Stephen & Cayley

final update... got home and he was still with us, looking a little sluggish. he somehow moved onto his back and couldn't turn over... at that point started up the pc to read an article i had spotted on fish euthanasia but before we could do anything he passed. at lest he is now with his girl and no longer in any pain. Thanks to everyone's support and advice RIP Lily and Marshal -Cayley

have been reading on dropsy and i'm fairly sure i'ts not that. swelling is definitely abdominal and there are no signs of scales sitting up. so should we be starving him or trying to get some fruit into him? the vegies I've been giving him have been blanched so shouldn't have been too tough :-? but i'm new to this Cayley

Thanks firenzenz, They have 2 large bits of wood in the tank. have been monitoring the water toxins all reading 0 as its a large tank with hardy any fish. did a reasonable water change last night. there has been a lot of algae, both green and brown as we recently got lights for the tank, we got a new little girl in the weekend and she's been doing an amazing job cleaning it up. normally feed flakes for the other fish, and vegies and fruit to the plecos. I got them spirilina discs but after a debate with our LFS fish guy decided they are just fussy as they dont touch them. so they are feed broccoli which he normally loves, and sometimes a bit of apple, haven't given him much zucchini with it not in season. I did notice a large increase in pleco poop when we got the new little girl, so they might not have been pooping for a while. tank temp is normally 25 deg C. at least we now have him separated so we can monitor poop levels if any, and no food. will try raising the temp a little tonight. many many thanks Cayley

Hi, I would love some advice from all you experienced fish keepers!! last week we lost our girl BN for no apparent reason, our big boy is now starting to look swollen and i'm worried that its bloat that got our girl too. We isolated the boy last night in a large breeding box so we can see if he's pooping ok - no signs yet :-? He is showing what I as a new fish keeper am guessing is a swollen/protruding anus? the girl had a similar condition before we lost her but I thought it might have been related to spawning preparation (we got them as older mature BNs fully grown) I cant bare to see them suffer and don't want to loose another, I've gotten quite attached to these funny little fish!! please help! Cayley

how are your baby rams getting on Aquila/Milena? Our tank would love a couple if you have some available

Nope.. bought a random tank and stand off trademe... it also had a hood. The hood had a dodgy 60cm light fixture in it.. but if I plug it in it blows fuses so I've thrown that out. So yeah.. I've been looking at the hagen as an option to replace it with. Also looked at the arcadia I-bar.. which look quite good for installation into an existing hood... HFF show them on their website: http://www.hollywoodfishfarm.co.nz/prod ... 5_fittings - not sure how much they go for though... but it's another option. I couldn't find them on the arcadia website though (except for an old development version of their site I managed to find) so I'm thinking they might be discontinued?

Great stuff. Did you install it into your existing hood? How does it all go together? I'm looking at getting one to install in a hood which doesn't have any lighting currently. Do the end caps for the tube get installed into the hood, or do the reflectors/clips hold the tubes in place and the end caps just screw on to the tubes? How did you position the ballast unit? Does it get very hot?

Cheers for the welcome everyone... Had to do a quick google on that one... but yes I think you're right

That's pretty much what I was thinking, you've just reminded me actually.. it is actually an original Jager.. before they were bought out by Eheim I guess.

Yeah, I'm not sure on that one.. it's definitely old, works ok just doesn't look good, I'm away at the moment, I'll post a pic up of what it looks like. The fluval is brand new and should be plenty so I'm pretty happy with that, but thought I might as well throw the other one in as a bit of redundancy.

Hi All, After reading loads of threads on here, I thought it was about time I registered... I've done a bit with Goldfish and Tropicals quite a few years ago when I was growing up.. but nothing that serious. When we were up at my parents place at christmas, my girlfriend (Cayley) and I found my old 30L tank and have got it going again in the last few months... we got a lovely red Siamese Fighting Fish ... and more recently a potential breeding pair of bristlenose pleco's. The pleco's are about 10cm each so quite big... a bit too much for this tank... so.... Bought a new 180L tank with stand/hood off trademe recently, but had a bit of an issue a couple of weeks ago when leak testing on the deck... everything was looking good until it was filled right to the top, and formed a dirty great crack in the bottom (we think the nail head that was not so well hammered in to the deck probably had something to do with it). So that was the end of that tank (it wasn't the nicest looking tank anyway if we're honest - was a bit old and a bit worse for wear). With a bit of help from Pete at Port Nicholson Glass.... we now have a new tank that is the same size to fit the stand... so that is currently curing and we're looking forward to getting that setup soon Once that's all cured, have got everything organised to get it going... Eheim Classic 2215 External Filter (currently seeding on the 30L tank) Fluval Tronic 200w heater (as well as an old Eheim 150w heater that is looking worse for wear) 15kg of Medium grade (1-2mm) White Marble chip from Petstuff101... hopefully this will be enough to give us a nice surface at the bottom of the tank In this tank we're planning to pop in our Siamese Fighting Fish and the two BN plecos... and after that we're not sure yet... there are lots of fish we're interested in putting in there..... definitely some Rams, and I'm very keen on a black ghost knife fish... though haven't done enough reading on what they require yet. So that should be a good start and I'll put up some pictures once I get that going... Otherwise I'm also interested in Marine tanks... but trying to not get too interested in that until I've got this tank all setup and running happily. Cheers, Stephen

Hey Aqua, Did you end up buying the Hagen remote ballast? I'm interested in getting one of these.. primarily they seem the easiest way of being able to install in an existing hood. Be keen to hear how you got on with it. Cheers, Stephen