Snowman

The helicopter is a tank ornament that the male lives in, the first time she laid eggs i took the helicopter complete with the male and eggs out and put him in a breeding tank, left him there for 2 weeks then put him and helicopter back in the community tank he was originally in, 1 day after putting him back in the community tank there were more eggs so moved helicopter and him back to the breeding tank with the original fry, after 2 weeks i put him back in the community tank and 2 days later there are more eggs. There are around 200 FRY (not eggs) from 2 different spawns not counting the new lot of eggs.

It's usually under the piece of driftwood, when my female lays i take out the helicopter with the eggs and male in it and put it in a seperate tank for a couple of weeks, when i put the helicopter and male back within a day or two there are eggs, got about 200 fry at the moment with the male sitting on another large clutch of eggs but not sure where the new fry will go, do you want some? LOL

From what i understand it's not so much poisoning the water as the pyrethrin leaves an oily film on the water surface stopping the oxygen exchange and suffocating the fish, plants etc. Not to say it's safe in water but i wouldn't use it in the same room my tanks are in.

Yeah easy as for a smaller piece of driftwood but i don't think many plants would like being boiled for 10 mins LOL

Seachem Flourish, twice a week seems to work well.

Hi Liana, are they gold b/nose or normal? normals have a much better survival rate and easier to raise. Depends on what other fish you have in the tank as my normals spawned in my community tank but all the fry were eaten by loaches and angels, a mate has had some survive (with plenty of hiding places) in his community tank with guppies and swordstails but i think thats because the swords couldn't get at the fry. If you want b/nose fry wait till there are eggs then transfer them to another tank with just the male and the eggs, once thay are a month or two old they will have a much better chance of surviving other fish. They must have some form of wood in their diet (either driftwood or plecochips which have 10% wood in them) and the driftwood makes an ideal hiding place.

Practical Fish Keeping magazine has a website that has some very usefull calculators (must be registered (free) for some of them) and here is what they say is recommended for cold water fish in a tank measuring 30L x 17W x 20H... "We would recommend keeping up to 1"/3cm of small to medium-sized fish in your system. However, depending on the type of fish, your filtration and your maintenance level you may be able to exceed this to a suggested maximum of 2"/5cm of fish. " Hope this helps with getting a suitable sized tank for your fish : -)>

I agree with Caryl, 10ltrs is way to small, i would suggest at least a 2ft tank which will do until they get bigger. The smallest tank i have is 40ltrs which has 4 platties in it and i won't use a smaller tank as i think it is cruel. To be comfortable and healthy they need a bit of room to move and swim around. Think of them the same as you would yourself, would you be comfortable living in a wardrobe?

BBA = Black Beard Algae

If it's an external filter you will find a good build up in the hoses as well, when the flow slows i clean the hoses only and that usually restores the flow, if it doesn't then it's filter clean time.

Hi Alan It wasn't Rennis was it? I know he lives in Mangere and was getting some killies from Niloc (Colin) HTH Cheers Shane

My big clown loach loves chewing on my cabomba and ambulia, always finding floating bits (possibly some of the other types of loaches in the same tank but i have snapped the big one doing it)

Hi Henry Thanks heaps for such an awesome book, very good packaging and a highly recommended book for any aquarium fan. Look forward to any other books you may come across. Wishing you and your family a very merry xmas and safe and prosperous new year Regards Shane

I do know roughly how old Kyle is, a car battery would be a lesser shock but a shock from the coil pack is way more powerful than household power. If you read what i said when you have juat a positive and negative red is positive and black is negative, this has been taught at school for many years. Thanks Chimera for your 1/2 cent worth of what was already said by Warren and Pegasus. The problem with this site is instead of just correcting something there has to be the belittling comments for (i guess) the ego trip.

I am not an electrician but basically i was saying that red won't be earth and black won't be power. As a rule of thumb if you have a positive terminal and a negative terminal red will be positive and black will be negative. e.g. automotive (that i do know about). That changes when you throw in a neutral but there was no mention of one in the original post. Most posts on this site are opinions, experiences and thoughts rather than facts, though i can see your point when it comes to mucking around with something potentially fatal. Personally i do my own but i get it checked by an electrician mate before plugging it in which works out much cheaper. I think most people realise that getting a shock from 240 volts will cause serious harm. Kiwi ingenuity and a can do attitude is one thing thats makes us Kiwis unique and always will be. At least Kyle asked for guidance rather than finding out the hard way so credit goes to him for that. Good luck getting the light sorted and working Kyle

Deleted. Any wiring should be done by an electrician as any advice for a novice to DIY could be dangerous. I should have written that in an application where there are positive and negative e.g.automotive, red will be positive (power) black will be negative (earth). Thats what ya get for trying to help. :roll: As for 100% accurate that would scrap 75% of the advice about fishy things people are given on this site LOL

Sounds like you need another tank LOL Move your bed into the middle of the room and you should be able to surround it in tanks :lol:

As Wok will know my tanks were fantastic BBA breeders, i tried the flourish excell which has helped, still using it at slightly higher than recommended doses, the other things that have helped is cutting feeding down to every second day and i've found BBA doesn't like water flow, an airline that was covered in it cleared up completly in a few days when i put an internal filter in with the outlet directed at the airline. More plants will help use up excess nutrients but it's hard for them to get established before being coated in BBA. Water Sprite works well either planted or floating as it grows very fast and isn't bothered by trimming off BBA coated leaves.

They may well still breed but i doubt if any fry would survive.

I think its a bit the same as if you were hungry enough you would eat anything, they definetly prefer courgette, pleco chips etc, mine love Nutrafin Bottom Feeder Tabs.

Hollywood Fishfarm had some, a member fro East Auck Club bought them all and Hollywood were getting more but apparently there were health problems with the replacements, got my name down for some but been waiting for a couple of months now with no joy. They were Albino Koi Swordtails, basically the back third was orange, middle third white and front third orange, with red eyes of course.

I have the same tank and same dilemma, Hollywood fishfarm sell the bulbs to suit as i bought some 6500k for my AR850 off them, Jansens may have them as they sell Aqua One tanks as well. Retail for the longer ones (750mm) was about $41 so they definetly arent the cheapest. I'm very tempted to scrap the light hood and filter because there are better ways of doing both (If i knew then what i know now) LOL

I've seen the safety bottle used on DIY CO2, i don't need one on the Nutrafin setup as it hangs off the side of the tank so couldn't fall over, didn't even think about it with the JBL setup but as they say "You learn something new every day" Hopefully this post will stop the same thing happening to anyone else.

No, it tipped over and half the flask of yeast etc went up the air line and into the tank, i put it about 12" lower than the diffuser thinking if it did tip it wont go uphill but apparently it can

Just lost a few fish from a JBL reactor bottle falling over, black ghost knife, angel, 2 striata loaches and an angelicious loach, amazingly 1 very large and 2 medium clown loaches, an angel, female b/nose, 2 queen loaches, 2 yo-yo loaches and an angelicious loach have survived, a lot of time spent cleaning the filter and getting rid of the gunk in the tank that could have been avoided by tying up the flask.