GrahamC

Talking in vitro ...

ahh.. that explains why I can see a thin black object in the middle of the lesion at 90 degrees to the spine. Had to borrow a DSLR from a neighbour as none of my cameras can focus on the fish

You can wrap some craft canvas around the filter intake, and tie it with some plastic ties.

Fungus? Only just noticed it and all the other 4 goldfish don't seem to have anything similar. It's that white raised fuzzy lesion at the highest part of its dorsal spine. Original URL is http://fishpix.s3.amazonaws.com/IMG_8525.JPG

My method would be to prepare a background for the tank, not of rocks, but of painted lamp posts. Nature would then take its course.

Is that the Bobbitt fish?

if it were A. hydrophilia, then a saline solution would kill it. But before this you could gram stain it and establish the morphology. But simplest thing to do would be to send it the local diagnostic lab. All we need is a temporary NHI number. I presume he's a legal immigrant.

Prices correct ... variation of 10x.

There's more bacterial cultures in my kitchen than I remember in the micro labs!

I would guess that urine is much the same whether it comes from a fish or a mammal ... don't want to use your own, then try the dog's

Cool ... the vet and I agree :thup: What antibiotic did the vet dispense? Kanamycin? You could've grabbed some of the water before the antibiotic bath and plated it on an agar plate to see what bugs grow to get a bacteriological diagnosis. I remember doing this stuff when I was at uni.

Why don't you get one of each, and then you can tell us which is better? And redundancy is a good thing.

What's the vet's diagnosis?

You can do it the natural way without using a live fish. Just add some urine until the ammonia is 4 ppm ( or whatever the target you want is reached ). Guaranteed to be sterile ( if you're healthy ), and free of surfactants. And of course you are recycling body fluids :slfg:

Is there a rating of the various flake manufacturers out there? Or are they all fairly bioequivalent. I ask as I bought some VitaPet tropical fish flake while I was at New World and the angelfishh and gourami ignore it or spit it out! I then bought some Tetramin tropical flakes and they seem to love this stuff. Is it because they were raised on one brand? Or is it some other factor?

Pity the water from the dehumidifier can't be reused without sterilizing it first otherwise you wouldn't need to do topups.

Best way is to ventilate the room with dry air eg. a heat exchanger set in a window.

Don't you need to plumb an external unit for heatpumps? I guess it depends on what value of your live stock is. If you have $1000s of discus in there, you might want to have all sorts of redundancies there ... like moving away from Chch!

Since fin rot is mainly a gram-negative infection, and Melafix is not effective against gram negative bacteria, then no. See http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/AquariumMedication4.html If you don't have a UV filter I personally would do daily 25% water changes until the other fish are recovered. ( Like doing daily dressings on an infected wound - you're trying to remove the bacteria if present. ) And watch carefully for any signs of stress.

When I started to keep fish a few months ago, and had my first one die on me, at that time I had 5 goldfish in a 50L tank. At this point the LFS told me about water changes ... :facepalm: Ammonia at that point was still less than 4ppm but the fishless cycle as described is supposed to handle 4ppm.

So, if you never did any testing how did you know when the system was stable? AFAIK, the point of a fishless cycle ( apart from sparing the fish any trauma ) is to create a large population of bacteria so that it can handle all of your fish at once ie. no need to add them slowly. The method claims to induce much larger populations than that achieved using dead shrimp or a sacrificial fish. And if you have an existing tank with live filter material then you can even bypass most of these steps by using that in your new tank.

I picked up an Aqua one clear view 300 in a TM auction but the thing leaks around the pump. There was a crack in the plastic near this which I sealed with copious amounts of hot glue to no avail. I read that these HOBs are susceptible to leaking around the O ring but it looks fine to my eye. Any point in replacing the O ring anyway?

Presumably you can overcome that by having cylinders of compressed air available?? What do divers carry on their backs?

you could use some blotting paper ( do they still make such stuff ??), or a paper towel, to remove any residual surfactants. Since oil and water are not miscible the surfactants will rise to the surface.

A flued gas heater will vent emissions to the outside so minimal risk for CO poisoning. I very much doubt a standard fish room can be made airtight to cause O2 depletion to the point of hypoxia given we also now have a flue. And since water has 4 ppm of dissolved O2, and air has 200 ppm, there's a 2 factors of safety before the fish succumb to anoxia. But you could leave a candle in the room to check :smln: