HummingBird

I used to have quite an old HOB filter on a 2ft tank in my room, the noise from it's motor was audible but it was a low pitched, constant noise so it was easy to ignore, just like you do when you go to sleep in a car or submarine. When I took it out of my room I actually found it harder to get to sleep for the first few nights.

First of all, can I just say hi again to those of you who remember me and hello for the first time to those who don't. I used to frequent these forums quite a bit but I started studying this year and had to cut down on the number of tanks I had & the amount of time I spent on these forums. But the good(?) news is that I'm back, if only intermittantly. I'm down to only one tank now, a 3ft with a bunch of a swordtails and bristlenose. Quite a reduction from my peak of 7 tanks. But my reason for posting is, as you may have guessed from the title, that I'd like some Daphnia. Through neglect the population that I used to have died a few months ago and although frozen bloodworms are great, the fish don't seem to get as excited over them as they do Daphnia and a little more variation in food never hurt anyways. So if you've got some Daphnia I could have, or pay for (?) and preferably you're in the Auckland area (I've never tried shipping daphnia but would be willing to give it a go at my cost if you're game) instant message me, or reply here and I'll be eternally grateful.

Did they show withdrawl symptoms when you stopped feeding them larvae from there, Keri?

I went away over new years and left my dad in charge of my tanks, came back to all my golden b/n's dead except two females :-? not sure what he did, he used to keep tropical fish so he's fairly knowledgable, but it was kind of a bummer to come home to.

The most messed up picture (after the cut up shark that's still alive) would be

Mmm I've had good and bad experiences with one. When he was younger I kept him with corydoras and he sucked their sides, left big wounds on them which actually killed a couple. He also killed his original CAE partner. I moved him into the big boys tank with a 30cm pleco and two oscars and they were fine together - I never saw him attacking anyone and I got to like him when he stopped killing his tankmates because as you say, they're quite personable.

But more importantly, why would anyone want to?

Dunno about the SAE's, but if the tank's in the sun that's probably what's causing the algae. Or possibly overfeeding. I've had the green furry algae before and it was a combination of the two. Stocking it with a ton of plants would most likely prevent any more algae growing (they'd use the nitrates before the algae could get a chance), but just keep up with weekly water changes and once the tank gets older it'll settle down.

I've got a tank specifically for Ramshorns (ok there's also one baby platy in there, but still), I think they're great. I feed them a high protein diet (shrimp pellets) and they hardly make any waste at all.

Swordtails definately eat their own fry, so that's probably what's happening.

Your pleco's definately a common pleco. It'll be more than a year before it gets too big so it's not an immediate problem.

I've got a hang on filter with similar problems. I just give the motor a few wacks and it starts up usually.

From what I've read they need a 10 foot + tank to breed. They swim along really fast next to each other and bump into each other while releasing/fertilising the eggs. So you're probably not going to have any luck trying to get them to go at it in your tank

YYeah I break them up if they can't fit them in their mouths

It might be constipation. Try feeding them some peas, I had the same problem with my White Cloud Mountain Minnows and that fixed it.

Water Conditioner and Cycle are fine to add, they won't harm anything (water conditioner will remove chlorine anyways so it's beneficial if her water is high in it). Melafix is uneeded unless your fish are injured as others have said. Also, as has been said, only clean your filter if the flow gets reduced! The main function of your filter is to harbour the bacteria that eat fish waste and if you rinse it too often or not in tank water then you won't have the bacteria there to do their job.

Looks like a really well thought out system, I'll be very interested to see how it gets on.

Cichlids are also from lakes Cath But I agree that getting some would be a good choice, they're a lot more intelligent than most other fish and therefore more entertaining

Usually only males get the bump on their head, maybe you don't actually have any females at all?

You'll want to get a 60cmx30cmx30cm tank for him at least, also what size of gravel do you have? It's best to have large stones with Axolotls because they can swallow smaller ones and get blocked up from them. Of course with larger stones that means you can't use an undergravel filter (unless you had large stones on top of smaller ones), you might want to try getting a sponge filter for the tank, they just run on air pumps and don't create too much flow. The green stuff is probably just a symptom of your tank aging (unless you have your light on for more than 10-12 hours a day - try cutting down on the amount of light until it goes away too) I would advise you to stop using algae rid (it probably stresses out your Axolotl and puts things out of wack anyways), just keep up with weekly water changes and you'll find that pretty soon the algae dissappears. Just make sure your new tank has a few caves that he/she can fit in to hide in as well

Bacteria will still build up in the gravel and whatnot, I would think.

Contradiction? Awesome pics though.

A lot of flourish excel can kill it too. Double dosing it usually takes care of it.

The brown stuff is actually iron deposits, from what I've heard.

I've only got two clowns in my 4ft tank, I see them all the time and they even feed off the surface, so I guess some clowns are bolder than others. Like Caryl says watch for any signs of white spot, if they do get it treat the tank with Copper, not machelite blue or anything because they're very sensitive to that.