Midas

hey Cram, nope thats not my fish, just picked that pic up off the net. My one is posted in this cichlid section somewhere. I am finding that he is getting quite a bit more aggro these days. He's about 2.5 yrs old now and will actually bite your hand if you are not careful when you put it in the tank. His teeth are sharp too, enough to draw blood if he gets a hold of you.

I'd say they defintely have white spot (Ich) Never had to treat clown loaches for white spot but they are known to be very susceptable to it. Clown loaches are also called "white spot magnet". I have had a few cases of white spot in the past with other types of fish however. Normal salt (NaCl) will not alter your pH! and I would be very surprised if doing a water change cured them of it. The Ich parasite is susceptable to salt at concentrations above about 1.5% I think (can't remember excatly), so adding some salt may help. What other fish do you have in the tank? Some do not like this amount of salt in their water. I have sucessfully treated some cichlids for white spot using salt. If you are going to use a white spot cure such as malachite green it may be wise to use less than the recommended dose (say half the recommended dose). This is because Clown loaches are apparently not very tolerant to many medications. Others here may have treated clown loaches with white spot before and may be able to provide some experience in this matter.

I figured as much, they seem to rely on other senses a bit more than some other types of fish, so I thought he'd be ok. Mostly comes out when its dark anyway.

Anyone ever had a pleco with only one eye? A 6" Pleco of mine lost one of his (thanks to a grumpy 4" male convict cichlid) of a few weeks back but seems to be doing ok without it now that its in a more peaceful environment.

I've probably got about 10 kilos of the stuff. Might out soe in a bucket of water and see what it does over a couple of weeks.

I have a similar problem to Ira in regards to pH drop, although not as dramatic. I'm only adding bicarbonate in with the weekly water changes and it seems to hold not too bad. However something that would raise the pH gradually rather than in step changes would be good. This bird grit stuff sounds pretty good. However, I have some unused broken up shells that I was using as a substrate in a sea horse tank that I no longer have. Do any of you guys think that if I put some of them in a filter compartment whether they would do much to increase the pH?. I had previously thought that it probably wouldn't increase it by a lot.

Calcium chloride should not change pH, just calcium hardness. To change pH (and carbonate hardness) you will need to use something like sodium bicarbonate.

yep thats right, if it has had it bad it will leave permenant scars. Do the holes on the discus still look to be infected? e.g. white slimy stuff coming from the holes? If not it is probably just the scars from a previous infection.

From my readings about HITH it apperently can be treated by using treatments that kill protozoans, in this case especially hexamita. These protozoans often exist as a low level infection in the intestines of a variety of fish, notably cichlids, which normally do no harm. However if under stress from what ever reason these parasites can multiply and the fish can develop HITH. Medications include dimetridazole and metronidazole (vet prescription only, and I don't know if you can get them in NZ). Other treatments also may exist. But it is generally best to create an environment for your fish that is healthy so they don't develop it in the first place or so that they can recover naturally (this knowledge is taken from 'The interpet manual of fish health') From my experience with the disease (in an angel fish), it never got very bad but by improving its environment the symptoms went away (biggest problem I think was that it was getting bullied). I think if you treat this discus well and it is happy it probably should recover as long as it is not too far down the track.

Monos and Scats are available, when I was at Wet Pets in PN a few weeks back they had a brackish tank set up with some puffers, scats and also some monos if I remeber correctly. They have also had monos there in fresh water in the not so distant past (like last year some time). Not sure what puffers these ones were but I've have seen a few around that look similar. They have green and yellow spots amoungst other colours.

1-3 centimetres sounds like a far bit. If it was me I would work on getting the base as level as possible before thinking about styro. Even if you use a thick piece of styro, if your base is that far off with a tank that big, its going to give you grief. The use of styro is generally only used to even out small local areas where the base is uneven (such as small lumps etc) to avoid over stressing the base glass at that point, not to correct for completely uneven bases. If the base is fairly level you should only need 2-3 cm of foam.

I also agree with Ben. As more is found out about fish it is sometimes discovered that they are not as closely related to other similar fish as was once thought and do not belong in the genus that they were originally given. Therefore genus names often get a shuffle.

just a repair

ended up getting some from the local glazier here. Its made by Rhodia, and called Rhodorsil V60. Says its high performance glazing silicone. Architectural grade and high strength. Also says it can be used on potable water tanks so mustn't be too bad. The glazers have used it for tanks before so hopefully goes ok.

I think the general microbial theory with nitrifying bacterial biofilms is to have their substrate fairly clean. Otherwise they start to have competition with other bacteria that start to utilise organic matter etc that builds up and the nitrifiers run the risk of being competitivly excluded. As far as I can tell the longer you leave filter material the more organic material will build up (even if it is only from old (dead) nitrifying bacteria) and the more growth of non-nitrifying bacteria will occur feeding on this organic matter. Therefore it is probably wise to change bio-media every now and then (of course not all at once) so that the nitrifying bacteria can have fresh substrate. I read about this on the net somewhere once but I can't remember where.

Thanks for your help guys, think I'll track down some of that Fosroc stuff.

According to Warrens early posts regarding the tank it is 3000mm*1200mm*1000mm. Looks great.

I'm trying to track down a good aquarium silicone to reseal a 2nd hand 6 foot tank. Warren has previously mentioned that he recommends Fosroc RTV silicone, but I haven't been able to find any of this brand around yet, any ideas on where to look? He also does not recommend Dow Corning brand silicone. I have used the Selleys window and glass silicone on small tanks before but not sure whether to trust it on a big tank. Had a look around and some other commonly available brands out there are Ados and Bostic. The manufacturers also seem to make a series of different silicones and it is not always aparent whether the different types they make are suitable for aquariums. Any thoughts or experiences?

These brands both contain "anticaking agent 551" (listed in the ingredients) otherwise known as silicon dioxide. Probably no where near enough in it to do any harm I would have thought though, but could be wrong. I've used it for hatching brine shrimp and never had any problems. PS AJ, I've been here for two months now.

most of the non iodised salts I have seen for sale only contain silica and this is to act as a free flowing agent.

Think I'll do some investigations into the composition of different pet foods and see how they stack up. Wayne, how much do they actually teach regarding fish/aquaculture during Vet? I ask because most vets I've come across don't seem to know much about fish. I guess there is not a very big market for fishy vet graduates.

I thought that title belonged to Hawera? At least according to Havoc and News Boy.

Does anyone have any experience in using dog roll as a fish food? Someone I met told me that they had used it in the past with quite a lot of success, good growth rates and big heathy fish, but I don't trust him 100%. He said the only problem he had was making sure you didn't over feed as left overs polluted the tank quite badly if left in the water. But this is a problem with all foods I guess. I thought it might be ok to fed it to some of my cichlids as part of their diet. Haven't really checked out whats in the stuff yet, but surely it wouldn't be that different to the home made stuff people make with beaf heart etc? Probably got a few preservatives etc in it. I guess that is an advantage of making your own food, you know excatly whats in it. Any thoughts?

As I know something on the subject of thermodynamics (I deal with heat transfer daily and have also taught the basics of the subject) I thought I would add MTCW also. I think your system would work but as far as running costs go you will still have to supply the same amount of heat into the tank water to heat it up whether it is via an in tank heater, heat pad or your water cylinder heater. I doubt whether the thermal effeicency of the copper pipes would be better than that for an in tank heater or heat pad. Therefore, all these three systems would probably have similar running costs (in terms of electricity usage). Another issue I see is having a temperature gradient across your tanks. As the heat source is much hotter than the tank temperature how will you get an even temperature across all your tanks? I acn forsee some tanks heating to much more than 25^C while others could be much less. I haven't calculated the rate of heat loss from the pipes to the water to work out how many you would need under the tank to heat it effectively, this would depend on flow rate of the hot water amoungst other things. Also how many litres is your hot water cylinder and how many litres of water in your tanks where you planning on heating? This would give some idea on the potential rate of temperature drop in your cylinder when it is heating your tanks. I disagree with your statement about the tank water temperature differing from that of the room temperature due to density differences. Yes water is denser than air (and probably more importantly in this case has a higher specific heat capacity). But if your room is constantly held at 25^C and the room is resonably well insulated the tank water temperature will eventually reach 25^C also, it will just take longer than it took to heat up the room. This room heating method has the potential to be the most energy efficient out of the ones discussed. Once the room and tanks are up to the target temperature only a minimum of energy should only need to be applied if the room is insulated well. This energy would need to compensate for looses from the room (which should be small if insulated properly) and also to heat up any incoming cold water into the room. Compare this to the situation in a not so well insulated room, whether heating directly or the room.

Could you describe the red worms hanging out of your fish a bit more. size, appearance etc. Sounds to me like it could be Camallanus nematodes. I have had problems with these worms in my fish before and yes they can kill your fish if they are badly infested. Do any of your other fish appear to have the worms hanging out their behinds? If so you may need a treatment for round worms. The treatment I have used for this Levamisole HCl. See previous posts: http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/viewtopic.php?t=281