HummingBird

The Borneo Sucker aka. Chinese Hillstream Loach is a good coldwater sucker fish, also Common Plecos can easily be acclimatised to cold water - even to ponds. The only thing with them is the size they'll eventually get to, but if you get a wee one it should be fine for a year or two in a tank that size.

I don't know about Betta's compatibility with oto's, but they certainly don't mix well with paradise fish (not the same thing, I know, but they're at least a similar species) I bought a couple of oto's today to go in a tank with four immature paradise fish and almost immediately the paradise fish started harassing them so I moved the oto's to another tank. The only clean up crew the paradise fish's tank is going to have is going to be snails, it looks like. In my experience it would really depend on your bettas personality though - I've had ones that are as bad as paradise fish and others that get along with anything.

Yeah, baby brine shrimp is more nutritional but you can't beat the price of Daphnia.

I wouldn't worry too much about the difference in water temperature, it's similar to the changes rainfall would produce in the wild and actually triggers spawning in some fish. I do all of my water changes straight from the hose.

Yes but why would you need more bacteria? Your tanks don't sound like they have a problem converting ammonia to nitrite, and nitrate to ammonia, at the moment.

You don't need either of those products mentioned in #4. Nitrifying and Nitrafying bacteria grow on any sort of filter material (and, indeed, any material at all). The water changes that you do remove Nitrates.

Goldfish Pagoda on Cascades Ave in Highland Park is also excellent.

If you want to cycle your tank in a snap just use some filter material(unwashed, of course) from your other tank in the new filter. It should be fine in a few days that way.

It's likely that your friend's fish had their growth stunted for one reason or another - bad nutrition, bad water conditions (excess nitrates) or even from being in a tank that was too short. Your Angels are perfectly normal.

In actual fact that's a picture of one of my tanks 8) To answer your question, your friend's Angels probably had their growth stunted by being in a tank that was too short.

In my experience double dosing with Flourish Excel takes less than a week to kill it off, just make sure you do a water change ASAP after it dies because it'll add a whole lot of ammonia to your tank (lost 40 baby GBA's that way :-? )

Yeah, Ammo lock is definately the problem, your tank just isn't cycled at all. Try taking some of the media from one of your fish tanks and putting it in your niece's filter, it will seed the tank with nitrifying and nitrafying bacteria. Herefishiefishie, not cleaning your filter in months is fine, the only time I generally clean mine is when the flow from them decreases beyond acceptable levels. The brown crap in filters is actually accumulated iron (and not fish crap, as you might think), I've been told.

It's probably a little late now but another great way to culture infusoria is using an apple snail or similarly messy creature and just feed them a whole lot (Hence their nickname "Infusoria snail") Microworms on trademe: http://www.trademe.co.nz/Home-living/Pe ... 256847.htm

Yes, it should be filled with water.

It does, and if it splashes around a bit when you put it in the bucket it should be gone almost right away. I almost never use a dechlorinator anymore and my fish are just as happy as can be.

Yeap I'm doing that. But the pond is below a tree and it tends to build up with leaves, which decay somewhat but not as much as they would if they'd travelled through the digestive track of a snail. heh.

I want them for exactly that purpose - creating a mess aka. infusoria for my daphnia pond

Looks good to me! I wonder if they ship to NZ though.

Well goldfish do survive ponds being frozen over in winter. I know they're not actually in the ice then, but the temperature would be durn close to zero.

Hahah, yes, I am posting again asking you people for stuff. But if anyone has any snails that can survive in outdoor ponds spare I'd be happy to pay you for your time & the postage if you'd send some to me. Ramshorns, Apple snails and mystery snails don't work :-?

IMO freezing is cruel. A lot of fish can survive lower temperatures and can even be conscious when they freeze - imagine what it'd feel like to have every cell in your body exploding simultaneously. My preferred method is to put them in a weak alcohol solution, which anesthetises them, then severing their spinal chord just below the head. Quick and painless.

The first one definitely is a common pleco if I've ever seen one. I've had three ones at different stages, here're some pics of two of them for you to compare: As you can see, there're some similarities.

Cool to hear that you've still got some Luke, if you don't like the idea of having rotting stuff inside you can feed them yeast (after you've activated it with sugar/warm water etc).

Sounds like the dreaded blue beard algae. Although it's called an algae, it's actually a type of cyanobacteria. The ways I know to get rid of it are: -Double dosing with Flourish Excel -Antibiotics (this is a pretty extreme method, I'd try everything else first) -Siamese Algae eaters (they'll eat it, apparently) And of course to discourage it's growth and keep it gone the simplest things to do are keep your nitrate levels down (by doing regular water changes) and have a ton of plants (which will use phosphates before algae gets a chance, and help keep the nitrates down as a bonus.)