Bilbo

I have not had any experience mothballs but you can put a ladybug in your culture. If you have a really bad problem with them then put a few in for starters.

Yes it is sad. I have 2 males that are destined to live out their days without seeing a female. I am not going into the debate about where A. sp. steelblue came from but sadly borellii are not here either. My limited info said that the last 2 shipments all died in QT and no has any left.

Seems like a common theme with BN fry lol. Pleased I am not the only one, I used to find heaps of them every time I cleaned the filter out.

A.bitaeniata are gone from NZ unless I have missed something. I kept the blackwater fish at pH of about 4.5 -5 and the whitewater ones at about 6ish. Water quality is always more impotant than anything, followed by hardness and then pH. They do like leaf litter and tree roots or driftwood and because they are quite similar to geo's they also like fine gravel or sand they can sift through a bit. Dwarfs are lovely little fish and I am sure you will enjoy keeping them. We have a few breeders starting to come through to so hopefully more on the market soon.

9/10 is better than none. Good luck.

My advice is you need to make a day that works for you both and remember the guests are there to celebrate your day and you are not just hosting them at a big feed and free booze. Some things are worth going into debt for because this is going to be the most important day of your life so far. As Smidey said, spend as much as she wants.

Yes great job job getting the eggs. Look forward to seeing how these go. Agassizi eggs are one of the toughest to hatch I have tried and I only ended up with about 20 grow past a month old. Watch the female attacks, she will get nasty.

A tall pot will be fine or you can use a section of marley downpipe or a piece of slate. I just use a clay pot. Cost about $4 for a tall narrow one.

I have one of those for sale. Its way to powerful for my 10 - 20 tank room. I would guess you could run 100+ easily but it could have an open 'bleed' valve to lower it a little. Probably better than using 10 or more small pumps for a large room.

Pleased it works. Look forward to seeing the finished pics

That is a great recipe. I usually make smaller quantities because I don’t like keeping food longer than a month at a time but a good looking recipe.

Praziquantel sold as droncit. Fenbendazole sold as panacur is also very good but must only be used in food. Levamisole sold as a bird wormer called aviverm and a great general wormer. Metronidazole is not a dewormer but is effective against flagellates and some bacteria. Dont just crush a cat worming tablet unless you find out what is in it first. The wrong med may be worse than no med sometimes.

4 year old Angel isn't that old. Definitely not to old to breed. I tend to agree with some of the above but another option is maybe the water is miles off. If the water is way hard the its possible the eggs are bursting? Very unlikely though.

They don’t get great reviews because the separation of salt and fresh water doesn’t seem to work as well as advertised so for soft water fish you end up with high salt content in tanks that can kill them and secondly because even if they do work the biggest and greediest fish will sit by the opening and eat them one by one as they swim out leaving the smaller fish hungry.

I hope everything goes well for you and I applaud you doing as much research as you can but there is no point asking a question if you keep ignoring the answer. You have to listen to what people here and "oversea’s" are saying. BBS is the best food and it should be fed often, up to 6 times a day but at a bare minimum of 3. Young fish need 100% water changes at least daily and maybe up to 2 or 3 times daily. Every day for at least 4 months for best results. No dry food is as good because even if it is as nutritionally as good it doesn’t move and discus are hunters. Young fish will stuff themselves on bbs because they cant help themselves when something jumps past their nose. If you cant feed them they wont grow as quickly and may be permanently stunted.

Have you bred them already? You certainly hit the ground running so well done. I would leave them with the parents if this is your first batch because just watching swimming with mum and dad is an amazing site. Your post seems to suggest that you don't want to use BBS but that is the best food because its high in protein and also it jumps in front of the babies noses asking to be eaten. Other food can be used but why not use the best avaliable

I have 2 females who would love to meet him. Where do we get these from?

At 18 months they are more or less full grown. You might get a tiny bit more but most likely they are as big as they are going to get. Discus are unusual in that they are one of the few fish that don't continue to grow throughout their lives.

I agree, well done to all those voted in. What a huge change from past years. Almost everyone from last year has gone.

I hate the the traditional goldfish bowl and support them being banned for the keeping of goldfish, especially in schools. I also hate seeing large fish crammed up in small tanks but I don't think we can outlaw small tanks any more than we can outlaw large fish. Do we make a minimum tank size of 50ltrs, 100ltrs, 1000ltrs? How many fish in the wild have less than 5000ltrs of available space or 100% water change every 5 minutes. We should be teaching people to make the right decisions rather than outlawing the wrong ones. How many people argue against goldfish bowls while trying to teach their budgie to talk in a 40cm cage or have a dog on a 2mtr chain.

Moved all fish to a new tank with 100% clean equipment and water. The thin thread like red worm is still withdrawing back in when ever the fish moves rapidly so I think its still alive. If the fish sits still I can see at least 2 sticking out. I have starved the fish for a day and then tried to add 1 drop of aviverm to some meat mix but they wont eat it so I removed that and then dosed the tank with 2.5mls of Aviverm in 50ltrs (12ppm) last night. Worms still look alive this morning. I have been given some of an old barrel of High Mineral Levamisole 40% with Selenium from a sheep farm but I am hesitant to use it unless I have to.

Great job Barry 14 in a year is a fantastic effort

Looks pretty good but I would put in some greens like shelled peas and maybe some fish fillets like fresh tuna or salmon perhaps. All in all not to bad though. This is my recipe. Its adapted from one I borrowed from Simply Discus. I usually make smaller quantities but more or less the same proportions. 1 cup raw tuna 1/2 cup of raw salmon 1/2 cup clean beef heart 1/4 cup shrimps or king prawns 1/4 cup of good flake 1 tbsp liquid vitamins 1/3 cup mushy peas 1/2 extremely ripe banana 1 crushed garlic clove 1/4 tsp paprika

Quick followup. That fish died and I dont think I ever really got rid of the worms, Perhaps one died inside of him that caused his death But I am only guessing that. I do know that a few days before he died I saw another worm live sticking out of him. Now I have a female with 2 clearly visible worms sticking out. 2ppm has never worked so I went back to some old information that is linked to from the loaches page. I dosed at around 12ppm 2.5mls of 24% in 50 liters. http://www.inkmkr.com/Fish/CamallanusTr ... edure.html This was dosed twice over 5 days with a 100% water change in the middle in a clean 50ltr tank with only a sponge filter. Female still happy and eating but definately still infected with live worms. Next I purchased some Panacur 100 which is fenbendazole at 10%. Used 3 mls in a bowl with 2 blocks of blood-worms soaked for 2 hours and fed that. They ate that mixture twice over 3 days with no other food but the worm is still visible 3 days later (6 days after starting fenbendazole). I know some of you will say I am wasting my meds with high dosages but I think its silly to have a box with a heap of 1/2 full medications and no live fish left to treat. All my fish are looking healthy and colourful. pH is low at around 5.5 - 6 and tank has been in darkness during treatment. Any other suggestions?

I still have 2 lovely big males waiting on a female. Beginning to think that mine are the last. The last pair in NZ was in Upper Hutt at the beginning of this year but I don't know if they are still alive or not.