BikBok

Help, We've had this young male for about a month now and he's been in a little quarantine tank. Initially with two females. They ganged up on one female (the larger of the two) who went into hiding and wouldn't eat so she has been removed to another and will only eat live brine shrimp. She doesn't look great, nothing specific but just overall condition less than ideal. Hoping she will improve when her appetite does. my concern is with this male. He acts normally , eats anything but has this "hole " on the top of the head which started as a little white patch. I treated water with stress guard and then paraguard and am dosing daily. It looks like something took a bite from him but it isnt red and doesn't appear infected. However after a week its not getting better , what should be my next steps? The remaining female in the tank with him is fine and has laid two batches of infertile eggs. They are both young, she's very little but has yellowed up a bit and has a nice pudgy belly.

We are based in manurewa, looking for a male and female pair of apistogramma triple red / super red.

Hi Adrienne We have two 165L tanks, a small 21L with cute tiny chili rasboras and a Quarantine tank which always has a few guppies in it to keep it going. Been thinking of getting a couple of female Bettas , would that work in 165L community tank? There are: Male guppies, HiFin Platy, Long fin Danios (which I want to die out!) , Pearl Gourami, Whiptail, Cardinal tetras (They all survived the whitespot ) Khulis, and Ottos. and a ramshorn snail ,, oh and an 8 year old rainbow shark ... she just keeps going !

its not a huge tank. 165L . I would have thought that the heater would stay off until the temperature dropped because I kept turning it down. Either way, the heater is turned down to 23 now and the water temp is finally a comfortable 26.5oC , Im happy with that. The thermometer is well away form the heater. I can't turn the calibration ring any futher tho, Its has no movement left in the direction it needs to go!

Hi the eheim heater is turning on and off according to the light . The tank was 26 and stable before the white spot ... turned the heater up and now trying to get temp back down again. Digital thermometer is accurate. Room temp is never over 22 as i can't stand it too warm myself. Will keep trying. . But might just leave it off for a while ! If the heater lamp was always on then i would suspect the thermostat has become stuck but it doesn't seem to be the case. Have managed to get temp down to 28.3. Just dont want to stress fish out with warmer than necessary for too long. Had no losses from white spot so im happy about that.

No Im not relying on the heater dial temp.. I have a digital thermometer which is fairly accurate but will try another one just in case, This morning the digital thermometer was reading 28.8oC which is an improvement, I had turned down the heater to around 24 last night. Clearly its not calibrated anymore but I would have thought turning it down from 31 to 24 over several days would have shown more of a drop !

Strange issue with my heater. I recently had a whitespot outbreak on my cardinals alone.. no other fish were affected so i treated with salt and heat and the tank is now clear. I want to bring the temp back down to a more comfortable 26oC but am having so much trouble! I have an eheim which i believe was correctly calibrated but it seems no matter how much i turn it down it keeps heating to around 29.5 - 30.5. Its not jammed as the light Is cycling on and off. Currently i have now turned it down to below 25 on the dial and the light just clicked off at 29.5. It was 30.5 to a max 31 during treatment but i wanted to reduce slowly and have been turning down 1 degree at a time but water still heats to 29.5+. Any ideas What is going on?

they are around $40 - $50 at the stores I've seen. I got the std electric blue rams.. looking for another if anyone has any?

thanks crunchbang but really after the green cheeked. Are there no breeders in NZ?

lol Caryl.. I've been known to call my fish birds by mistake or I'm cleaning the tank (meaning bird cage)

we want a handraised pet bird. Green cheeked preferred.

thanks for sharing the outcome. We have yet to install a heatpump so for now we're making do with an HRV system and std electrical heating/cooling.. A heatpump is still on my list of thigns to do!

Thought I woudl ask on here as fishkeepers often keep reptiles and birds as well! Looking for a breeder of green cheeked conures as I'm not having much luck locating one.. are there any breeders even left in NZ of this South American Parrot?

HRV do Toshiba, but the particular one I was recommended was not well rated by consumer and didn't come with a 24 hr timer so I crossed it off my list. , other models of Toshiba fared better. HRV installation costs seemed dear to me also. Consumer ratings varied between various models of different brands but Daikin seemed to come out on tops followed by Mitsibushi, some Fujitsu and some Toshiba. I would get a few quotes and then look at the consumer ratings for your models of interest.. noise levels , output, and timers are things to consider.

I am also interested in what fish are sensitive . I used this last summer with no obvious problems caused in the fish (Including otos) but now have two electric blue rams who I have been told are very sensitive fish.

thanks for the info adrienne and Ira It will be the std EBR I will be getting. I Hope I can keep them alive!

hi are the BALOON eletcric blue rams are separate breed/ type to electric blue ram or are they the same thing. I saw some "Balloon" ones at animates that were very white with an orange head I wondered if they would become more blue as they got older. Also there bodies were rather rounded!! I'm keen on a pair of electric blue rams but apart from the ones at animates I haven't really looked at ones in real life, the google images for electric blue rams show both rounded ones and oval shaped bodies. I prefer the standard fish shape. MY daughter thought the ones at animates looked like cartoon fish!

are you going to go with an oto? I'm surprised a single one was recommended as they do better in groups. A single one would probably be sad and lonely and not thrive as well as in a group. I had a small group of otos and over time as they died off, and I was left with just one It became subued and inactive.. until I got him some new mates and now he's zooming around again.

How many Litres? If its not too many,you could perhaps let it sit at room temp for a while in buckets.. being warm autumn weather ,shroud be ok. could even add some warmed kettle water to the buckets though the oxygen level will be less. (from the boiled water)

lol Animates told me to get a plastic feeder for my birdcage from the $2 shop .. like seriously why would I want to feed my much loved parrot from anything form a $2 shop. The first dish got destroyed because he's a PARROT and chews! Ended up getting the product from my trusted seed seller.

wow. you in primary school? at the end of the day, the show gives a bad impression. While their main focus is creating an entertainment show and making money, a little "INFOtainment" wouldn't go amiss on such an important aspect as fishcare and setting things up right to minimise fish losses. But they are more about the big reveal and having a dazzling looking tank for people to go wow over. Still not impressed and there's bound to be many fish losses because of the $ vs welfare. A little googling gives mixed opinions.. there are stories out there about the low survival rates and some disastrous results , I hope they have learned and are being more responsible. From what I viewed, and what I've read, there's enough doubt in my mind that I don't want to support the show by watching it again. If you enjoy it, then go for it, just remember its a dramatized entertainment reality show. Probably highly scripted and staged, with ill conceived stocking concepts and fish mixes that would never work in the real world. I can only hope that after the camera stops rolling,they take some of those poor fish out and put them back into established tanks while the clients new tank stabilizes and matures ready for all the new additions.

the ONE show I saw of tanked was a freshwater tank and they pretty much filled it up with a hose and then added a crazy load of fish to the tank.. incompatible and overstocked.. no acclimatisation- just released them straight into the tank....I was like what the ! and I decided never to watch another episode.I was horrified to be honest. Its entertainment for sure and nothing more. Plus the tanks were tacky in my opinion. I saw no real evidence that they had considered the long term welfare of any of the fish. You simply cannot overstock a new tank and expect there to be no problems form stress and ammonia spikes etc.

I've seen "Tanked" only once but I was horrified with what I saw !!!! Do they really know what they are doing??

I'm struggling with my smaller tank too.. the heat build up in the house warms up the tank . I've tried a damp towel draped over the back and a fan in the room but it doesn't make difference.

agreed,I find the stick on thermometers unreliable. get a glass one,they are cheap enough.