HummingBird

Angels and Cardinals do it too, when I first started keeping fish and saw it happen I freaked out and did a 25% water change right away. The next day they were fine, and the next evening I had a look at them and realised it was normal.

Well an oscar in a 50 liter tank will do that in any case(in fact that's bordering on cruelty, could he even turn around?), and the nitrites would indicate the tank wasn't fully cycled. I've kept two oscars in an almost 400 litre tank with an eheim pro 2128 before and that was fine, but I've read that you should keep them in odd numbers to prevent ganging up. For filtration for this tank I'd planned on just one cd1200, the tank is about 540 litres and the filter does 1550 lph so I would've thought that was sufficient.

Ok, so I've just acquired a new 1200x900x500mm tank. That's four feet by three feet by almost two feet. I'd planned on keeping a trio or perhaps five oscars in it (how many would be appropriate?) but just thought I'd see if you guys had any interesting alternatives - I'd like something reasonably intelligent and interactive which is why I was thinking oscars - also their appetite for guppies makes for good entertainment. What do you think?

Could be that, or something that was trailing out of your tank could've taken the water out via capillary action. I've even had the string from a breeding trap do it before.

With frozen bloodworms you really can't tell, I mean, they should be but what do I know. Bloodworms go crazy in my daphnia ponds, every net full is practically 1/4 bloodworms, it's awesome. If you're interested in culturing them (they're the larvae of a non biting midge, so don't worry) all you need is rotting organic matter and water that's outside.

I'm looking at getting one of these. Has anyone used these before, any comments good, bad or otherwise about them?

It really depends on your source of blood worms. If they come from a reliable source, one you're sure is free from disease, they're perfectly fine.

I've used Liquifry before to feed my daphnia, can't comment on whether it was more nutritional or anything...they thrived, as per usual, though.

In actual fact, green water is green from unicelluar algae. But daphnia eat bacteria just as easily, and that's what is grown from banana skins and whatnot.

Hot water and baking soda should suck any remaining air out of the log.

Might simply not be enough light. I've got 90W of lighting in a tank of similar size and I've been considering adding another 30W to that.

Yeah I've bought my two footers for $25 each from a tank maker.

Yes the tank needs to be cycled, but I think that's what stress zyme does, doesn't it? I'm not 100% sure because I've never used it, but I thought it contained beneficial bacteria. Preferentially you'll want a 2:1 female:male ratio when trying to breed them, or at least that's what worked for me, so no single female gets picked on too much. Another point to consider before trying to breed them would be to get them as much live (or if you don't have that, frozen) food as you can so they're fit, healthy, at their best and feel like breeding.

Thanks, yeah, I know what emersed and submersed mean, I'd just been told by someone else previously that the difference was caused by a difference in lighting - lower light it has thicker leaves with more surface area to catch more light, higher light levels it doesn't need that. It sounded plausible at the time. But I stand corrected.

are you sure it's the emersed form? I thought it had two forms, one with leaves like that and one with branched leaves and it went either way depending on the light levels, hence the name difformis.

Try taking the lip off, if you've got one, and if you're really keen put a fan blowing over the surface of the water.

Yeah the real purpose of the air pump is to increase surface agitation and thereby oxygen exchange, and the hang on back filter will do that plenty by itself.

Oh, I'd just had trouble doing it in the past and figured it was disabled. testing... how about that, eh? my mistake. But I'm suuuure it didn't work before when I tried to link that exact image. hmm.

Don't think we can anymore - the [ img] command has been disabled. But normally that's how you'd do it.

Try putting the pump in an ice cream box insulated with some filter wool.

Yeap. The babies should be ok as long as you keep up with the water changes - bristlenose are pretty tough in any case.

you mean like ammonia absorbing media? No, definitely don't do that. You want to keep the cycle going, and that will just disrupt it.

Maybe it's your test kit that's the problem. But if those readings are accurate, and that level's stable...no, you wouldn't need to do water changes. I'm sort of doubting it though.

When I got my first tank I used a ton of bleach and whatnot, but now I find that just washing it out and leaving it in the sun to dry is fine.

Well 20% of 20 litres would be 4 litres. I'd suggest that your filter doesn't yet have any of the bacteria that converts nitrite into nitrate - nitrifying bacteria I think it's called, that is to say it isn't fully cycled. I could be wrong - check your nitrate readings if you can. If they're zero then that's the problem. Try inoculating the tank with some of the guck from a filter in a fully cycled tank, even if you've previously done this (or added Cycle or a similar product). The ammonia-nitrite bacteria would've established itself fine then but there wouldn't have been any nitrite then for the nitrate-nitrate bacteria to feed on then so they might not have had anything to eat, and so wouldn't have established themselves in your filter.