Likoma

Its important to know if the problem that your fish are dealing with is a localised issue or an environmental issue. This will help you formulate an action plan to help your fish. Make sure you watch it in HD.

We have finally got the clarity perfect with an industrial canister filter loaded with Poret filter foam. The glass tank floats on the pond and houses some new species that we have added to our collection. The pond has allowed us to use some really large rocks in the aquascape and Im Mclovin it. Its created an awesome feature to enjoy an ice cold beverage. Room sits at a constant 26c. Make sure that you select the HD option.

Wicked good read.

Cheers for that Alexyay. Im sorted .Please delete this thread.

As per title Im after a microworm culture if anyone can help me out I would be much appreciated. Flick me a pm or a text on 0226894204 Thanks in advance, Greg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkrO9P45HVc

Once again thanks for the feedback Ira. Regarding your query I guess I`m purist at heart and in my brain I think the carpet should always match the drapes. I cant remember seeing many pale white rocks in the lake and I think that I have only ever used them once in an aquascape before. I really wanted to do a marine tank and Im gutted I cant. I guess this is why they call it a poor mans marine. I think the combination of tanganyikan fish, which with their body shapes are very marine like, lighting tones and white rockwork work well. Im very happy with it even if its just a standard African tank.

I have been planning on setting up a marine aquarium for some time now. Unfortunately it hasn't come to fruition. In the meantime I decided to try and replicate a marine tank as best as I could. This is the final result and Im pretty chuffed with it. Make sure you watch it in HD. Faux marine aquarium video

Well put.

Been trialing aquaponics intensively now for a few months. Love it. Been growing strawberries over winter under full spectrum LED grow lights. Check out the video that shows our 500liter mixed African cichlid aquarium which provides us with strawberries, basil, mesculin mix and water cress. Make sure you watch it in HD.

Honestly it is worth doing the treatment for a full 5 day period, although the jury is out on the creation of a super bug if the course is too short. I found trichozole to be not that water soluble and I try to get it in a liquid form used for iv`s. Keep back a quarter of the tablet and cut into little bits which can be mixed into the food. Ingestion is the best way to fix a gut problem. The epsom salts I mentioned is mixed into the food and when ingested floods the belly with liquid flushing out the bugs. This method wont fix a sick fish but it will help the others. Most important thing I have learned from fishkeeping is DONT PANIC, take deep breaths and come up with a good action plan. Again good luck.

Hey there, Sorry to hear about your issues. The white marks on the leleupi are opportunistic (bacteria or fungal) bugs that take hold due to a poor immune system., The reason the Leleupi are showing this is that they have smooth skin similar to clown loaches and come from a lake with very stable water conditions. I feel that perhaps you were getting an incorrect NO3 reading, the test is quite tricky. This affected the immune system and the opportunistic bugs took hold. I assume that the leleupi were doing kinda of a side to side body motion. This is there "Im not happy with the water quality signal." I think with the addition of rock salt at 1g/liter of water and stable clean water conditions with the addition of stability or another similar product to get the bio filter back in action. Raising the temp up to 27degrees and lots , and I mean lots of extra air. The raised temp will speed up the metabolism and help the immune systems. The salt will affect the skin scabies, for lack of a better term. The salt concentration is quite low as the fish that are being affected by bloat might react badly by taking on more liquid due to the effect of salt. Dealing with the bloat is a separate issue, I would feed the fish with food soaked in epsom salts to flush the gut from bad internal flaggelates. If you check our website dedicated to African cichlids , http://fish2water.co.nz/available-species.php, there is a downloadable fact sheet (Introducing New Fish) that gives the epsom salts solutions. This will help the fish that are not blown up by flushing out the bugs. Keep on with the metronidazole. I dose with metro every 12 hours for heavily affected fish as it breaks down pretty quickly. Are you using Trichozole tablets? Finally there is a reason this is all happening you need to find the root problem as the bloat, skin infection are all symptoms of the root problem. I would look at lack of aeration, ammonia spikes due to a mini cycle after cleaning the filter, Try testing an hour after feeding. Im happy to chat with you about this issue if you want to give me a ring. Good luck Greg

neutral cure* works well as long there is not too much stress placed on the join. I use options that have no mold inhibitors. If its is supported in the water I think it can work well. Neutral cure silicone is different from acetic cure which is the very smelly vinegary stuff that is sold as aquarium safe, which it is, just not on acrylic.

A good water change regime is a very important factor when keeping fish. . Imagine living in a glass house on a tropical island with both of the available windows tightly shut. Evey time you do a water change you open those windows and let in lovely fresh air.

Good day Nige, It could also be the lack of water flow over the roots. I dont know what the layout of the roots in the pipe is. The key to the plants doing well is plenty of light and an lots of oxygen around the roots. We are fortunate to be able to place the root structure behind the HMF sections of our tanks. This is wicked as the fish cant get to it and the roots grow into the Poret foam and action the nitrates there. In some of our tank we use a piece of foam around 150.100.50mm slice it down the middle. Lay the root structure within the foam and let the foam sit in the tank. Direction water flow on the Poret foam and your roots are protected and get the nutrients. If you want to increase the Nitrate removal you could light the pothos. This photo shows an 105liter aquarium with around 100 tetras, and 5 adults breeding whiptails. Even with the heavy feedings, lots of fish and no water change since Feb. Nitrate sits around 5ppm. The Strawberry , Pothos and Spathiphyllum are devastatingly effective.

Hey guys, Thanks, that was a good meeting on photography. I really enjoyed it, and a big thank you to Alistair, the guest speaker. Cheers Greg

Good info. I run our Sanrise lights with all channels on for 6 hours and the only the blue violet channels for an extra 6 hours. This encourages a lush green algae covering that your fish will love. Just make sure you have a good algae scraper to keep the glass clean.

This is the 1st video in our faux pas series which shows mistakes we have made and what we learned from them.

All good info

The technique of feeding fish up and then fasting them to induce breeding is used in fish houses the world over. Survival instincts I guess. Breed while you can you might not get a chance again. Regarding the melafix comment. No one can deny the connection between food surplus and aggression. You only have to look at the reaction of hungry people the world over. It makes sense that as fish get hungrier they will defend their territories with more vigor. I don't know what the degradation period is for a product like this but if it could as an example prevent an scuffed eye from getting infected then bonus. The information put forward by myself is always anecdotal. I have been using the Professional strength Melafix in our fish house for the past 2 years now with not a single death that can be logically attributed to it. This is across a large population of fish and water. In fact when we visited Malawi in July we had house sitters looking after the fish house. Not a single noticeable death in the entire month period. Part of their routine was that every third day the correct dosage of melafix was added to every tank. This was done in part to deal with various colonies of fish coming into maturity and scrapping it out. It seemed to work very well for us.

Melafix is a great product in the prevention of bacterial infection. It will not kill bacteria, and is in my opinion only effective as a preventative. That said it is excellent and should be used anytime your fish have injured themselves or others. Check out our video highlighting the realities around it. Watch it in HD Keep an eye out for the giants of Gotham. https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=Y2eciw_ktEw

All good information so far. HMFs are awesome. We use them on every one of our tanks. It just gives the most biological stability. Sanity Chelle, instead of a tiny sleeve covering your in take which can block very easily. Place a sheet of foam flush up with the front left or right side of the tank. Have it angle slightly out as it reaches the back of the tank. This makes a small triangle of open space between the foam sheet and the corner of the tank. By placing the sucky part of your canister filter behind the sheet. You will then get the bonus of a pre filter for your canister and a HMF. Off cuts of foam can be used for a multitude of things. Algae cleaner to clean your glass, a small square placed on the siphon hose preventing small fish get sucked out. Placing bits of food in the foam and sinking it making your fish work for their food.( great for compressiceps and calvus.) Its kinda like duct tape for a fishkeeper. I think its important to break up the idea of flow rates into 3 categories. Water movement, Mechanical filtration and biological filtration. Water movement in the tank is important. This moves debris around making it easy for your filter to deal with it. It also makes the fish exercise. I set our wave pumps on timers that come on for 8 hours a day with 15 minute breaks in that period. Mechanical filtration can be linked to this. The faster the water passes through your mech the sooner it will look clean. Biological filtration requires a longer contact time between the water an the bacteria. We run all our biological portions of our HMF on a 2.5x cycle rate. This gives the beneficial bacteria time to do its works. When we do any installations now we split the length of foam into a 70/30 split. The 70 portion is biological and the mechanical gets 30%. This method works very well. It is important to abide by the flow rates but don`t get frustrated with them. There is a certain amount of leeway. The rule of thumb is if its a standard size aquarium and the foam sheet covers one end of the tank a 2.5x cycle rate will work. If you are using a corner filter just ensure the length foam would cover the end of the tank. If the sheet is smaller go for a lower flow rate. A thicker sheet of foam will allow a slightly higher flow rate. If anyone is ever struggling with the implementation of an HMF , in my opinion the most reliable form of filtration, IM happy to help you out as a sounding board. Flick me a your number and Ill give you a call. Thanks for reading.

Dont sweat it they will be fine for a short period like that without food. If possible dose the tank with something like melafix before you go to account for the slight increase in aggression. Enjoy your time off Chris

awesome news dude that's fantastic. I look forward to seeing the youngsters. Must be the poret ey. Just kidding. Flick some photos up on our fish2water Facebook page like last time.

Awesome. Make sure it has flavorants. Its a fish perception thing.Would you eat rabbit food after growing up on MacDonalds, that supposedly tastes so good. You might have to coerce them a bit. 3 days of no food. Then a trial feeding. Dont cave in to them though. "Please feed me, more sir" Good luck