changes. The fish seem really happy and I have put a seat in front of the tank for my cat to sit and watch them.

Hi everyone, lots going on in this thread now! I haven't had a chance to use my computer for a few days. The fish have been added successfully. There are 10 of them and they are quite small so I am looking forward to watching them grow! I went down and got a testing kit and the ammonia is okay for now, the ph was a bit high though.... well it was showing 7.8 and I think it is better to be around 7? I have also been doing 20% water changes each day so hopefully that will help keep the ammonia down. The white gunky stuff was growing on the plastic part of the heater as well but since the fish have gone in it has started to calm down. They were picking at it and then it was getting sucked into the filter so I have been taking any chunky bits out and also vacuuming during water changes. Oh and also I got some ph down to try and adjust it a bit.

Hi I'm new here. Don't know about keeping eels in a tank but can't you put them in a pond? I didn't read the whole thread so maybe this has been discussed already. I feed some eels locally, there is a creek over the hill for me with a pool where a really big one lives. I started out taking a can of tuna and putting holes in it so the oil would leak out and head downstream then feeding with whatever I have. The fish lets eels downstream know you are there and on the busiest day we had about 6 eels in the pool. Now days they just come when I put the food in but the big mama eel bullies the ones that are too small so I go and feed downstream as well. I have found that eels love KFC and corned beef. Once I tried some veges but they prefer meat.

I have been reading in alot of places about Amano Shrimp. I would like to get some for my tank. Are they available in NZ? I have read about fresh water shrimp but they do not like warm water. I expect koura do not either. Any info anyone?

Hiya Thanks for answering. I didn't add anything to the water, I have a friend who is more experienced and she seemed to think I would be okay just to set the tank up and let it run for a few weeks. The fish are arriving tomorrow. I hope they will be okay. I have been searching for info on white growths for ages and was suprised not to find any info as it can't just be me surely?!

I have a new tank I have been cycling without fish and there is a strange growth in the substrate and in the back corners of the tank along the silicon. It looks like some kind of mould, it is white and when vacuumed out of the tank it looks quite snot-like floating in the bucket. I have emptied the whole tank and removed the substrate, boiled it and wiped out the inside of the tank. This seemed to work for one week but the growth is back along the silicon again. Does anyone know what this is? My fish are being delivered tomorrow so I hope it is nothing major! I don't have a water testing kit but am going to lfs tomorrow so will take a sample to be tested. When I say cycling I mean I have had the tank set up with the filter running for the past 8ish weeks... maybe even longer!