BikBok

I had a quick look and decided that maybe picassa is a bit simpler and straight forward for my needs but I couldn't find out whether it was compatible for 64 bit win 7. then I also found this little bit of info: I'm confused.. 1. says it doesn't store photos on PC but 2. seems to contradict :" The photo edits you make are only viewable in Picasa until you decide to save your changes. " so can I actually saved edited photos to my own PC ? it's useless to me if I can't.

I've just updated my PC and had to say goodbye to my very useful but old Microsoft picture it! I'm now using Windows 7 and it comes with windows live photo gallery which has limited editing features and the red eye fix leaves a lot to be desired. What's out there that will give me an improvement over the windows live gallery? I want to be able to crop and put photos together as a collage, fix and adjust red eye, photo quality etc, and maybe add text to the pics sometimes. But I don't think I need to go the expense of a fully featured paid for program. My daughter said to have a look at gimp and picassa... any other recommendations. It needs to be free and compatible with windows 7.

they look great, are they in the tank yet? Just curious about why you chose to cover it completely in sand.. my choc zeb likes sucking on the underside of smooth surfaces. I bet it looks good though. I might have to do something similar as my new shark has evicted the whiptail from the log tunnel.

good for you! I think livebearers are particularly susceptible to worms.. so livebearers especially get QT'd in my house.. 3- 4 weeks PLUS wormed. (I'm using aviverm becuase I can't get a hold of prazi .. aviverm treats callamanus .. those horrid red worms) Other species of fish 2-3 weeks but I don't worm them , I just observe.

my ramshorns don't eat the plants. I'm sure you'll be fine with ramshorns, a nice steady flow of them would be welcomed by the puffers I'm sure!

it was my impression that brown algae grows in lower light.. so the filtering out of light may be working against you in this case. But I still get a little on my clear pipes, it's easy enough to get rid of, just a pain like you say to dismantle every so often.

I treat new livebearers with aviverm wormer. (levamisole) and QT most fish for 3-4 weeks with salted water. The only fish I haven't QT'd were my otos, I figured they wouldn't like being moved around into different environments too much so put them straight into the main tank. As for regular routine medications, I've never bothered. If A fish dies for no apparent reason, I check the water parameters and then add salt and increase the water changes for a few weeks but that's all.

i think it's adorable :love:

Hi Rob, where are you from? What is "WAS" ? Hope you enjoy your time here.

oh dear ! That's no good and disheartening when the reason isn't obvious. I had a similar thing happen once , shortly after I had added some imported guppies.. most my NZ ones died starting with the males and then the imports as well. I only had a a few NZ females left and they birthed offspring of the imports, who are now having their own babies.. but it was very frustrating to work out what was going on. I'm still not totally sure but it was either columanaris or some weird guppy disease .. ONLY the guppies were affected , nothing else. Have you introduced anything new? Is there any chance of parasites?

oh I have a fat otto too! I was starting to get worried about him but he's just a fatty!

oh well, at least someones happy. I think I know the ones you mean, I saw some at animates. very cute.

I wouldn't add anything more until everything has settled down for a few weeks.

squirtle the turtle.. cool! - were you a pokemon fan? Satoshi , I believe was inspired by all the lil creatures he used to collect and catch and they became pokemon.

welcome! I use firefox and have no probs with viewing pics. It's been a long time since I used IE. That reminds me , I need to put Firefox on sons netbook, he's hating the I.E

My L270 has never been shy about eating his food. He'll eat any sinking tablet but ignores veges. he eats novotabs, hikari algae wafers(which is really for the for the ottos) , shrimp pellets, sinking tropcial tablets and any other fish flakes and pellets that make it to the bottom.

glad to hear the remaining platties are ok. Are they male and female or just one gender? They might be enough for now ..

awesome! I work with that age group too (Teacher aide)

changing the water will lower the ammonia because you're taking some of it out. That's the whole reason why you water change more frequently when there are ammonia readings, The good bacteria that will convert the ammonia lives in the filter and gravel so you won't lose much if any of the good stuff. (just rinse any sponge media in tank water not tap water) This good bacteria will multiply until a balance is reached in the tank and you should be fine as long as you keep up the water changes and don't add too many fish at once. What age are the kids at school? I work at a school too.

Water Changes people have different ideas but mine are usually around 25%, sometimes less.. sometimes more. Certainly in a smaller tank you need to keep on top of water changes. my 20L gets changed out 5L one week and 8 L the next. In a cycling small tank I'd go for 30-40% twice a week.

in the meantime you could add some salt to the tank while it's cycling. Nitrite will follow the ammonia and the salt helps with gill function during this process.

to be honest 16L is a bit small to be keeping a fighter, BN AND platys. Remember that BNs and platys can be quite messey. I kept a fighter and two platy in a 20L tank and even then I had to do decent water changes every week. I have now swapped the platy for 2 guppies because they're a little smaller and a little less messey.

yeah I wouldn't put anything else in until the ammonia is reading zero And I don't think a female in the same tank as the male would be a good idea either. Some of the more experienced breeders would be able to advise on that but my two fighters went crazy just seeing each other through glass.

another thought is if the platy all came from one source and were already diseased or with parasites , it could explain why they died even though they weren't sharing the same tanks. Livebearers particularly seem susceptible to worms .. especially in some petshops.

are you saying you put all the fish in to the tanks in one go? it might have been a bit much. Do you have ammonia and nitrite readings? or even nitrates