newbiefishcpl

I have put him back into his home....... Thanks Sophia for the advice

Thanks Bik We have had the tank for over 6 months now.....we do regular water changes (weekly) and have plenty of airation (sp). We have rams, neon's and harlequins, 2 x BN's and two gourami's. Only one is sick All the others are fine. I guess I just wanted to know whether or not I put him back into the tank, or leave him out in a stupid container which will mostly likely kill him anyway I hate losing fish

I think one of our dwarf honey gourami is dying He/she hasn't been very active the last couple of days. It has been laying on the bottom a lot, laying on it's side a lot...and just when I think it has died, it starts swimming around and going up to the top. It doesn't appear to be overly gasping for air and I swear he had something to eat last night. It is not as "bright" as in colour, as it's fellow gourami and it's gills aren't blood red. We have taken it out and put it in a separate container tonight, same thing, laying on it's side, then swimming around. We don't have another tank set up and just don't know what to do to try to nurse it back to health (if we can). As I type this and look over at the container, its upright and swimming around. Arghhhhhh....what do we do? Do we put him back in the tank or do we let him suffer in the small container? Any advice my "fish" friends????

It's only a 130ltr Godly

Really Godly......would our dwarf honey gourami's survive more rams?

Thank you both They are our originals (after losing so many) and seem pretty content, but I feel for the quiet one and wish he/she would grow some "balls" :lar:

Is it quite common to have a more dominant Ram in a pair? We have a very bossy one who thinks the tank belongs to him and is all over the place and one that is quieter, hides more and is always being chased by his friend. The bossy one has different markings than the quiet one, he is clearer with bright red tips on his fins, the quiet one has what appears to be stripes with red tips too. They are both quite happy and get enough to eat, but is it common to have a bossy one and a quiet one?

Excellent!! Plant shopping here we come We didn't realise the more plants the better. Thanks everyone, appreciate you all taking the time to offer sound advice

Alan.....I said IF the plants need a trim (dead leaves) etc then we do it. We don't pull them out unless absolutely necessary. Guess we will just keep doing what we're doing and hope it improves. Thanks all for advice

Rabid, it's only a 130lt tank so we thought 4 plants would be sufficient. We do feed them (the plants) fertiliser, but haven't for a couple of weeks as we thought that was why the algae was taking over Should we continue with the fertiliser?

We empty about half the tank (give or take) take out all decorations/driftwood and clean them in a bucket of tank water, and if the plants need a trim, we do so. We have 4 plants in the tank at the moment!

Our plants and rocks are covered with tiny little spikes of growth, algae I image. We clean the tank out every week, the lights are on daily between 8-10 hours, we only feed every two days and small amounts and we have two BN's. Are we feeding too much? Are the lights on for too long? How can we get rid of this, or limit the growth? Any advice greatfully received

Thanks Caryl The worst bit was losing 8 fish over a period of a couple of weeks, 4 Pearl Gourami's, 2 Honey Dwarf Gourami's and 2 Raspora's.....they had their tails chewed off etc.....it was just a shock waking in the morning to find them floating after we had only just replaced them. We do realise that these things happen and when your starting out, you learn and lose. But there is nothing like going to a shop and falling in love with so many different fish, the man literally has to drag me out before I've brought them all :lol: and sitting at night watching them is I think "calming to the soul".

We do try feeding them hard food (pallets) but they don't get to enjoy them, the Ram's are greedy lil buggars! We do drop a fork with cucumber in once or twice a week, which they LOVE, so hope they are getting enough to eat. Thanks for all the advice guys and girls, you all rock

We do have some driftwood for our Bristlenoses...not that they ever seem to go near it. Our wee girl (we think it's a girl) loves the sub more than anything, and our bigger boy hides inside the sub. We are definitely going to add some more rasbora's, on our next trip to Rotorua. Opps I forget to include our 5 neon's as well. Thanks Calculator

Newbie question :bggrn: We have a 130L tank, with 2 decorations (Sub & Rock with a hole) and 5 different plants. We currently have: 2 x gold head purple rasboras (the other two died so we replaced with harlequin's) 4 x harlequin rasboras 2 x honey dwarf gourami's 2 x Bolivian Rams 2 x Bristlenose Catfish (1 a baby and 1 a little bigger) Is this too much for our tank? How many more can we comfortably have? Any suggestions on what else we could put in, we would love some top swimming fish?? Thanks all Nicky

Thank you We're looking forward to learning and sharing

Our story...... We decided to become "tropical fish owners" back in Nov 2012...we trawled Trade me for weeks looking for a decent tank. Final we found one He being the "researcher" of the cpl, researched every site for information, on tanks, fish etc..... We brought our new tank home and started straight away to begin the cycle process. We brought some decorations and some Neon Tetras. A week later we headed to Animates in Bayfair and asked many questions....we came home with 2 x honey dwarf gourami's. We slowly added over the next month or two. We ended up with 5 x Neon's 2 x Honey Dwarf's 2 x Pearl Gourami's 2 x Bolivian Ram's 1 x Bristlenose Catfish All was going well and they were one big happy family....UNTIL we added some Serpae Tetra's..............within a couple of weeks we lost so many fish We were mortified and a little disheartened. So here we are....wanting to hear from other fish owners, get advice, share stories and make friends