Midas

definitely not pretty.

its been over a year since I was there so can't quite remember, at least about 60-70cm I think.

How much bigger is he than that one called Helen at the hollywood fish farm?

me too Benny. I had a solo female Krib once too and it went around constantly taking bites out of all my other fish, including fish like gouramis that were three times as long and probably about 10 times the weight of the Krib. Not to mention it killing off dwarf gouramis by seriously wounding them. This wasn't a small tank either (150L). Definitely not a peaceful fish, it was a little bugger and went back to the shop too.

I agree with Caryl. I would of thought it was better to siphon too much than not enough, especially if you are not using it for undergravel filtration. Better to have it aerobic than anaerobic I would have thought, otherwise dead spots and anaerobic bacteria which can be bad may develop to undesirable levels.

yeah, moves very gracefully, almost rythmical.

I've had him for over a year now, just hadn't had many small fish in with him for a while till yesterday. I haven't seen him sleeping vertically but thats probably because the resin log that he sleeps in is horizontal. He does seem to sleep on his back quite bit though. And yeah, he doesn't do much during the day. Won't come out until the lights are out in the room. Then he seems to be out most of the night.

:lol:

Learnt something today. Don't put small fish like 3cm pearl danios in a tank with a 7" black ghost knife fish. Eight went in yesterday, this morning theres only six and no trace of them remains, except my knife fish looks slightly fatter than normal. Must have been hungry I guess. I wondered where that missing pencil fish had got to. :-? So I took the remaining fish back and got something just slighlty bigger, 4 tin foil barbs! (although they are only 5-8cm at the moment).

Finding somewhere to get hold of this stuff is one of the problems. The name of the chemical is levamisole hydrochloride. As far as I know it is not available as a formulation of any kind (not for fish anyway, its in some in cattle and sheep drenches). At the time I was lucky enough to know someone in the right place at Ancare that I could get some through from their lab. Presumably places like Ancare would have to get it off some kind of chemical supply company so I guess chemical supply companies could be looked at as a possible source. Although I could imagine the minimum quantity that they sell would be large (like kg quantities). Alternatively vets may know where to get some (they would probably know someone at a animal health company like Ancare too, as I did). As far as cost goes I got about 100g for less than $5 (thats enough for a single treatment of 6000-7000L). So its pretty cheap really considering the amount it would cost to treat even a large tank. Price would vary though I guess depending on the source and the markup. I suggested to my friend at Ancare that they should make a commercial formulation with levamisole as the active for fish. Apparently the market is far too small however (compared to cattle and sheep etc).

thanks Warren I'm using the Hagen KH/GH test kit, which is supposed to be accurate to 10ppm (~0.5dH) and my Wardley pH test kit is supposed to be accurate to 0.2 pH units. I've been using these the charts for a couple of days and they seem to be giving sensible approximations. I'm only after a ball park figure, so I think it should work ok. A couple of days ago I came across that stuff on the Krib and from the chart my CO2 level in my 160L tank must have been almost non existant. After a day of DIY CO2 supplementation it seems to be on the way up, so I'll have to keep an eye on things and see how high it will go.

Does anyone use the correlation between KH and pH as an estimate of CO2 concentration (as posted on the krib website) and if so does it really work? It sounds feasible to me under normal water chemistry situations. http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/CO2/kh-ph-co2-chart.html

Has anyone ever had problems with roundworms (Camallanus) before? When I had a breakout of these worms about a year ago no one at LFS had heard about it and no local vets had a clue either. So I thought I would post about it for those interested and to see what others had experienced. You know if your fish ever get these worms as they hang out the anus and look like thin red hairs hanging down 1-5mm (I know it sounds pretty yuck). They can be very serious and can kill. Aparently they can spread from fish to fish without an intermediate host as well, so potentially the whole tank can be infected. From what I have read they most likely come from when the fish are bred outside overseas in open tanks or from live food such as daphnia, which can act as an intermidiate host. When I realised what these things were that my fish had I found some info on the net about treating them: http://www.thekrib.com/Diseases/nematodes.html http://www.inkmkr.com/Fish/CamellanusTreatment.pdf A good treatment seemed to be a drug called levamisole hydrochloride. It used to be widely used as the active anthelmintic (anti worm) ingredient in cattle drenches for roundworms, but seems less popular now with only a few drenches containing it. To treat my tank with levamisole I could either put some drench in (which apart from the cloudy mess it makes is aparently safe to do) or try to get some of the active ingredient. As the smallest amount of drench I could buy cost $100+ (20L) and I only needed a few ml's, tracking down the active ingredient looked the best way to go. After much running around I managed to track some down from Ancare. By the time I got the stuff some of my fish (especially keyhole cichlids and surviving tetras (several had alreadly died from the worms) were looking quite bad with heaps of worms sticking out. I mixed some of the stuff up and added it at 15mg/l, and hoped for the best. When I had a look the next morning not a single worm could be seen and the fish seemed much happier. However, it took a couple of weeks for the fish that had been really badly infected to heal up completely (quite a bit of damage done). After a couple of days I started series of 50% water changes to get rid of the stuff and everything seemed fine. Overall I really rate this drug. It doesn't seem to have any toxic effects on fish from what I have read and seen and it works really well. I think the only thing that you have to worry about is that the pH is not alkaline (preferably less than 7), so that the drug dissociates correctly. It seems a lot better than other treatments like stripping the tank and treating with salt etc, while feeding the fish some kind of anthelmintic drug in a seperate tank. Before I got the levamisole, I actually tried to treat my my fish by feeding them some bird dewormer that had tetramisole as the active ingredient (an isomer of levamisole) mixed up with bloodworm and gelatine. However, the fish that were the most badly infected didn't want to eat much of it, so didn't get enough drug to cure them. Have a look at the links above if you want more info. and I'd be curious to know if anyone else has had a run in with these worms before.

Thanks Warren When you say you double butt the glue join, how do you do that? Does it involve having an extra strip of glass running along the join?

For those that are interested, I have discovered that for enough 10mm acrylic to construct an 8'x3'x2'H tank will cost around $1500-2000. To make the same tank out of 10mm glass (which I think is a tad on the thin side) the same place quoted me $500, by using off cuts etc (would be closer to $1500 using 'fresh' glass). I have also been told that to get 12mm glass to build it would cost about $3000!, as it is not commonly used and they would have to get some in especially. Does this sound reasonable? Still investigating other options such as using something else other than new glass for the base (2nd hand glass, or some other material?). and I guess theres always the wooden tank option.

that was from the place that Bruce mentioned, Classique Plastics in Napier.

so far I have found that for a pre-fabricated 8'x3'x2'H tank it will cost about $5000 ouch!

Cheers guys I'll have ring around. From what I have found on the net at overseas places, prefabricated acrylic tanks seem quite pricey. So I'll find out how much they cost to buy here (if they will make one for me) and how much it would cost to buy the plastic to make one myself (if I trust my DIY abilities that is).

Has anyone ever tried or investigated making acrylic tanks? I've had a look around on the net and there is a bit of info out there, just not sure how reliable it is. Also, does anyone have any idea where a good supply of clear acrylic sheet could be found in NZ?

Thanks for that I'll have a look around at whats available. Depending on what filtration systems and filling options I go for I may need one or two decent size pumps. I'll have to size up things that you mentioned like running costs, capital outlay, amount of time in operation etc. An engineering project to work on.

I have looked at pond pumps in LFS's and been matching up the curves, I was just wondering how much you are paying for a fully sumersible unit, being all plastic etc. Do you think that it would be worth while to get better pump from a comercial pump dealer that would still do the job but is not submersible? (e.g. put a tap/ outlet on the reservoir and plumb it up to there)

sounds like a good idea Also, while we are on the topic, what would you recommend as a pump for a flow of about 200-400 l/hr at a head of about 2-3 metres? Are the garden pond type ones any good, or are there better deals at specilist comercial pump dealers?

That sounds more like it, thought you must have had tanks in the ceiling or something. What knid of tank do you use for your 2000L reservoir? Just a standard plastic moulded one? or do you have to be careful of what they make it of in case it releases undesirable chemicals?

Sounds like an awesome setup Warren. Just wondering what your secret is to be able to gavity feed 600L of water? Seems like a lot of water to hold at a level some where above the tank. Where do you position your 3 (200L?) containers and how do you fill these? When I have a bigger tank I was thinking of using a sump to hold the water after it has been treated and then find some kind of pump to fill the tank at a decent flow rate.

Apart from the one with no tail they didn't look too bad, but then I'm not sure exactly what there supposed to look like when healthy as I haven't seen them any where else (anyone found any good pics online?). They seemed to have their fins clamped which is generally not a good sign. So I wouldn't of said they were doing really well at least. Benny, if you said there was ten when you were there a couple of months ago there are only 4 now. Hopefully they sold them to someone who knows what they are. The staff at WP used to be top notch but knowledge wise it seems to have slipped a bit over the last few months as they lost their two most knowledgable members. The new staff probably just need a bit more experience so that they don't try selling a baby aro to a beginnner with a 2 ft tank.