GrahamC

Hmm. My dog does do a bit of climbing ... :slfg:

Very hard to focus on such a small animal moving in 3D. Here's the best profile shot I could get.

well that makes it interesting! I only have WCMM, goldfish, and zebra danios that lay eggs, and I just don't remember transferring any plants from their tanks to this one.

not sure it will help ... my camera autofocusing wasn't able to cope with the small size, and the only time I could lock on was when one was near the surface ( in the middle of the picture ) amongst the duckweed and flake food.

Okay, that would suggest that these are fry from his tropical tank then.

http://www.emw.de/assets/flash/Messestandvisualisierung/pdfs/Poret_en.pdf "Simply request a sample and try it"

interesting ... large slabs of Poret media in the tank being fluidized. Perhaps it's cheaper than K1. But it doesn't look as though the water is being forced thru the media so I wonder how much less effective it is used in this way.

No, I didn't see any fish there and I think the only thing growing in the bath were oxygen weed and mozzies. I'm hedging my bets though .. in case they're cold water fish I've set the heater to 20 deg in case some WCMM eggs got into the tank. Or even goldfish eggs.

Maybe it's cheaper to buy from manufacturer but I doubt they'll take small orders http://www.emw.de/en/aquaristikfilter1.html

Can't they squeeze it smaller to reduce the volume?

If they're guppies, or swordtails, how long would it take them to reach 5 mm from head to tip of tail since being born? They must be pretty robust to have survived what I put them through inadvertently.

Well, I've decided to let them just be where they are. I guess it'll be a few months before I find out what they are .... and the missing 4th one has now reappeared. I have no plans to add any mechanical filtration, just let the plants and rock do it. Although their heads are just the size of a pin head, it's amazing that they can find each other in this 60L tank, and exhibit schooling behaviour.

Nevertheless an up to date review of filter material .. though it omits mentioning Kaldnes K1 media.

You can purchase bacteria in bottle. Google for the most effective ones as they differ somewhat.

Total ammonia is in two forms - free ammonia, and ammonium. Free ammonia is the toxic form. The two are in differing proportions depending primarily on the acidity of your water. In acid water the total ammonia could be in the non toxic ammonium form, and in basic water ( such as you have ), it can be all as toxic ammonia. The liquid test kits only measure total ammonia. I'm not suggesting you replace what you have, but at the current rate of testing you might be needing a new test kit soon so at that point look at alternatives

Not to labour the point, but a Seachem AmmoniaAlert stuck in your tank is a lot easier than doing API ammonia tests. It shows your ammonia levels constantly without having to fiddle with bottles, and chemicals. And it was more cost effective for me as I found at one stage I was doing twice daily API tests and ran out ... but the alert works for a year. And it measures toxic ammonia, not total ammonia which is more important.

There are reports of increasing incidences of inter-sex fish due to contamination of the environment with artificial oestrogens. And some fish apparently can self fertilize.

methaemoglobinaemia turns blood brown, but skin blue (cyanosis)

it looks somewhat ill from methaemoglobinaemia so worrying about other denizens is somewhat moot.

What about this one? http://www.dunlopfoam.co.nz/html/blob.php/Filter%20foam%20Product%20Spec%20Sheet.pdf?attach=false&documentCode=2174 Doesn't mention antifungal agents.

Use a saw on the sword fish to make it fit. It will then be a sawed fish.

Boiling water, add to bucket, and then wheel bucket to tank. No worse than having to cook for oneself. But for small water changes and topups, I don't bother to get the temperature right before topping up.

Might be safer and a lot easier to boil up some water in a kettle downstairs to bring the cold water up to right temp?

What I meant by this is that I thought the bugs for freshwater water systems are the same whether cold or tropical. So, moving a filter from a cold water tank to a tropical tank will just make them more active at the higher temperatures. They do differ for a marine tank though.

But if you don't have enough bugs and you don't add fish, then it's considered a fishless cycle the essence of which is the addition of an external ammonia source ( commonly bottled, but also fish food ). Cycling with fish uses fish to create the ammonia. Cycling with plants (the method you prefer ), is sometimes called a silent cycle.