zombieworm

The repashy I ordered arrived today. I got the Bug Pie for the gobies, and man do they love it! They went wild over it, no encouragement necessary. I'll have to be more careful where I drop it though. The piece landed right next to one of the empty apple snail shells, and the "owner" of that shell wasn't too impressed about all the others so close to his cave. He kept popping into the shell to make sure no one else had taken over.

I originally started off with 12 pea puffers and 8 bb gobies in a large tank, which ended up a total disaster. The puffers waged a bloody war on each other, and the gobies had difficulty finding enough food in the chaos and large sized tank (160 ltr). After a few weeks, I was left with 5 puffers that got along, and 4 bb gobies. A couple weeks later, dispairing over the few tiny fish in a ginourmous tank, and knowing I couldn't put anything else in there with them, I moved the surviving fish into a 21 ltr tank, where they settled into a good little community, and all did very well, although I hardly saw the gobies. They stayed hidden most of the time.
Recently I decided to move the gobies into their own tank, and they became very active once on their own. Since they had done fine (in terms of the bioload) in a 21 ltr tank with 5 bioload-heavy puffers, I decided to get another 4 gobies, as I know they like to be in larger groups. So now I have 8. Other than being territorial over their little shell caves, which is mostly in the evenings and at night, they are very sociable with each other. 
They are all at the bottom in pic because it's feeding time, but during the day they swim all over, from top to bottom. The piece of spiderwood I have in there goes right to the top and then back down, giving good perching, and once the plants get bigger, there will be even more non-bottom-of-the-tank perching areas. 
8 seems to be a good number for the 21 ltr tank (its an AquaOne EcoStyle 37). Everyone I've heard from previously seems determined to keep them in a large tank, and what I've been able find in reading seem to encourage that, but mine have done very well in a small tank.

The repashy I ordered arrived today. I got the Bug Pie for the gobies, and man do they love it! They went wild over it, no encouragement necessary. I'll have to be more careful where I drop it though. The piece landed right next to one of the empty apple snail shells, and the "owner" of that shell wasn't too impressed about all the others so close to his cave. He kept popping into the shell to make sure no one else had taken over.

Thanks for the link Ira. The repashy actually looks quite good. Given the number of fish I have, it may be a more economical option. And the fact that it doesn't disintigrate quickly... some of my tanks I have to overfeed to make sure the shy bottom dwellers get fed. A lot gets wasted, as well as making a mess in the tanks. This looks like a really option. Also something new for the turtles. I've ordered a few different ones to try out, will see how it goes.
I am going to try hatching brine shrimp as well for the bb gobies, see if they will eat those. Have you tried those, JJ? If so, how did it go?
your bbs have really good colouring. Have you converted them to brackish yet? That was one of the reasons I separated them from the pea puffers - I wanted to convert them to brackish.

https://www.repashy.co.nz/

Try placing a piece of lettuce in your tank to attract the snails and pull it out once its covered in them. That and dwarf chain loaches helped me get rid of the snails in my tank.

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.

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.

I'm thinking of adding some rainbowfish in my tank and they seem to be a really good size and have a variety of different colours, plus they are mid level and very active fish. Makes them easily noticeable from across the room. Also, if you have good lighting, some of these rainbowfish show different colours depending on the side from which the light hits them, so they'll change colour as they swim around the tank.
I haven't done all the homework researching about these, but from what I've read it looks like a lot of people disregard these fish cause they don't have all the vibrant colours when they are young (and in the fish shop), however they get lots of colour once they reach adulthood.

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? 

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.

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.

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.

Hiya all.
Does anyone else have elephantnose fish? 
Rosie (Rose O'Malley)

Petey  (Peg-Leg Pete)

My albino corys are mega active they surf the bubbler and zoom around the tank

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.

Do you know the pH and hardness of the water in those tanks ( especially compared to the other non-infected tanks)?
I'm wondering if you have an overgrowth of saprolegnia, which has spores that can 'lie in wait' in the water column or the biofilter, and prefers water with low pH and hardness.
It seems to be implicated in similar 'white fuzz' problems others have had. Try reading this link - the bit about sapro is halfway down the article - and there are further references as well.
http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/Columnaris.html
Hope that helps in some way

The fish are healthy and not infected so don't think it is Columnaris.   But it does look like exactly like cyanobacteria (blue green algae) apart from of course its white.  The growth rate and the fact that the water quality is Ok certainly points to BGA. 
Instead of treating it as a fungus I would temporarily rehouse the fish even if it is in a plastic storage container with a air pump and syphon up as much as possible.  Lower the water level until just the tops of the plants are covered then blitz the tank with some hydrogen peroxide.  Keep the water pumping through the filter but it will mean taking some media from your good tanks to stop the tank recycling.  After a couple of yours drain the rest of the water (inc that in the filter) to get rid of the dead stuff and avoid other problems and swap out 1/2 filter media as above. Old media could be cleaned and put back into the good tanks filters. Fill the tank up again and acclimatise the fish to the new water.  
Dosing the tanks with antibiotics would be another option but I think what we used to use (starts with "e") is no longer available?  Either way treat it as a blue green algae bloom even if its not blue or green or an algae.... 
Never done this in such a radical way myself, instead I have only spot treated BGA with hydrogen peroxide but by the look of those tanks it will need more then spot treatment. 

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. 

Omg hahaha that's hilarious, tho are they fine after doing that?
None of my sterbais have ever done that as far as I'm aware, so your corys  may indeed be weird, even for corys  

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 

Julies are lovely & yes can be pains... but if you get a couple to pair up. Everything comes up roses.
 
Femals tend to be bigger. Hence usually you buy 5 or 6 as juvies, grow up & let nature take its course. The sure way, is to vent sex...
http://www.fishhead.com/articles/ventsex.htm
There is a pic in there, showing Julies. You can then at least know what you have & then try to find the other. How big is your tank? Caue you can try to find anther 3 or 4 of similar size & add to the tank.
Either way, before introducing. Break down the tank, take out resident julie. Re set up tank, place in new ones & then the resident one.
 
Here is a good read
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/j_marlieri.php
What you have is either a marlieri or transcriptus... or a cross of both. Either way, the article is a good one to read.
 
Frenchy

http://www.fishbase.de/summary/Copadichromis-melas.html
 
Short descriptionMorphology | Morphometrics
Dorsal spines (total): 15 - 17; Dorsal soft rays (total): 10-12; Anal spines: 3; Anal soft rays: 8 - 9. Diagnosis: 3 lateral spots on body; supra-pectoral spot about same size as supra-anal spot; 3 vertical bars between supra-pectoral spot and opercle; no black submarginal band in dorsal fin; breeding males entirely black with black anal fin without colored margin, spots, or streaks