Squidlet

ok thanks for all your help guys :happy2: If I turn it into a dwarf puffer tank I'll definatly let you know

Ok, so separating them wouldn't cause an issue, but are you saying that theoretically they will stop when they have had enough so to speak? So wouldn't need to separate them?

Ooooh very cool So I wouldn't need to worry about a 40l being too small What are these otos you mentioned? A type of catfish? So bristlenoses wouldnt be suitable either? Do you add salt to your tank at all? Thanks for your help

Wondering if anyone has any experience with dwarf puffer fish set-ups? I have been researching these little guys for a while now, I have a 40l Aquastart pro 360, with a hooded light. Would this tank be big enough for day two dwarf puffers and perhaps something on the bottom?. From what I have read they require a heavily planted tank and frozen food such as blood worms and brineshrimp, or live food as they reject flake foods? I am having difficulty however finding suitable tank sizes for these wee fish. Any help would be appreciated

Hey guys On December 7th last year, my bristlenoses bred for the first time, with 19 successful offspring. My male dug a hole under some driftwood and looked after the babies which hatched on the 13th until just before christmas when I removed them. Now tonight, just over a month later my boy has dug another hole in the same place, and is dancing with his mate all over the tank :facepalm: Hes being very aggressive towards my other fish just like before so I am going to assume hes at it again. This is very inconvenient timing as I will be moving my two tanks to my new flat in a couple of weeks. That aside however I am concerned with the short period of time between matings. If they were to continue like this all year I could have 12 hatches of babies and one very tired mama bristlenose! Is it possible for them to just continue breeding like this?? Its taken two years for them to grow big enough and ugly enough to breed, and now I don't want them to become stressed out. Would separating them at this point cause more stress? (im thinking of pair bonding that birds undergo). Anyone else had experience breeding bristlenoses? Thanks

White spot is a protozoa parasite with a complicated life cycle - a cyst stage, free swimming stage and adult stage(on the host). The aim with treating white spot is to kill the parasite at the free swimming stage as that is when it is most susceptible. The entire life cycle of the "ich" however can take up to 4 weeks to complete if at a low temp, or roughly 10 days at a higher temp. Therefore with treatment it can be advised to increase your temp when doing the treatment if your fish can handle being at a higher temp to shorten the life cycle of the parasite and therefore shorten the treatment time also. Salt can also be helpful during treatment but just be aware that cat fish and scaleless fish do not so so well with salt, and it can cause more harm than good with certain fish. Unfortunately methylene blue is famous for dying silicon blue :facepalm: :roll: I agree with Adrienne however, if you follow what the bottle says you should be safe with the treatment, and just be a bit careful with the catfish :thup:

Wow thanks for all you advice guys you have all been very helpful! I have asked the owners at the LFS I work at not to order in the red waffle but they say as it is popular they will keep getting it :facepalm:

Yeah I was just reading up on the type of food they eat. Live food could be a bit tricky, i'll be living in a small flat this year with not alot of outside room to culture daphnia or anything. Microworms perhaps?

Wow! I love your scarlet Badis. :nfs: I have never seen this type of fish before. Who knew such a little fish could be so pretty! Do you find they are easy to care for? I have been doing some research on tank requirements as I have a 40l I have just removed my guppies from. Its going to house 6-8 pygmy cories on the bottom but I was looking for a nice little fish to have in mid-level as well. Will defiantly be doing more research on these! :cofn:

:happy2:

Thanks for all you help and advice guys :happy1: I think you are one of my new favourite people. You all are really.

Im not currently using any ferts, what should I be using? Ive also read something about CO2, how does this play a role? Im afraid I am a complete noob when it comes to plants, but I'm eager to learn all about it. I'll plant the purple one in a pot instead :digH: Shame, I quite liked that one, but thank you for saving me the money And yup, poor Bruce is 3 years old. I got him with my very first fish tank set-up, my LFS suggested he would go great in a 30l :facepalm: I got the 75l not long after but hes out grown it and I'm currently in the process of re-homing him on trademe &c:ry Thanks for all the advice guys! Its much easier talking to people in NZ, than on the American forums. Often they suggest products we can't get, especially when it comes to plants. Im going up to Taupo in a couple of weeks, so I'll get some more of the sand that is already in my tank from there. Unless anyone knows or has experience with sand from mitre 10 or something? I prefer the coarser sand which is quite hard to find it would seem?

I have always had roughly 3-4:1 ratio. At the moment I only have two males and about 8 females, I havn't noticed too much hassling going on. I have been thinking about getting rid of my guppies for a while now and just focusing on mollies(which would also mean my tanks are less stocked = better water conditions?). Perhaps whatever this is is in my lines, now would be a good time to quit before is potentially gets worse. This is what I was hoping to hear I am going to admit Im trying to be super careful as I had pneumonia last christmas and now with my lungs being not as strong as they were tuberculosis would just be the icing on the cake . I guess you should always be careful no matter what, even if you don't suspect disease in your tank. I'll do some water changes on both my tanks, and maybe look at lowering my stocking density to help improve the water quality. UV filter would be a great idea actually, but unfortunatly this has been happening to the guppies in my smaller 40l tank, and the only uv filters I have seen are quite big? Thank you for your advice guys, im going to have to re-think what to do about this wee problem. Also just out of curiosity, has anyone ever had tuberculosis in their tank?

Im replacing them because they become covered in the fuzzy brown/green stuff, and then begin to look manky with what looks like the outer coat stripped off or holes in the leaves even though I have no plant eating fish. They grow amazingly well however. The lighting is 2x 13w T5 bulbs which I normally have on from roughly 8/9 in the morning until 7/8 at night. I couldnt get any pictures up close of the algae(my camera is not too good) but here is my tank that I am wanting to plant properly: Sorry for the poor quality, I don't think you can really even see the algae in this photo.

As terrible as this sounds, I am glad to hear I'm not the only one with this problem :dunno: If it was TB, would it be affecting all the fish and not just the guppies? Once I did have a female who developed a bent spine but it was over a couple of months and she had had many fry over her life, so I assumed it was due to old age and carrying so many babies. Kinda like a poor hunchbacked old woman?

Hey guys I seem to have a problem with my guppies where I notice they get skinny over a period of time then die. At first I thought it was due to old age and perhaps poor immune system but its been happening to my young guppies as well :-? For example tonight I euthanised one(always seems to be females as well?), which was skinny and emanciated and she was only about 8 months old I think. Im trying to think how long it took but for the life of me I can't remember when I last saw her. It was kinda like "feeding time...oh...you have issues". They are getting it one at a time, and it dosn't seem to be effecting my other fish but I have seen something very similar happening to other live bearers such as platys and swordtails. My friend who breeds guppies has this issue with hers sometimes, and has had it with a couple of swordtails also. Could this be worms? The fish are still eating fine and swimming around. Ive been trying to research and have come across fish tuberculosis and now am very worried that I may have this in my tank I have bristlenoses, silver shark, mollies, swordtails and pygmy cats which so far are unaffected. This has been happening with my guppies for a while, since before september last year. Then I'll go a few months with everything looking fine and then a guppy will get skinny again. Any ideas? I havnt noticed any other symptoms apart from occasionaly white poop?

Hey guys Id like to properly plant my 75l tank which has a coarse sand as a substrate. These are the plant species I have been looking at choosing from: Amazon Sword, Dwarf hair grass, Moneywort, Ludwigia perennis, Ludwigia repens, Sagittaria, acorus mini green, microsword lilaeopsis. I asked the seller on trademe if they would grow well in sand, he said they would and require minimum care. Is this actually the case? What experiences have you guys had with these plants? I currently have some java fern and two fluffy type fern that are growing wildly out of control, but I am having issue with a greeny/browny type of algae growing on them. How can I stop this apart from putting in algae eaters? I have read the sticky on growing plants at the start of the plant section and have tried to do research, but am still confused as to how you can prevent the algae. Also I have never put any fertilisers or anything in my tank, my plants grow very big, very quickly on their own. I do have to replace them every couple of months though, which I assume is not good. Id love some advise on how to maintain a planted aquarium properly. Any advice would be appreciated

Thank you :happy2: Haha I can only imagine how many sharks have the name bruce! Any yes unfortunately I know I need to re-home him I got him with my very first fish tank, I was told by the LFS he would be fine, and that was only a 30l! :facepalm: I upgraded to my 75l not long after. When I move into my new flat at the end of January, I will be taking him to the pet shop in Palmerston North, unless I can re-home him on trade me. I very much wish I could use him to set up my big tank! But alas it is not meant to be, so I will be parting ways with him soon. Strange how attached you can get to fish. &c:ry However I want to do the best for him

Hey all I have had aquariums for 5 years now, and during that time I have progressed though tadpoles/frogs --> axolotls --> goldfish and finally hit the mark with tropical fish. I currently have two tanks in operation, a 75l blue planet lagoon and a 40l aquastart pro 340. My 75l has been running for a few of years now, but my 40l only one year. I have a 120l in storage I would love to have going as well but unfortunately my flatmate put her foot down :sage: I have been lurking on the boards for a while now and have learnt so much! I really look forward to asking some questions and joining in on some discussions. When I stumbled across you experts I felt like I had only just uncovered the tip of the iceberg! My 75l is home to a silver shark called Bruce, 7 young mollies, 3 guppies, a breeding pair of bristlenoses and 5 swordtails who are in the process of being re-homed. My 40l is currently a fry tank with baby swordtails, guppies and baby bristlenoses. Hmmm about me personally? Not much to know really. Im a vet nurse and a uni student, this year being my last year of study. I love kung fu movies and swimming, and am currently managing the fish department at our LFS during my summer break. So Im also hoping to get some more in depth details and advice that I can pass onto customers some day So, yeah, that's a bit about me. I can't wait to get started here!! :thup: