Polwarth

Heres a pic of a bigger fella about 10 mm

Tried to get some pics but the can't get the camera to focus on the right item, the biggest is only about 12 mm long some are even as small as 5 or 6 mm. All happily eating algae on the side of the tank and plants

I am new to the whole fish keeping, I can't tell you what I have done right to get these. As for food I have not given them anything, they seem happy cleaning the tank and plants, they do however favour the higher water in the tank. I think I am on the third cycle as I have three distinct sizes of offspring.

I have a group of Otocinclus on a cleaning gang in my community tank and a couple of them have been taking time off there duties to make more of them. I now have an extra 15 Oto's that I can see ....... What do I do with them? I have understocked my tank to reduce the maintanence duties, I suspect that there is alot more than I have seen, and given they are of various sizes I suspect the couple in question are shagging their brains out and will continue to do so. What avenues are there for selling the new arrivals and how long should I leave them in the tank before selling?

Hi all I have been watching the tank from the other side of the room for a couple of days, just to let it do its own thing before retesting. So I have done the test and I have 7.4pH, 0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrites BUT .... The Nitrates appear to be slightly above 0 but not a match for the next colour (5.0ppm). So I am assuming that I have a positive test for Nitrates but I am not sure what the exact level is. The Plan: Buy a couple of algae eaters to do some cleaning, and to slowly stock the tank adding fish after the tank has time to settle. Thanks again for all the advice.

All is good with the unkown universe. I have just done another test, pH 7.4, Ammonia 0, Nitrites 0, Nitrates 0. The colours of the test results, are a near perfect match for the chart, in the past the colours have been "close".

Down to .25ppm after 90% change in water, Iwill let it sit for a day and retest, but i suspect another water change may fix it completely Phil

I have been change 20% of the water on a daily basis and I have got the ammonia level down to .50 ppm so I am hoping that I have fixed the problem.

OK first mistake I have found I have had the water temp set at 25 degress, so I have set that to go up to 30 degrees, I will do a 20% water change to help reduce the ammonia level and hopfully start the process. I will test the water Saturday to see what we have done. Thanks for all the help Philip

Thanks for the quick replies. I have a Eheim cansiter filter which puts thru 440L / hour and other than washing / rinsing the media at the start I have done nothing to it. I did however add stability ? a product to improve the tanks bio life. The "food" I feed the tank was just that fish food, I was told the decaying food will create the ammonia we were looking for, and it has but maybe it took a bit longer than using household ammonia. Philip

What have I done wrong, Morning all I have a 170 litre corner tank which I am trying to cycle with no fish. I have planted it out and the plants are gowing great, we had a small algal bloom which we have corrected. BUT I have not managed to get any nitrates or nitrites produced, the ammonia level is at 4 on my test kit, and the pH is at 7.4 despite introducing a piece of wood to reduce it. Well it did to start with but the pH climbed back up over the next week. I have feed the tank to start the cycling process. I am using a API Fresh water master test kit. Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong, as I have been waiting for the cycle to finish for 8 weeks now and I would like to get some fish next month. Philip