alexyay

It's very similar to this and it goes over top the tank just under the lid. This is the tank (that's overfilled, though).

Thanks guys for the support I'll make sure to do slightly bigger water changes and I'll be testing the ammonia regularly from now on. I don't know how old he is - he's from HFF but I'm not sure of what age they get their fish. I've always cleaned out the filter in tank water, but thank you any way In a couple of weeks I'll check out better filtration systems also - mine's an internal filter (70L blue planet tall tank) which may not be doing the job as well as it could.

25% changes every week. I hadn't noticed anything on his fins before then Edit: I would like to note that I made the mistake of regularly cleaning out the filtration system at the same time, which (or at least what my father said) probably removed bacteria and allowed the ammonia to build up. It seems to have gotten better now that I'm not totally cleaning out the filter.

I got my betta about a month and a week ago, but then he suddenly died yesterday. He seemed happy and healthy throughout that time - the only thing that concerned me was how often he'd squeeze himself between the rocks and the glass however he never got stuck. However in the past couple of days he hadn't been eating, and hid under one of the rocks and didn't come out - however he hadn't lost colour and didn't appear sick. I couldn't get him interested in eating, however. But then last night he was totally white, and it appeared that blood had pooled around the heart area (based on this - it was totally swollen and red, but the rest of him had no colour) - his fins had worn off also. He lived in a 70L tank with 7 black neons and three bristlenoses, and had a 50% water change a week ago (due to ammonia having built up). He left the other fish alone and they left him alone, no fighting or anything. Could it have been an ammonia spike? All my other fish are perfectly healthy. I should have checked to see if he had eaten anything like a pebble but I was so distressed it didn't occur to me at the time. I just really need to know what I could have done to save him, I feel miserable because he's my first betta and the last thing I want to do is repeat this situation. Rest in peace, Henry. (By the way, sorry if this in in the wrong section)

That actually makes a lot of sense now. I'm always learning new things about fish - I didn't know they'd even be able to eat mice (I like your theory about payback, alanmin :L).

Oopsies, I haven't even put up photos yet! The Juwel 260 is set up now Unfortunately Kev isn't in there yet because it's been quite stressful getting him out. Anywho - photos: I thought I had some of the discus too, but it turns out I don't D: They're in there now, though. Boy, are they huge! I don't know very much about discus and I've only seen them in stores so it was new to me to see ones that big.

I know it's slightly OT, but I'm intrigued to know if there's anyone here that feeds mice to their arows? I know of a place in TGA that does it but it struck me as odd to feed a land animal to a fish - I hadn't heard of anyone doing that before (but then again, I know very little about arowanas). As long as it's a quick kill (I'm personally not keen on things being left to die slowly) I'm OK with feeding (no idea about how poisonous they are, though), does anyone know if arows take pre-killed? I have no idea how you'd kill a frog humanely. I'm way too late to this thread (so I'll hide away now) :digH:

I posted a topic a while back about my father who got a fire eel and was told they stay small. I thought I might just give a bit of an update - He's now in a Juwel 260 (of course we'll get a larger tank once he grows out of it, but it'll do for now and I might inherit it once he's done with it :slfg:), I'm a bit confused though about substrate. I've heard different things about fire eels with sand - one that they love to burrow and so-forth in the sand but also one that sand isn't good for them because they may eat it or that it may damage them because they have scales? I'm not entirely sure what the general opinion on this is, so that'd be nice. I'll post piccies some time next week I believe he'll also put a couple of his discus in there because he feels that the 400L is getting a tad crowded, he got the discus from someone who's tank was also crowded and is a friend of his... I'm not entirely sure if Kevin'd get too big for them or not. Apparently he could live with a zebra spiny? Dad (unlike me) isn't keen on specimen tanks, and he's quite fond of multiple fish so I just want to make sure about the compatibility of them both, because I don't get many results on Google. By the way, I know this is unrelated but I don't want to fill the forum up with my topics - I have a 70L blue planet tank that I *will* get set up eventually, but I need a cabinet first. Anyway, I've had multiple opinions on this too. I'd like to have a betta with around 7 glowlights, would there be any algae eaters that fit in this without over-stocking the tank? I'm also intrigued about glass catfish - what are their care requirements? Anywho, thanks for reading and I'll post pics soon

We'll start him on shrimp then I'm not sure as to what's happening, whether Dad can afford such a large tank and whether it's too much to take on or not. I'll have to ask him tomorrow. I did manage to get a couple of photos of Kevin though - it's difficult getting photos of him where it's basically complete darkness :dunno: he only usually comes out when it gets dark though - but he's got such pretty colours when you do see him in the light.

We tried to feed him some brine shrimp today, he didn't want that or the blood worms (the other fish eat a lot of it too, which is why I want to get him in a tank on his own sooner rather than later) My father has decided that if I can't take him, he may set up either his current tank for his current fish or the fire eel (who I have now named Kevin) and buy a new one for him - which is great. Would a 400L be OK for a fully grown fire eel, or do you need something bigger? I'm glad this may work out and that hopefully soon enough he'll be much happier in a new tank :happy2:

How many shrimp per day do you think we need to give him (he's only 8" but he's probably older than what his length shows)? I'll tell Dad to work on hand taming him (which is the part that I'm looking forward to the most!), he's really scared of hands at the moment though (I have a rat at home who wasn't socialized as a baby so I'm used to being patient). What tank I'm going to get (I need permission from my Mum before I do all of this first anyway) is a confusing quest for me, though. I like the already made-up branded ones (I'm not sure what to call them, but they're the fancy ones at stores) but would those at all leave room for things like extra filter piping and things like that? Or would you have to cut a hole in the top to fit things through?

Cool! I might end up going for a 300L, depending on what I can afford. I'll tell him about the shrimps tomorrow. I'm also not keen on people having animals without being able to care for them for their lives, but I think it's the best situation for it at the moment (and his fish) - I'll talk to him about the idea of selling it later on, but he also said that if I decided to go off to uni or something like that or was unable to look after it, he could take everything and keep it for the remainder of its life - I'd just have to show him a lot of research before I send any animals to him :facepalm: Probably an important question - he lives in Auckland and I live in Tauranga, can they travel in cars and how does it work? Like what do you need to put them in and how do you keep the temperature the same in a car? I'm a beginner (I had goldfish when I was very young, but otherwise I've never had fish) - so I'm pretty much completely new to all of this.

Please feel free to move this, I'm not sure what section it's supposed to go in - sorry I know very little about fire eels, but I may be getting one from my father who was told by the person who gave it to him that they stay small (and of course, didn't do research) - after getting interested in him I Googled them to find out they can grow to 36", and will probably feed on the rest of his fish once he gets bigger :facepalm:. Of course, he probably hasn't been fed enough because of the lack of research that my dad's done - currently he's feeding about a block (I'm not sure what to call it) of frozen blood worms a day, but it was a lot less before. He's had the fire eel about 8mnths and it's around 8", at my best guess - how big would they usually be do you think at maybe 8-10 months? What age do they usually become fully grown? Approximately how much do you think you spend on feeding an adult fire eel per month? I don't want to take this on if I can't afford it, and we'll find someone else to adopt him, but after looking at Youtube videos of fire eels, I think they're beautiful fish and I'd love to have it (I'm not sure how happy my mother would be about this, but Dad thinks that he's been feeding on the baby guppies in the tank and I'd like to take him before he gets any bigger). I'm currently paying for 3 rats and I'm still in school so I don't have too much to spend on him, but I think that I may be able to get some financial support from my father. Are there any supplies that you would need specifically for a fire eel and what would the costs be? I was originally looking into getting a 130-250L tank for a betta fish, but those plans may change now - what size tanks do you recommend? Does a 250L sound OK or would a 300L do better? Currently we're looking on TradeMe for tanks, but are there any other places that you can get tanks reasonably cheap? Would you need specific filters and heating for fire eels? I'm sorry for the amount of questions I've asked But thank you for reading all of this!