BikBok

really sam?? how much water change do you do? I'd be afraid to use untreated water and I'm not far from you! The last council reading i got for wattle downs was Chlorine 0.6 - 0.8 mg/L isn't this enough to cause harm to fish and bacteria?

hi and welcome. It's so exciting starting out , especially with kids to share the interest. Good luck with everything , you will learn fast and don't be afraid to keep coming back to ask more questions. I know I did! Thermometer - just remember to place it on the opposite side of tank to the heater so it will give a more accurate reading. Filter Bacteria - the best brand I've used is JBL filter start , i've used it on 2 start up tanks and it did work. But it's harder to find so look for Seachem stability which is also excellent to help get your tank cycled. (seachem make great products) I don't believe any bacterial product does it instantly despite any claims but i do reckon they help things along, just keep fish numbers LOW until the tank has cycled...(you'll know when your test kits show 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite and a little nitrate.) some other brands are TLC, and nutrafin cycle. I'm Not a fan of stress zyme as it doesn't contain true filter cycling bacteria but it does help with build up of muck. Testkits - API test kits are pretty popular and easily found in most pet stores that sell fish. I've had no problems with them and they are easy to use.. your kids will love the little test tubes that come with them! . The master test kit is a good place to start as it will have everything you need to test the tank while cycling http://www.hollywoodfishfarm.co.nz/deta ... kit/m/950/

what about the grow formula? it's same size pellet (0.5mm) as small fish but slightly higher protein. I was looking for small fish pellets as well as my current jar is almost out and ended up buying the grow formula. HFF advised the higher protein (50% vs 48%) would be fine for my guppys, platys and gourami and many other fish as well. HFF currently have grow formula http://www.hollywoodfishfarm.co.nz/deta ... 5g/m/1089/

:iag: we had a good hooded lid and our spiny eel still got out ! we had some foam padded around where the electrical cables powered the heater etc and he must have squeegeed his way out though that! Heard the cats running up and down the hall one night, didn't think anything of it till the next morning and no eel in the tank! he was a cool little guy that we hand fed

yes they love pumpkin but mine also ate courgette.

are you wanting to put them in an existing salted tank or start a new one? If they are to go into an existing tank I would do several water changes before then to reduce the salt , as they can tolerate some and like you said it would eventually be diluted out anyway. If you're starting a new tank don't worry about using the water just go straight for established filter media .. or put in some extra sponge/noodles (whatever you use) for a few weeks that you can transfer to the new tank setup.

i have a rainbow shark who will lightly graze on algae, not so much on the glass, but more on the plants. I think the rainbows are slightly less aggressive than the Red tails. But my rainbow will chase any new fish for the first day and then lose interest. He has a dislike for the wagtail platys and has shredded the odd guppy tail. He has never killed any fish except for newborn guppy fry and an aging platy.

I've had a Betta in a moderate dosed tank short term but mollies can have much higher concentration can't they? If you can use some of the filter media in the new tank that would work better than the water.

hmmm not that low but I kept my L270 at a stable 25oC for 3 years and then he mysteriously died, maybe my water was too cool for his liking in the long run. Have now got an L168 as the temp seems to be more agreeable and he/she is way more visible which I like.

could just be a film from breaK down of food waste. what sort of surface agitation do you have?

I guess.. my pearls are in a 155L tank but I thought a 110l might just be ok for two if there are only smaller fish as companions. I quite like the gold honey dwarf gourami but sadly my two didn't last... had the symptoms of the dreaded so called dwarf gourami disease but I'll never know for sure. one of my gold honeys

hey if you like angel fish is it the long ventral fins that catches your attention.. how about a couple of beautiful pearl gourami or dwarf gouramis , they also have those long feeler like fins and they're cute when they use them to touch each other. here's my two gourami when they were young and a closeup of one of them as an adult (male)

:iag: I wasn't a fan of the fries there, our household 1 out of 4 liked them the rest of us won't have them again.

In my community tank I used salt, (even with a hypancistrus, kuhlis etc) and lowered the temperature to 23/24oC as columnaris thrives over 27oC and plenty of waterchanges, I did this until I saw no more affected fish and then left it another week before reducing salt and bringing the temp back up again. I took out any affected affected fish I saw which interestingly were all guppies and put them into QT. i used a higher dose of salt (which is fine for guppies) and added meth blue AND acriflavine. Some still succumbed and very quickly but I continued with water changes and medication until no more fish were dieing . I left the survivors in the QT for a MONTH before putting them back into the main tank as I wanted to make sure. I did use a little furan 2 also but only as a daily 30 minute dip in a floating container on my favourite fish as I didn't want it to play havoc with the biofilter.. I've heard that pimafix can be used for mild cases but IMO columnaris is seldom mild! The treatment worked for me and I'm 99% sure my issue was columnaris. But acriflavine and meth blue can target a lot of things anyway. I can't recall if you mentioned your tank temp but it might be worth lowering it if your fish species can handle that for a while. That way any treatment for columnaris (if it is Columnaris will have a better chance at working... and maybe put in an airstone for for extra oxygenation (which the lower temp will help with too) .. and as with most medications keep the tank lights off for as much as possible.

you really are having a tough time. I know how frustrating it can be.. I once had a columarais outbreak after aquiring new fish and it was a time intensive dedication to rid my tanks of the disease. Don't know what's in your tanks but it does sound a bit like the aggressive columaris that I had to deal with.

sounds like dropsy, nothing much you can do. epsom salts may relieve it but usually they don't recover if it's dropsy.

I second Ottos! cute as little fish. BNs are ok but might get lazy! and they're messier.

I had a Hexy Midi ( currently in storage) .. you could set the filter flow to full and take off the spout thingee (for more splash/current) and have a Borneo Sucker.. having the six sides means lots more glass surface for algae to grow for him too! Let us know on what you decide. I kept a betta and a small whiptail in mine.

ok, just as well he's not in the wild then ! So he's just a strange mixed gene guppy haha. I like him anyway!

just wondering if this little guy is a wildtype guppy. My other wild types have all had little insignificant tails but this tail is huge in comparison.

prime shoudl last ages. I use it. the good thing about prime is you can smell it, if it still has that sulphury smell, it shoudl be good to go. according to seachem: the more basic water conditioners that contain sodium thiosulfate have a shorter life once opened... i wouldn't use an opened bottle thats older than a year. How you getting on now? are you still adding salt.. that seems like a huge amount you were adding. You shouldn't need to add salt unless you've got a problem in the tank .. salt can help as a tonic for sick or injured fish or when cycling a tank (helps with nitrite poisoning) .. When I've used salt I usually add 1/2 teaspoon for every 16L , (which is about 10 % of my tank) not a tablespoon! That way my sensitive fish aren't overexposed to it. In a guppy only tank I add double that. There are treatments involving salt for specific problems like ich, which use much higher concentrations for short periods of time.

maybe put some carbon it to soak up any spray residue? Incidentally I use auto fly sprayers in summer, have done for three years and haven't lost fish because of it..I know the products warns not to use around aquaria but my tanks are covered and I use carbon in summer and keep up the water changes. I just make sure the auto can isn't in the immediate vicinity of any of my tanks. Had 4 tanks in different rooms at one stage. My family are not allowed to use the regular fly cans , if they pick one up they get a good growling from me hah. Those are strictly for the garsage and not the house.

I have a basic 21L splish splash tank as my quarantine/hospital tank . It has one of those clearview HOB filters which should be fine for only 1-2 small fish. But wouldn't light still get through the plastic and inhibit bacteria growth?? After my disaster several weeks ago with the imported guppy fiasco I decided I should get my splish splash cycled again, it had been sitting dormant. It's taking ages to cycle!! I have two guppies in there, this is the 3rd week, I would have expected to at least see some nitrites by now. I got to wondering if the light getting to the filter was hindering things, so I've now put a teatowl over it. I've been on school break (I'm staff) but honestly I've been so busy with the tanks it seems like where did my holiday go! 1. imported guppys infected/killed 99.9 % of my NZ guppies. 2. then my main tank crashed after the filter failed. 3. am now cycling two tanks, doing checks twice a day and the required water changes. My splish spalsh guppies have just birthed 10-15 babies (in an uncycled tank!) but I can't put the adults back into the main tank because that's trying to cycle as well and is more important than my QT .

whatever bacteria in my substrate obviously isn't enough. I've put an update in my first post.

well I've had my little dwarfs for around a week now and they are cute happy little guys. They are not hiding anymore and even brave hanging around the shark at feeding time. But the poor wee things have had to put up with my tank crashing ... filter got turned off accidentally. Just hope it hasn't caused any long term damage, I haven't had any fish losses but am wary.