GrahamC

It does have some practical implications. Nitrifying bacteria are gram negative, and people have always wondered why antibiotics active against gram negatives don't disturb the bacterial filter, but antibiotics active against gram positive bacteria do. It may be that archaea are sensitive to the latter. In the two bacterial supplements they tested, they found lots of nitrifying bacterial DNA but no Archaea DNA or rRNA. So, maybe these companies need to see if they can incorporate Archaea also into their potions.

There's an article on PLOS which reports new research from Canada where the laboratory there looked at both freshwater and marine aquaria to see what were the main sources of ammonia oxidation. In the cycled fresh water tanks they found no bacteria at all using PCR probes, and the source for the ammonia oxidizing enzymes were in fact archaea. In their small sample of marine tanks, the populations were more 50:50 with archaea, and nitrifying bacteria occupying the same tank. So, more things to consider when looking at the nitrogen cycle in tanks and trouble shooting thereof. They didn't look at the cycling process itself. So, it is possible that in the first weeks of a tank, the ammonia gets processed by the nitrifying bacteria as we always have been told, but as the tank ages, archaea move in replacing the bacteria. And that raises the question as to whether a fishless cycle results in two different microbial populations as high ammonia levels favour the growth nitrifying bacteria, whereas archaea are found more at low ammonia levels. Archaea also feed on microbial life forms so possibly may have to wait for fish to populate the tank first.

Perhaps they were just bored with the flake? :slfg: With luck after a day or so you'll see little cylinders of green poop, the processed peas being pooed. How poetic! You can vary their diet quite a bit and not rely so much on the store bought stuff which however is manufactured to give them their essential dietary needs (except fibre) and colour enhancers. So, cooked rice, slices of orange, lettuce etc. and live food like mosquito larvae.

Doing it this way makes it a lot easier not having to worry about trying to do the impossible ..ie. thoroughly clean the gravel. But until you get more plants to use up some nitrates, you might have to do more PWC using this method as there will be more biological material in your tank resulting in more nitrates.

Jacob, you might want to research this more on whether you actually need to do a gravel vacuum. One alternate theory is that you let the fish poo and uneaten food fall into the gravel where it decomposes and is dealt with by the bacteria living in the gravel. This also serves as a food source for plants you have rooted in your gravel substrate. If you do a deep vacuum on this micro ecosystem, you do damage it. Perhaps the reason people also suggest only doing a half at a time. So, this theory says you only need to remove water for PWC ( partial water changes ) from the middle of the tank and not disturb the gravel. In that case, just a long bit of plastic tubing works just as well. No need for the expense of a custom shaped plastic. I have a similar issue with deep tanks, but I only use sand in these. And to remove unsightly rubbish and uneaten food etc, I just use a plastic hose ( similar to the one on the vacuum but bought from Bunnings ), and to keep it straight so I can point it to where I want to remove stuff, I put a very long chopstick that I bought inside the hose at the end that goes into the water.

Goldfish have some 20% of their brain devoted to processing taste bud information and a highly complex mechanism for sorting out food from gravel, noxious substances etc in their back of their mouths. They can spit out the noxious stuff while swallowing food at the same time. If they are eventually swallowing the food, perhaps it is contaminated with something such as a fungus, and they're waiting until the water clears it off before swallowing the flake? It still sounds like a good idea to get some fresh quality food, and see how they go. And how did they go with the crushed cooked de-shelled peas last night?

The gold fish breeder I visited in Napier had strong views on food. Based on his 50+ years of experience, he told me to chuck out the floating pellets I had been given, and only use a high quality flake on account of the food swelling when wet problem. At times he would also feed crushed weet-bix to his breeding tanks, but this is something I don't have in my house so never tried it. I do though soak both the flake and sinking pellets before feeding them. As for the air swallowing issue, my Oranda has no issues what so ever of clearing the whole tank surface of duck weed so I presume it is a combination of factors. Do you have a picture of this new white spot on your fish's tail?

I found my Oranda one day with difficulty maintaining his/her orientation swimming upside down or side ways. I fed it some green peas, and switched to sinking pellets and soaking the flake. Fixed the problem straight away.

I've been putting my food in the fridge hoping it will last longer, and take out a portion for another container for day to day feeding. So maybe your food has gone off. If you buy new food, and you have fancy goldfish, then i'd suggest you use sinking pellets such as TetraFin sinking mini sticks. And it has colour enhancers. Flake has to be presoaked so that you don't force the goldies to feed from the surface and thus swallow too much air. Also it's worthwhile to feed them once a week crushed cooked deshelled green peas to alter their diet, and to add some fibre. They love the stuff.

Maybe if you get caught putting the fish back, and you're part Maori, you can claim traditional rights as it's their tradition to return the first fish they catch!

BTW, the Seachem Ammonia Alert measures free toxic ammonia, and not total Ammonia which also includes ammonium. At an acidic pH the ammonia shifts to the less toxic ammonium so if you find disagreement between the API ammonia test, this is the reason.

I soaked mine for a month before I put it into my tank, and it still coloured the water brown. But now that I've got some angelfish and want it to leach tannins, it's not doing it in significant amounts Once you get your seachem monitor, I'd still get the LFS to do a few checks to make sure they read the same. Mine has never budged from < 0.02 mg/L ( ppm) and I wasn't sure it was working. I double checked it with what was left of my API test kit, and luckily they both agreed. :thup: I also kept spreadsheets tracking the water parameters so I could see if my tank filters were cycling as expected. I would guess there's likely to be some PDA software you can get too.

Two different subjects. In an old tank, it's fish metabolism that acidifies the water unless the water is changed regularly to restore the buffering capacity. In a new tank, since the tap water is unlikely to be acidic for the reasons Alan stated, then it is something else causing it. Hence remove the driftwood. If you conducted your tests with old driftwood, then that is why you won't see a difference. With new driftwood it releases tannins which acidify the water and which could stall the filter from cycling in a normal time frame.

I might be imagining it but looks to me that the bottom plank is bowing, and the grain is running across the tank vs along the length. So as to not stress the glass, perhaps you need a central support for the bottom tank like you've supported the top one?

Ultimately it is the products of fish metabolism that cause the water to acidify. But that happens in old tanks, and not new where there is sufficient buffering capacity. Perhaps the OP is using rain water? Certainly plenty of that at the moment with this weather bomb passing over the country.

What do you think is causing the acidity then? Is West Auckland water like that?

That looks like an inexpensive way to setup a stand. I might do this too. Wonder if can drill some holes and put some rebar thru it for seismically active areas?

I think you need a permit now to release him/her even back to where you got him. DOC's concern is the transmission of disease back into the environment which can then decimate the local populations.

I mentioned the standing of water and bubbling with O2 overnight as a mechanism of clearing out Co2 so that the water has a truer value of pH. But it may not be necessary. I also add boiled water and decholorinator so that I can best match the water temperatures.

Asking questions like this always gives you different answers from different people. If you haven't read it, there's a guide linked on the front page of this site that tells you the basics on how to cycle your filter. You haven't mentioned what sort of filter you are using either as a under gravel filter is treated differently from others in terms of vacuuming the gravel. In an established tank, you don't need to vacuum the gravel except to remove unsightly material, and it's best to remove water from the middle of the tank so that you don't disturb the bacterial ecology in the gravel. With an undergravel filter you can deep vacuum the gravel so that the filter doesn't block up. Since the filter is not established in your tank, I'd vacuum up all visible crap. You don't really want too much ammonia around when cycling with live fish. I'd also cut the feeding down to every other day to reduce the waste being produced. At a pH of 6.6. the nitrifying bacteria are barely having sex so it's going to take much longer for cycling to occur. But the redeeming feature is that your total ammonia will be mainly in the relatively non-toxic ammonium state. Instead of buying an ammonia test kit, I think it's cheaper to get a seachem intank monitor. It will last you a year but you can quickly use up an API test kit in a few months at the same price. Your total ammonia will be raised after a week. I would do two 50% water changes to get the ammonia down, and let the fish adjust to the pH of the incoming dechlorinated tap water. Some people will sit buckets of water outside to degas the chlorine overnight, and also bubble the water at the same time so that the pH then matches the tank water. Others will say that fish readily adapt to small pH changes. I'd also remove the wood in case tannins are causing the pH to drop like this. Once your filter is cycled, you can put the wood back in again. And you can pretty much get to where you want by getting live filter material from someone.

I don't think I've ever received a GST invoice from a trademe dealer even though some of them are clearly GST registered. That's something your LFS will not get away with. So, that's instantly a 15% unfair advantage these online retailers have .... Luckily I can claim the GST back from a LFS as my purchases are a work expense (office consumables).

Hopefully they won't mind me bringing a net at the next Karori Sanctuary open day :thup:

And my impression was that from talking to breeders, they cull a large percentage of their stock to get the best quality fish which is what I was referring to when you mentioned economies of fish scale.

Probably for constipation (jk), and vitamin C. From memory, Kiwi fruit has one of the highest concentrations of vitamin C. The vitamin D presumably is a result of the Antarctic krill content. Interestingly the Hikari FD-Krill food which is for both fresh and marine fish states that it has been formulated to be low in salt in comparison with competing brands.

I wonder then if these people who might lose 10% of their stock due to whatever practice they use might not mind so much because their profit margin is little affected. In contrast with the home keeper who will get upset at losing the same percentage but with say 10 fish. And it can confuse people who look at the overstocked fish in the LFSs often not realizing that there is massive filtration and automatic water change occurring behind the scenes to allow this to happen safely.