zombieworm

Yes, definitely. Corys and small loaches of all kinds are fine with angels, in my experience. Angels do grow very quickly, especially if there is one or more large ones. I had three large koi angels, and bought a small one to add. That was all the pet shop had - only one, and small. It literally tripled in size in just over a week to get to the same size as the others! Same when I got the next one to bring their numbers up to 5. Female Bettas aren't my area. I have one female blue crown betta, I bought to breed with my male blue crown betta. She didn't just nip his fins, she tore off long strips and ATE them! Cannibalistic little snot! Needless to say, Reggie wasn't too interested in her after that. She now lives in the discus tank. I have heard that the females do quite well in a group, though.

Koi and Marble Angelfish don't get as big as the standard stripey ones, but you are right about the Neons - I keep forgetting Neons are slow for a small fish, lol. I have my Koi angels with a group of danios. Danios are big enough, and way to fast for angels. My angels don't even give the danios a second look. I also have panda corys, ottocinclus, khuli loaches, plecos, upside down catfish, and a Siamese algae eater in with them. I keep Cardinals and Black Neons with my Gold Rams, no problem.

Hiya. Can you post? Sadly,I live in Hastings, away from pretty much anyone else who has fish, it seems - lol. If so, I would be very happy to have the 2 plecos, if no one else has them yet. I have L270s (chocolate zebras), and L002s.

Hiya I have 3 165 ltr community tanks. All have one type of primary display fish, two type of smaller fish, plus one type of cory and one type of loach for bottom scrounging, and either plecos or bristlenose for algae duty. One has Golden Rams, which are gorgeous, with an almost orange head fading back to a yellow body. They are fin nippers though, so no guppies. The next tank has Koi angels. They are yellow, black, and white. I have seen some gorgeous black and silver marble angels too. Angels come in a good variety these days. They are fin nippers also, so no guppies, but all your other fish would be fine with them. The third tank has Honey Gourami. They are a lovely deep orange colour. Dwarf Gourami are also quite beautiful. The Honey Gourami and Dwarf Gourami are around the same size, so you could mix and match with them. And they aren't fin nippers, so the guppies could stay.

There are a number of different types of loaches sold as Zebra loaches. Striata loaches (those most commonly sold as Zebra loaches) don't get very big. It is possible that the massive one is actually a different kind of loach. Can you get pics of them all?

Always, and as I said, there had been no water change when the deaths occurred.

Hi gligor. I would say a combination of low light and snails are probably the problem with the plants. Quite a lot of my plants came from Hollywood and I have no problems with any of them. How long do you leave your lights on? Mine stay on for 10 - 12 hrs a day. Remember, tropical aquarium, tropical plants, and that is how long the daylight hours are in the tropics. Not enough light will stopped the plants from growing (obviously) as well as stop algae from growing which is what the snails eat, so with no algae they will resort to eating your poor not-growing plants. Also, why the blue light? That is usually for marine tanks. All my AquaOne tanks have 2 white (both the 25 watts), and one pink (the 20 watt). The pink one is specifically for plant health/growth. I never bother with any kind of plant food, and my only problem is that my plants are rampant and have to be cut back every 2 weeks or they cover the surface entirely. I drop all the excess plant cutting in the turtle tank. Then the turtles have veggies that don't rot (like when you drop lettuce leaves in), they love all the floating plants and spend a lot of time in amongst them, and when I need new plants to replace ones that have gotten too spindly in the tanks, they are right on hand, don't have to go buy more. As for catching the snails, I have one tank that the snails go rampant in - it is the only tank that doesn't have something that eats them. I drop a meat based tab like NovoTab at night. In the morning, when I turn the light on, lots of the snails are all congregating on it, and I scoop them out with a net immediately, before they go into hiding for the day. I then dump them in the turtle tank. The turtles love them. Do that once or twice a week, and that should keep the snails under control.

Hiya all. I had 5 discus, all happy, healthy, and active. Then suddenly one went completely psycho racing around the tank and smacking into everything, then dropped dead. A few days later a second one just dropped dead - no psycho behavior beforehand. Neither one had any visible signs of illness, no parasites, no fungus, but a few hours before dying the second one lost colour and went listless. All the other fish in the tank were fine, including the other discus. The tank parameters were all fine, nothing new had been added to the tank, no change in feeding, water change had been several days earlier, so no sudden changes in the tank. I waited two weeks, to see if any more died, but none did, so I bought another two to replace the dead ones. After adding the two new discus, the next day one of the other discus promptly dropped dead. Again, no signs of illness except loss of colour and listlessness a few hours before dying. As before, all the other fish, including the other discus, are fine. But then so we're the others before they dropped dead. Any ideas?

Hiya all. Does anyone else have elephantnose fish? Rosie (Rose O'Malley) Petey (Peg-Leg Pete)

Hello all. The next installment of "The tanks with the Zombie Fungus" is here. With the smaller tank which I just sterilized the top layer, within a week it did come back - with a vengeance. I thought it would start slow, but within two days, it had spread across half the tank. Then suddenly it stopped, then started dying off. The tank now seems clear. No idea what happened. Not complaining, but it sure would be nice to know what is going on. With the big tank, I swapped out the substrate, putting in a new sand substrate. The fish just adore the sand over the large gravel, and the placos and 3 types of catfish are out and about a lot now, where I hardly ever saw them before. As far as the mysterious gunge goes, it hasn't come back, so the substrate swap seems to have worked. The plants are growing beautifully, instead of rotting at the base, and the loaches and discus are back to their usual active selves again.

Good morning all. Stay tuned for the next episode of " The tanks with the Zombie Fungus" (that's what I have decided to call it. OK, so it probably isn't a fungus, but blue green algae isn't blue or green or an algae, so there's precedent - lol). The National Aquarium has now weighed. They don't know what it is either. I mentioned that cyanobacteria had been put forward, they said if it is then it is not a standard run of the mill one. But one of the people there has dealt with something that looks similar a couple times before, and swapping out the substrate did the trick. Kudos to forum member Poppie, looks like you were on to something. Meanwhile, the 7 days fungal treatment was up for the smaller sand substrate tank on the 28th, so I siphoned the top layer of sand off, carefully cleaned out all the scum, poured boiling water over it, and returned it to the tank. It has been 3 days now, and no sign of return yet - so far so good, here's hoping. And before anyone quips "why didn't you try that earlier", I did. But it returned within a day. So I'm thinking a combination of 3 weeks reduced feeding, 1 week fungal treatment, and the boiling water sterilization has done it. Last time it returned after the boiling water, it started slowly, before picking up speed and rampaging across the tank like a zombie hoard. Being clear for three days now, if it does come back it will definitely start slow, so I will follow through with Shilo's suggestion of spot treatment with hydrogen peroxide. Thanks for that Shilo, it is good to know I can safely do that. The big tank is more of a problem because the substrate is a large gravel type. This stuff is notorious for trapping crap. That's probably why it was so much more rampant. Two hours of thorough cleaning still doesn't get it all, because it gets under the large stone slabs, in the gravel in the rock caves, and under and in amongst the plants. So this is now the plan of attack: swap out the substrate. Because of my health it will take 3 days, but it is doable. Day one take out all the large stone slabs, stones, caves, and ornaments, scrub them down and pour boiling water over them. Carefully remove and clean all the plants, put them in a large bucket of water. Day two remove all the gravel (by hand). Keep the large piece of driftwood in there so all the bottom dwellers have something to congregate on besides the crap covered glass bottom. Let the crap settle overnight. Day three siphon out the crap, put the new sand substrate in, and spend the day putting back all the rocks, ornaments, and plants. If it does make a return, it moves slower through sand substrate so I can spot treat it with the hydrogen peroxide. Knowing that it can be spot treated has made all the difference. It will make it worth the effort to swap out the substrate, risking a possible return. And one more thing worth noting - just one day of no lights has started to impact on it. Has definitely slowed it down. Good to know. Hopefully all this will be of use to someone else in the future if they ever find themselves in a similar predicament. I will let you all know how it goes. Cheers, and thank you to all who have contributed

Thank you to both Colour_genes and Shilo for your posts. Both have been helpful. As far as the ph goes - I will certainly look into that. The idea does have merit. Of the large tanks that are clear, one is the cichlid tank, which I know has high ph because it has carbonate rocks and aragonite sand, and the 'perfect' tank does has some aragonite sand mixed in with the substrate sand. The turtle tank has a new calcium block put in every two weeks (they would probably last longer if one of the turtles didn't eat them. Dante doesn't care one way or the other, but Lydia thinks they are candy). With the 400 ltr tank - one of the two infected tanks, I am careful not to put anything in it that might raise the ph as most of the fish in it do better in low ph - e.g. the discus. The one fish that is infected does have the type of symptom/manifestation described. It may be part of the problem. Overall though, Shilo's thoughts on it are coming up trumps. I have managed to find a pic of a white cyanobacteria infestation in an aquarium when googling images. The pic also has red mixed in with it where mine doesn't, but it does look very similar. Also the description of the fish behavior is what I am seeing in my tank - the fish being sluggish. My wonderfully psychotic yoyo loaches are decidedly not so psychotic any more. They seem to spend much of the day sleeping rather than going burko all day like they used to, which has had me worried, and the rest of the fish have also become much less active. Also the discus hang at the top like fish do when there is an ammonia spike (but not gasping, just hanging there) but there is no ammonia - another common behavior in the presence of CB. Antibiotics are definately out. The only faster way to kill an elephant nose is to knock it on the head, and I'd really rather no see Petey and his band of pirates (my small group of elephant nose - they are all named after pirates) floating at the top of the tank. I'm pretty sure the butterfly fish wouldn't be too impressed either. Sadly, I do not have any way to house the number - or size - fish I have, to follow your idea for treatment, and even if I did, I think it would probably be too difficult for me to do what you have suggested in my current state of health. I have spent the last 3 years battling cancer and dealing with the aftermath of surgery, and a single round of chemo which nearly killed me and has taken 8 months to recover from and left me with permanent nerve damage in my extremeties. Life happens, we live with it, no big deal. But it does limit my ability to do anything that is labour intensive over an extended period. Regular tank maintainance is fine. Even a major clean or substrate change is fine - I can keep the filter and heater going, and do it slowly over a few hours, or in stages across a few days. I have found a possible way of dealing with it though on fishlore.com that could be promising. It involves lots of cleaning and water changes, and no lights for a couple of weeks, but definately do-able. I will give it a try. So tomorrow will be the big clean out after 4 days of treating with fungus stuff and not cleaning (eewww!), and we'll be go to go to try the anti-cyanobacteria campaign Thanks all.

These are NOT new tanks. Both have been set up for quite some time. NEITHER of these are the tank I fully stocked immediately. The one I stocked immediately is the tank that is the most stable, and that particular tank is not new either. It has also been running for quite some time. When I set that one up, I used Prime to treat the water when it was put into the tank, that was in the afternoon, left it overnight to reach the right temperature, then put the fish in it in the morning. From there the tank cycled naturally, and there were no problems with it at all, no new tank syndrome, no stressed or sick fish resulted. The tank was quite heavily planted at the time of setup, so I think that may have been an important factor. The two tanks that are infected are the very first one I set up, and the very last one. All the ornaments in all the tanks were purchased new from pet shops. The fish and plants have come from a variety of sources, some private. That is most likely how it came in. However, fish plants and ornaments have been swapped around between tanks over time, but only the two tanks are infected. In the beginning I did leave it a week at a time before water changes, but it didn't die off, and the fish got really stressed.

No, all 3 160 ltr tanks get exactly the same thing, but only one is infected, and the 400 ltr gets the same food plus some extra types to cater for the African butterfly fish and the elephant nose. One of the 160 ltr tanks - treated the same as all the others - is so stable that it only needs a water change once a month, I never have to siphon the sand substrate - it is always beautifully clean - and I never have to clean the inside glass. There is no algae on any plants, wood, glass, or anything. Nitrate is always 0, nitrite under 10, and it takes a month to 6 weeks before the ammonia necessitates a water change. Really wish I knew what was different about it! The only thing different was the initial setup. That was the only tank I fully stocked the day I set it up. All the other tanks were cycled first and stocked slowly. At this point I'm not really interested in what it looks like or even where it came from (I doubt it could be know for certain anyway), I just want to know how to effectively deal with it. The rest I can consider later.

I don't think that is really an option in this instance. It is also on the plants and rocks, and is probably in the large pieces of driftwood. I would have to completely drain the tank, throw out the plants, and sterilize everything to be sure that it didn't return. Anything less would just end up being a lot of effort for no real return, since the fungus would only start up again if everything wasn't discarded or sterilized. Meanwhile, I have no place to put the fish while all that is happening. It would also have to be done with the other tank as well (remember, there are 2 tanks infected). And while none of the other tanks are infected, there is no guarantee that they won't become infected at some point, or that the first two wouldn't get reinfected at some point. It would be far better to find a way to effectively deal with the fungus. But thanks for the suggestion At some point, I do actually want to change to a sand substrate for the benefit of the elephant nose and the catfish, so nice to know it should only take a day. Will definitely wait until the fungus is dealt with though.

Both tanks are AquaOne, and have the overhead biofilters. One is a 400 litre, one is a 160 litre. I have two other 160 litre AquaOne tanks, a 21 litre AquaOne, an AquaOne Betta duo, a 165 litre Blue Planet, and a 1200mm AquaOne turtle tank, all with biofilters, but they are not infected. All the tanks except the Blue Planet (which is a cichlid tank) are heavily planted. The 400 ltr, and all 3 160 ltr tanks also have 24W UV filters, and Purigen in the overhead filter (although the Purigen, along with the charcoal in the filters, have been removed in the infected tanks during treatment). All the tanks are treated exactly the same in regards to cleaning, water treatment, etc, but only those two tanks have the issue. It hit both tanks suddenly about two months ago, and I haven't been able to get rid of it. The really worrying part for me is that the 400 ltr tank has all my most exotic and expensive fish - discus, elephant nose, zebra placos, farlowella, african butterfly fish, as well as spotted talking catfish, chocolate striped talking catfish, and a featherfin syndontis. Also 3 fully grown psycho yoyo loaches - they are a riot to watch, and a few serpae tetras. In the big tank one of the tetras has fungus on the base of his tail and on his lower lip (do fish have lips?), but all the other fish are fine, and all the fish in the other tank are also fine. For both tanks, nitrite is 0, nitrate is between 7.5 and 10, and ammonia is 0.

As indicated in the post, one is gravel substrate, one is sand. As I said in the post, within 3days of cleaning (i.e. siphoning out the muck and cleaning the substrate) it is a cm thick again, and the photos are of the sand substrate one day after cleaning.

Two of my tanks have been overrun by a rampant white fungus that creates a thick sludge. I am trying a fungal treatment, but it requires treating for 7 days before doing a water change. Problem is that I can't go more than 3 days without doing a water change, as by that time the sludge is a centimeter thick and I have bottom dwelling fish. Within an hour of cleaning, it has started up again. This fungus stuff is killing my plants, and distressing my fish (and me!). I have cut feeding down to a bare minimum without starving the fish, but it has made no difference at all to the rate of growth. Has anyone else had this kind if problem? Sorry no pics of big gravel substrate tank - just cleaned it, but have added picks of sand substrate tank. 1 day after cleaning. None of my other tank have the problem.

There were 2 salt and pepper corys in that sand substrate tank already, and I have never seen them do that, or the julie corys in another tank with sand substrate. So the first time I saw one of these little guys sticking out of the sand like that , it freaked me out. They frantically wriggle into the sand, and just sit there like that, totally still for a few minutes. Then suddenly, their tail will flop to one side, then the other side, then they pop out. It is so funny to watch. Also, all the other corys I have stick strictly to the bottom of the tank, but these guys swim all over. They also periodically race to the top to take a gulp of air. None of the other corys do that either - not even the salt and peppers in the same tank. Their behavior is so different from all the other corys I have.

A couple of weeks ago I bought 2 albino corydoras. I had them in the 400 ltr tank, but they seemed unhappy there - large, dark gravel substrate, and boisterous yo-yo loaches. So I moved them into the 160 ltr tank with white sand substrate, and more placid tankmates. They certainly seem to like it. My question now is - do anyone else's corys do this? Mine seem to LOVE doing this.

This little guy/.gal is a transcriptus. The first pair I ordered arrived at the supplier DOA. Of the second pair ordered, one was DOA, so this is the only one I was able to get. Am wanting more, obviously. I have a 380 ltr tank coming this week end, which I will be setting up to move the cichlids to - they are currently in a 165 ltr tank. I will put off moving Julius/Juliette when I move the others over, and see if I can get a few more first, then move him/her over when the new ones arrive. Thanks for the help Frenchy

I got a Masked Julie yesterday - my new favorite fish now, it is just so adorable! I had wanted a pair, but only one came in from the supplier, so I went with what was available. I was thinking of trying to get a second one - a mate for it, but two issues have cropped up with that. Firstly, how do I tell if my one is male or female? Secondly, I have read that if you put a second julie in with one that is already established in the tank (regardless if they are same sex or male & female), one will kill the other. Has anyone had any experience with Masked Julies, or knows anything about them?

No, he's never had any color, just black with black stripes. Although, when he gets agro, the blackness of the stripes gets more pronounced against his background black/grey. I figured him for a male as he is super territorial (something the vet/petshop found problematic), and has excavated a cave under the stone slabs, carrying each piece of gravel out one at a time, piling them up out side the cave. He has lost his cave though now. I got more cichlids for the tank ,which arrived yesterday, one of which was a masked julie. The minute I put the julie into the tank, it went straight for the cave. Nero wasn't very happy about that, a big fight ensued, and he ended up being kicked out. The cave now belongs to the julie. Nero spent the rest of the day chasing all the rest of the fish out of frustration, but has settled down now.

How's that? BTW I love your moniker

I think I may have found what he is. A Midnight Mloto. He has the close, thin striping, and the bluish tinge in certain lighting, otherwise very black. Also, they are "A burrow spawner, territorial males excavate a bower under a rock" according to what I have found. He is definitely doing that - he has made a cave under a sloping rock, carrying the gravel out stone by stone, piling it up outside the cave.