Snowman

How thick is the glass and how tall, from what i hear there should be no problem filling the tank up as all a turtle tank is, is a standard fish tank with a shelf.

I use a cloth dampened with tank water, i wouldn't use normal window cleaner because either the chemicals or the fumes may end up in the water. There is a product i have seen on Trade Me and at Hollywood that is tank safe aquarium cleaner, not the cheapest but neither is replacing fish.

Our summer is supposed to be Jan, Feb, Mar. I asked about your winter to see how low the temp goes but considering the tank is inside i suppose you do what we do, crank up the heater LOL You may find the neighbour has quite a few plants that will use up the nitrates produced in the tank. I never have ammonia or nitrite due to the bacteria doing their job of converting it nitrate but do the water changes to keep the nitrate levels down. Keep an eye on the tank temp as 30 is getting quite high for goldfish, a fan blowing on the surface of the water will cool it off if it gets to hot. Waiting is the hardest part of keeping fish as the tank seems to cry out for fish LOL The ottos are an awesome lil fish, i don't see mine often because they hide at the back getting the algae i can't get to :lol:

What other fish do you have in the tank, i tried some small swords(40mm) in my GBA tank to eat mossie larvae and saw the swords pecking away at the 1 week old fry so out they cam. Best thing i've found is a dedicated tank per species if breeding. Depends on how much room/money/time you have (never quite enough of any of these).

No the gold fish will be fine without a heater, what sort of temp does it go down to in winter? I'm sure your tropicals will appreciate your new tank.

A B/Nose will be perfect for a clean up but won't eat snails, loaches are the best for that, or a puffer but from what i hear if you get a puffer you have to keep giving them snails as their teeth grow too long if they aren't eating something hard. Or buy on of the snail traps off trade me and a B/Nose, problem solved

Who lives down that way that would have a spare filter and heater to help out some wee fishies...or have some spare tank room to baby sit till the new tank is setup? You could put up a new post asking for a fishysitter... Having two tanks would be an ideal solution. Hoping your lotto #'s come up Sat night then you can go get a new filter, stones. heater etc to set up the new 4ftr.

If you are close to a fish shop i would say take some water in and get it checked, cheaper than buying the test kits and will either find it is the culprit or rule it out, although you should get them at some stage, it's hard to say with the Gourami as i'm not sure how aggresive the Keyholes are. Personally i would be trying daily water changes to see if the fish perk up, it's hard to treat them when there is no sign of what is wrong with them. Try not to clean your filter to often, i find with my Eheim that the hoses slowly block up so try giving the hoses a quick clean when you notice the flow slowing down and if that doesn't restore the flow then clean the filter. I would try the water changes before i would use the ammo-lock as the water changes will make for less chemicals in the water.

Maxy, how old is your tank, if the Ammonia is still up the Nitrite and Nitrate probably are as well, you may need to do more than weekly water changes to keep the Ammonia and Nitrite levels down until it cycles properly, how often are you cleaning out the filter? It does sound like a very heavily stocked tank, just under 50 fish by the sounds of it. You may find it is hard getting the tank to cycle properly with a heavy load straight away, usually you start out with a few fish (say 1/2 a dozen or so) and stock up slowly allowing enough time for the bacteria to adjust to the waste load. Doing extra water changes will help, 10% daily would be a good way to keep the Ammonia & Nitrite levels down.

I fill mine to the bottom of the black line on the side, so that you cant see the water line when looking at the tank, make sure you get what you should, there should be a coarse and fine filter pad for each compartment as well as noodles and the bag of carbon, there should be a clear plastic return that pushes into the bottom side of the filter and it should have a clear extension as well. Mine came missing one coarse filter pad and the return and extension, didn't realise this until 6 mths later when i was looking at them again in a LFS The instructions are a joke so i didn't pay them any attention as it made no difference anyway LOL

My male B/Nose won't come out of his helicopter, i can take it out and there is no way he will come out but he's out eating at night. It's the one ornament i cant remove from the tank. I've found that he takes off when there is a light on or torch shined into the tank so now use the video camera set on 0lux to see him in the dark.

The idea behind a bare bottom hospital/quarantine tank is so there is no where for parasites or white spot or things like that to hide, then when you vacuum/water change it sucks every thing off the bottom. I need a new one as my last one has now got 7 pallies in it. Wonder how long the new one will last before getting fish in it LOL

Most catfish seem to be more comfortable with the lights out. If it's hungry anough it will eat the wafer, as to if it's eatin, bit like me, if it's fat it's eating if it's skinny it's not eating.

How long it takes depends on lighting, what sort, hours, whether it gets any sunlight and what sort of nutrients and levels of nutrients. I usually just wait and if i can easily see a build up on the glass then clean it. I have a ship and one rock in my 4ft guppy and swordtail tank that i get comments on, they have a build up of green algae that looks quite cool and natural, the fish seem to like it as well.

The slimey stuff is most likely algae, seem to be a lot of different sorts and its hard to control them all. A bit of algae isn't a problem as long as it's not trying to take over your tank.

Check that the big Eheim comes with media, i saw a huge one at Hollywood that did up to 1200 ltrs but it was a professional 3, that was $853 but the media kit for it was an extra $297. I liked the idea of two inlets though, especially in a tank that size.

Bugger only had 2 woodys and already seeing double :roll:

At $7500 i'm not surprised they still have one LOL

I saw the program and remember them mentioning about them but didn't realise they were talking about NZ, they are a lucky fish for the some of the asian countries if i remember right.

Cant say i've seen any gold arowanas for sale in NZ, where have you seen them shae?

Just saw a cool Eheim rated to a 1200 ltr tank, its huge but the price matches, $853 for the filter and $297 for the media. Circulates 1700 litres p/h.

Just been down there, they are cool but $600 is to much(unless you are the seller of course LOL) They would be about 8cm no more. Thinking they must be the most expensive fish in NZ, can anyone think of a dearer fish?

They should keep most of the algae off the glass, i get a type of green algae on my glass that is very hard that the suckers wont eat so end up having to scrape it off. All depends on how much and what sort of algae you end up with in the tank. : -)>

Hi Caper, yes it looks just like my Ottos, when i clean my tank i clean the algae off the glass but leave the ornaments as they look more natural with a bit of algae on them, i dont feed anything special, i assume they clean up the flake food left over by the guppies and swordtails, it seems to be eating enough as they have rather large tummies LOL, depending on the size of the wafer i would probably put 5mm square in for it every couple of days, you may find yours is cleaning up after the other fish and if it doesn't seem to be eating the wafers after a week i would stop giving them to it. If it hasn't eaten it after 24 hrs or so i would remove it to stop it from polluting the water. Hope this helps : -)>

Would anyone like to buy a good woman, awesome cook, cleans well, only $600 :lol: