BikBok

Good work melanie! thought you might like to see an updated pic of my lil guy hanging off the driftwood those are reflections not white spots!

so what would an ideal carbon change schedule be? I use the aquaone cartridges with wool/carbon and change every 8 weeks.

how thick is your glass? I have four tanks from 20L to 160L. The two aquaone tanks have thickish glass compared to the other two . One has a Jager heater and the other an aquaone heater. The Jager heater does a superior job at keeping it at the designated temperature but both tanks stay within 1oC. My other two smaller tanks are a blue planet and splishsplash with thin glass.. these are the tanks where I see the greatest fluctuations. At night I wrap a blanket around the sides of the blue planet to prevent heat loss, and the splish splash I drape a trowel over top because the lid has a gap for the HOB filter and heater cables. This seems to keep the temperatures stable on cold nights. If I forget to do it, they are always 1-3oC lower in the morning during winter.

I think TM turns a blind eye unless someone makes a complaint. Afterall.. sellers means fees.

i use the cheap glass floating ones. The stick on colour changing ones are only accurate for a few months. Mine are reading about 1-2 degrees higher than the glass ones at the moment.

Are you talking about bloodworms? Remember that fighter pic I posted a while ago that had dropsy.. his condition developed shortly after I started feeding him brineshrimp flakes ... do you think it was too much protein?

I didn't know rainbow skinks were protected in the first place! When my daughter went through her lizard stage, that was the only one I allowed her to keep as I believed we didn't have to have a DOC permit since they weren't NZ natives.

excellent - thanks for that! been holding off getting a nitrate kit. Good time to stock up on a few other essentials too.

Does anyone know if test kits will be on sale at the aquafundays (animates) this weekend?

Give PetPac takanini a call.. They'll be happy to advsie. I'm pretty sure their water comes out at a nice pH7.0 but not sure about chlorine etc. They are on Papakura supply.

Welcome skip!

you can but try though! Epsom salts will help with the retained fluids but will not cure the cause. From what I understand about dropsy, the condition itself is not infectious but the causes can be , if that makes sense. i.e Dropsy can't be caught.. but a bacterial infection that caused dropsy can be. So it comes back to cause. I would isolate the sick fish, treat with Epsom salts and a systematic antibiotic like furna2. (weigh up the medicine cost vs the cost of guppy and likelihood of success which could be quite low) You may be too late to save this one but keep a close eye on others.

oh man I don't know. I'm always cautious with the plecs because of the perception of them being scaleless (even though they aren't) but I still worry about their sensitivity to medicines. I treated my first BN with furan 2 when he got heater burn and he came right but I used 3/4 strength furan2. BUT ... two weeks later he suddenly died :-( That's not really helpful is it! sorry, just keep a careful watch until someone can advise.

first step would be to get a health check. Cat may be unwell and unhappy.

while they were little i lightly cooked the pumpkin so it's soft on top but still hard underneath and not going to fall apart.

my BNs used to love pumpkin and peas, not so keen on carrot and broccoli but they ate it. My Whiptails don't seem that keen on veges but the smaller one will have a little.

the success fees won't be too bad. Around $30 - $40 and it gets the fish sold. Anything over $150 , and the % fee drops for the difference. fees is something I'm quite used to , with over 1400 trades 100% positive feedback... and no I'm not a home business lol. Just an old time Trade & Exchanger who has adapted to the modern way lol. I don't drive much so TM has been a godsend :-) and I sell off all the kids old stuff as well and the odd lot of guppy and platy fry. Been trying to make headway on ezyauctionz to support the ultra nice guy who runs it at all his own cost. .. but it's slow and not enough memberships yet.

wow, it's gone up fast ..would have thought people would wait to snipe.

that will be one to watch!

he will probably be eating more at night for the first while , then he'll start coming out more to eat during the day when he learns your feeding routine.

he's doing great! I can spot him most times of the day but he comes fully out in the early evening at feed time and shares food with the kuhlis. He looked so sad when he had the ich and I was really worried about losing him but he pulled through and seems to have healed really nicely. He had a lot of white smudginess after the ich but the salt helped to clear it all up before I put him back in the main tank. I'm wanting to get a young rainbow shark in a few weeks time but must admit I'm a little nervous because of the reputation of the shark.. but will watch closely to make sure he doesn't bother the choc zebra or the little whiptail I have. My HFF Female guppies (the german imports) went into the main tank today after several weeks in QT. I had a NZ guppy in with them as a test fish and all seemed well. Next week I'll put the males in.. and then it's just the rainbow shark to finish the tank how I want it. Yay - it's all coming together.

well I had to point out to a seller once that her "KOI KITES and BANNERS " were not fish and they shouldn't be in the pets section. She said "these are fish ,I hope you find what you're looking for" lol.. had no idea that people want LIVE fish not paper ones.

hope it wasn't disease that they died form then

ready to use for what?

.. and now I've got them :-) I think they are an oto vestitus possibly. They're doing great Sophia. I'll be looking for a couple more to add in with them so if fordayz has the same kind and would like to sell some when they're ready... I'd be keen. I live in Manukau too.