the-obstacle

I have a little guppy that's been hanging out on the bottom of the tank for a few days. He's been avoiding light and trying not to swim a lot. Generally lethargic. He's the same age as the other 3 in the tank and they're all quite happy and eating heaps where as he has a few little bursts of interest then goes back to hiding. He's a lot thinner than the other 3 and his gills seem to be working overtime. He doesn't seem to swim with his tail unless he really has to and I thought I saw him swimming with his gills at one point but surely that can't have been right. This evening he was floating vertically with his head up in about the middle of the tank so I figured it was time to see what I could do. I've moved him into another tank, which luckily I set up earlier today to try to cycle (hopefully he makes it and it cycles with him), and I've followed the salt treatment plan on the guppy ailments website. Should I do anything else? He doesn't seem broken or have any ulcers but his tail looks a bit more raged than the others and the lack of action is concerning. I'm new to this so i'm reading everything on the net and probably over-reacting.

haha, choice! Have a good trip.

How does the white strip work during the day for viewing the fish? I'm considering just making it a fish only tank so this might be a good option if it works. Wouldn't a lamp style CFL need to be quite high off the tank to light the length of it at 1200 long? (I predict the answer is 'buy more than one')

HI, I have a fairly shallow but long tank at 1200x250x250 and was wondering if something like this would be enough to light it sufficiently? http://www.trademe.co.nz/Building-renov ... 092096.htm or http://www.trademe.co.nz/Building-renov ... 348912.htm The second one has a colour temp of 6000-6500k (apparently?) but in a demo in the shop they didn't do much more than light a few cm's in front of the light in daylight. Not that that's a good test but it wasn't like a CREE LED which can spotlight a wall across the room in daylight. What do you think? I'm going the cheap way of course but I want to make sure it'll at least look good and light the tank well enough that the fish and plants in the future will be happy with it. Are there better ways of doing this? Oh, and it's for a freshwater tank. Cheers Dan