SanityChelle

There's a nice guy just south of Auckland who breeds goldfish and white cloud minnows in these massive used water tank molds. He has half a dozen tanks and they look amazing. If that's anything to go by, an old container with viewing windows would look fantastic. It's a very cool idea!! Would you open up the top, or rig some type of lights in there? Do you think they would heat up a lot in the sun?

The borneo suckers just eat these little creatures in algae, they don't actually clean up anything. I've found just a decent gravel vac once a week works fine. Or plant it up like crazy.

I have a vague theory that he's actually sleeping and maybe just feels safest in that spot. But, seeing as quite a few people are looking at this thread, but not saying anything, I guess there's not an obvious answer to it.

This is probably going to sound nuts, but has anyone ever seen a white cloud minnow 'guard' a spot in the tank? I have one longfin that seems to have taken up residence in front of my hillstream loach's cave. It kind of swims in place, and either chases away any others, or flares at them for the bit before going back to the spot. It acts normal if I walk past, or if it's feeding time. It looks completely fine, it's just that swimming in place just above the gravel is kinda weird.

You tank looks lovely! It's very sweet with the teacups and the wicker behind it. How big is it, and what else do you have in it?

Can you paint the sides of the tank that get direct sunlight? I found after painting the back and one side, it blocked out the sun wonderfully. I'm also dosing Flourish Excel, and cover the tank when I'm not home during the day. Plants are (relatively) algae free and growing like crazy. Snails aren't that bad. I had an infestation that I was squishing, but after leaving a few of the bigger ones to grow and cutting down on fish food, the small ones aren't appearing anymore, so it seems like a balance has been found somehow.

This might make things easier. Unfortunately, I can't help with the ID, though I'm sure someone will help out soon. Either way, that's a pretty fish!

That's a file on your computer... You might want to upload it, unless you feel like inviting everyone over for a viewing. Try this thread: viewtopic.php?t=2406

I had that on some tubing and suction cups. It really does stop coming back after a while. I panicked a bit when I first saw it, but it's really nothing.

The simple answer? They look gross and creep me out. Also the snails are leaving waste on all the plants and there's brown dirt on everything. I've started feeding them every two days and I'm seeing the worms a lot less and only small ones. The snails also seem to be calming their farm, though I'm not worried about trying to get rid of all of them.

Okay, how long can I go without feeding the hillstream his wafers before the worms die off? I just fed him (usually takes him a few minutes to notice it), but before he got to it, I noticed it was covered in those planaria worms, and more were coming up out of the gravel.

Smart thinking! It would be cool to have a natives tank.

That is a cool trap! Where did you learn something like that? All I can do is make flax flowers.

It really is a tiny pinch, once every two days and I even turn off the bubbler for five minutes or so as the current used to sink the pieces quickly. The hillstream gets two hikari mini sinking wafters each day as he keeps everything pretty clean. Noone else touches the tank, I live alone. I vacuum the gravel quite a lot, as there seems to be brown dust settling on all the rocks and plants all the time. I don't know if this is from the fish or the snails. Stripping out the gravel would really be a last resort considering how many plants I have in there. I'll try the lettuce leaf idea to bring the numbers down a bit - Does it need to be cooked or anything first, or can it just be put in raw?

Seems to be ramshorn and trumpet snails. I'm also noticing a few little worm things that I'm squashing as soon as I see them. I squash the snails as well, the fish don't seem interested in them, and I know for every ten I see, there'll be 100s under the gravel. The last reading of the ph was 7.5 - Will lowering it down to 7 really help? I can't go lower than that with the hillstream in there.

I don't thinks there's any coldwater loachs that could stay in such a small tank. Plus I think I need to solve why the snails are growing so much. If there's less food for them, will the snail population drop down again?

So, I've got five wcmm and a hillstream loach in 38L and despite them only getting the tiniest pinch of flakes (which I crush between my fingers to make the flakes better mouthful sizes), I have a snail infestation which suggests overfeeding. I know I can fit more white clouds in, but is getting more fish really the answer to the problem?

Oooo, I like it! Kinda symmetrical, but not?

Just received my plant pack from waterplantz. HEAPS of cool plants in there, so happy I bought it. The tank is looking a bit like a jungle while I'm testing out what lives and what doesn't. My hillstream loach is perched on the top of the castle trying to figure things out. There's a few plants I couldn't identify since they were grown emersed and some would just have grown too big so out they went. Some of the plants were: Moneywort Saururus cernuus (Don't think I'll keep this in the tank, might try out in a vase or something) Myriophyllum variifolium Hygrophila angustifolia and a few tips of Alternanthera rosaefolia that I really hope converts to submerged because I love the colour it gets.

How many hillstreams do you have in how many litres? Not cleaning it at all seems pretty impressive. I seem to get dust-like particles everywhere, they coat my ambulia like crazy.

It's nice to get to see how a mix of the minnows looks. I really like the rocks! How easy is it to clean with the larger rocks on the bottom?

It's closer to navy blue in real life but my phone does funny things in the light, which I actually like better than the straight black. After seeing Morcs' plant pack, I've bought one myself so hopefully I'll be getting even more colour in there soon.

Oh! The list of pets I had growing up contained big dogs so any pet turtle is on the little side to me. Plus, I rather learnt my lesson of being unprepared when the local petshop advised me a 2.5gallon unfiltered bowl was perfect for three goldfish Thankfully, they're all in big new homes, and I'm all about the research now. Yeah, I'll probably get another five from HFF sometime in the next few weeks. Do you have pictures of your tanks around in here?

I already have! But because there's no room in my tiny place, I'm dropping hints to the bf for him to get a decent tank. He's a bit taken with the plecos and 'sucker fish', though is leaning towards a little turtle. Might be able to squeeze in a little betta tank beside this one (post-Christmas present, yes?).

That would be cool to see. I'm hoping to plant it up a little more and swap out the little house for a cool rock or driftwood something.