Bilbo

Blue circle doesn't have its ingredients listed anywhere that I can find but I don't care to much about that because it works!!! It is IMO the best stuff on the market for white spot. Water will usually clear in a few hours with it but it seems to be still working.

I agree that fish can live for more than 24hrs with signs of dropsy. I dont think dropsy is actually a disease, its just the result. It means fluid build up usually caused by a kidney infection causing renal failure. Finding the cause is the problem. Water quality is a good place to start and is most likely to be the reason the cause created the result. Sorry to hear about the ram it is always sad loosing a fish and nice as a blue ram but owning one for 2 years is usually pretty good so it would have been getting old. Epsom salts is supposed to help but I have never cured it.

Acriflavine is a very good anti bacterial so its a great place to begin and watch for improvements. If he is "eating like a pig then that is great news as well. Sounds like you have things well under control. As always, quarintine any new fish before introducing them. Even if you know where they have come from.

I would agree with this way of treating too. After the fish recovers enough to eat then mix with food. I don’t know why we raise the temp, perhaps to speed up the life cycle of the parasite? Or it could be because a good number if parasites cannot deal with extended high temperatures. An old book about discus claims that in a test tank full of very sick discus a heater failed and the temperature got to well over 30 degrees for a few days before it was noticed and when they went to dissect a sick fish they found no live parasites in it. Discus all recovered (apart from the dissected one). Either way it’s the way I use it to and it works.

As above. Both are cheap as chips. Prazi (dronsit) about 75c per tab and avaibale over the counter, metro is even cheaper but harder to get. If you talk to a vet he may write a prescription and get it from a pharmacy for you. I had to fill in a form so he wasnt liable for misuse of metro. Metronidazole = Metra Nigh Da Zole Praziquantel = Prazee Kwon Till

Very good advice as I mentioned earlier Metro first. PP is very harsh. I make a diluted stock solution first at 12grams into 300mls of distilled water (300mls water first then add PP to make 315mls total. Do not add PP first then make up to 300mls, the slight extra concentration may make a diference) and then add 1ml per 20ltrs from that which gives me 1ppm. Read up on it first as I have read that it will attack and burn any organic material especially sensitive gill tissue and your fingers. Never add to a tank with any plants.

Sold as condies (sp) crystals I think from garden shops. Taylor Purification sells it by the kilo but that will last you a million years http://www.taylor-purification.co.nz/pr ... index.html

Metro is perscription only, need a nice doctor or vet. PP is Potassium permanganate, Cheap as chips but can be hard to find. Levamisole is got as Aviverm a bird wormer.

This is my most recent sucess story. to in 6 weeks. No guarantees but have a pre prepared hospital tank and happy to help if required. Otherwise Metro for 3 or 4 days re-dosed and full water change every 12 hours, Levamisloe for general worming dosed once for 3 days, PP to clean up the rest dosed at 1.5 - 2ppm for an 8 hour bath every 3rd day while still doing 100% water changes at least twice a day.

I should do my own research :oops: I got that from a former Micro Biology lecturer from Massey and clearly it wasn’t accurate, I apologize. Recap....At low concentration, it increases muscular contraction causing detachment of the mouthparts (scolex) followed by paralysis. At higher concentration, causes damage to the outer skin of the tapeworm which activates the host immune system against it. Admittedly the route wasn’t correct the destination is the same, dead parasites. Nice to see the lurkers leap out of the woodwork to put right any inaccuracies, well done that person :roll: It would have been disastrous if someone had expected massive tank shattering explosions, and instead got flukes dying my some other means.

Blue Circle Whitespot treatment is the best around. I have whitespot a few weeks ago that I could not get rid of with anything that normally works. Blue Circle had it gone in a few days

Prazi is probably the best choice here because it’s safe for adults and young and definitely kills the flukes by rupturing the outer membrane (skin) causing then to be totally destroyed. The hooks they hold on with aren’t destroyed and will fall or decompose out on there own. Prazi won’t kill the eggs so at least 2 treatments are required with a full clean of the tank and large water change between. I would recommend at least 4 treatments to be safe. I have had success using PP for flukes as this will wipe out any organic cell but have to be very careful that it doesn’t burn the fish’s gills. Dosage is usually 50 - 100mg per 50ltrs. Prazi is usually only effective in the water for 3 - 5 days. IMO 1 Droncit tablet per 50 ltrs every 3 days with full wipe down of sides and bottom of tank and 100% water change between treatments. Leave lights off. Or 2ppm PP every 3rd day (every 6th water change) with full clean and 100% water change twice a day. Salt wont do anything if it is flukes and don’t use formalin unless you can correctly ID the problem and are sure it requires it.

I use non iodine salt but only because that’s what I have. The amount of iodine in the normal table salt is so small that its is very unlikely to cause a problem. It is said that to get a toxic dose of iodine would need a salt concentration more than enough to kill kelp but I would still prefer to not to risk it. Tiny amounts of iodine may, as Navarre suggests, be beneficial in some cases.

Ahh the old iodine debate :-) As above the normal salt (sodium chloride) which is labled as rock salt, aquarium salt or just table salt is good for external infections and will control fungal infections and protozoal infestations and can help protect against nitrite (NO2) poisoning. Epsom salts (magnesium sulphate) is supposed to be good for constipation in fish and is of some benifit to fish suffering dropsy or hard metal poisoning as the magnesium salt wont pass through the lining wall of the stomach, like normal salt will, but will extract or absorb excess water out of the kidneys and surrounding tissue where it can be passed naturally out of the fish. It should also be used prior to using medications for internal diseases like metronidozole or praziquantel as it clears the way and so the medication will work quicker.

Apistos are very sensitive about water quality, probably even more so than discus. I would start by checking water quality, pH 6 or even under is prefered and very very soft. Dont use carbon in the filters at all. Next guess without seeing them is parhaps some type of bug? They seem very good at catching worms of one sort or another. Perhaps if they seem to be getting worse try a levamisole treatment as a general wormer. it could also be the start of dropsy? See if you can get some clear pictures of one of them

A potato with a 1cm hole through the middle and under ground for a week should get you a starter culture of microworms. Need to wash the mud and worms out of the hole with water and then start your porridge culture. Never had to try it as I have never not had microworms but its supposed to work. But totally agree with the above comments. Worms or any live food that can be grown in abundance shouldnt be sold.

I have had awful luck with whiteworms but grindals grow out of the containers. Recently changed to whitebread soaked in yeast/water and whiteworms seem to be geting slowly better. I used to use luncheon and might go back to that and I have heard that rice is pretty good too. What is the best stuff to grow white worms in? I have 6 diferent types of cultures. 1 Coir, 2 Plain garden soil, 3 Peat, garden soil, shredded cardboard, 4 Coir and garden soil, 5 plain sead raising mix and 6 Peat, garden soil. None are doing great. Grindals are easy they eat up to 5 cat biscuits daily but only like the yellow ones but will eat the red ones if nothing else is around. They compleatly ignore the green ones.

I got a PM months ago from this user requesting some fish and replied saying that he/she could have them but its been in my outbox unsent and unread for 3 months. Anyone know who it is?

Sorry. Its been a insane weekend with 18th birthday parties and outlaw inlaws in trouble with the law again so Im totally swamped. I will be at the next one. Good luck everyone.

As far as I know no shrimps are in NZ except the native ones. The Amano or cherry or any of the other aquarium shrimp arent allowed in. Hopefully someone can correct me and let us know where they are if I am wrong.

Potassium Permanganate solution will kill they bugs but it also can stain hands and clothes if not careful with it

Fair comment :-) I was really only making comment about the standard tubes and not the specility plant tubes. Although the higher kelvin means more light in the blue range and lower means more red the K range is really only what the light appears to be as compaired to the sun light and is down to what you prefer the colour to look like. More important is the wavelength of the light output because this is what the plant uses for photosynthesis. It does this more effectively with red than with blue but does need both. For example Gro Lux (arent these 8500K?) They peak usually at both 430nm (Blue) and 660nm (Red) so they are made to peak at exactly where the plant needs them to but they have very low output at 550nm (green) because the plants cant use green light. Unfortunately our eyes see best at this wavelength.

Lighting is probably the most important part of planted tanks. If you get this wrong then nothing else will go right. 2700k (Warm White) is hopeless as it is to far into the red range and causes algae and 10,000k is on the upper limit for planted tanks. You should be aiming for 6000. The bluer lights look better to our eyes and appear brighter because the our eyes are adjusted to see it but the plants 'see' colour differently to us and best growth is got through 5500 - 6500k which is about as close as we can get to what midday sun looks like. The 10000k is about the light colour you would expect to see from the midday sun at 4 - 5 metres deep under water because the red colour has been filtered out. Plants need the red spectrum to grow so that is why very few plants grow at that depth. It is also why 10 -20,000 is good for coral and marine tanks because naturally sea water is better at filtering out the red and corals thrive in the bluer range. CO2 is probably good if added to good lighting and sufficient amounts of fertilizers and good numbers of plants to begin with otherwise is is a good investment in green water development.

Its good to see we have the support of some of the "bigwigs" perhaps it is time to really give this thing a nudge and make something of it. It does seem a shame that we have specialists in almost all areas of the hobby and no one really knows who knows what. Perhaps a informal swap-meet or auction advertised through here and the local retailers might be a place to get some initial numbers? Wanganui and Levin and even Masterton have some really good people to and it would be a shame to miss them out.

I am also interested. This has been tried before, what we need is someone commited to run a meeting and do orginizing every month. We even offered a place to hold it in Bulls so we could have a combined Wangaz and Palmy club. It could be a good idea to restart the Palmerston Club just finding those commited people with free time to run it is the problem.