Shelley

Excellent help you guys. Hope Tyson recovers!

Thank you everyone!

Hi all, I used to frequent this site some considerable time ago (4 or 5 years maybe?). I still keep fish and would like to get back into it a little more seriously, although finances are a major consideration. My daughter, who is also fish mad, is home for a few days for the holidays but going back to her new home town, Dunedin tomorrow and she also wants to become more active with her fish keeping although she has limited space in the room she rents. Anyway, she wants to breed Neon's, and I thought I would like to give bristlenose a go....particularly golden bristlenose if i can find a breeding pair. (Currently I have no bristlenose of my own). So,....you may be seeing more of me in the future. Regards Shelley

Does anyone know of where I can have two of my fluval filters ( a 104 and a 204) serviced. The 204 has an electrical fault....in that the power just aint getting through, I bought the 104 on trademe to keep us going till I got the 204 either fixed or replaced.....and the damn thing leaks, presumably a seal thing which means that it won't function...I can prime it , but priming causes leaking around the handle area and I can't get enough intake to provide a power run output (i.e. only a manual output if I stay there all day priming it.) I chose the fluval because I was so pleased with my 404, but now I am wondering if I should just try another brand, the 204 is for a 180litre tank and the 104 would have been used for my 90 litre tank. Now we are settled and NEVER MOVING......EVER AGAIN....(*speaks up loudly for husbands sake*) I want to get these tanks set up and running properly with good filtration and good lighting, and adequate heat for the various sized tanks, water quality has been a bit hit and miss with one thing or another just not being ideal. I am also finding it VERY hard to cope with standing buckets of water....what is the minimum time that they can be stood for before using? Having come from the country where we had our own well water additives were not a problem. Thanks. shelley

LOL Pegasus. I loved your article, and it was really informative. I came here today to ask how to get angel fry from that new free swimmer stage....to 'fish' stage. Our angels have bred frequently, but only on three or four occassions did we try to encourage it and provide them with their own tank with the view to raising fry. We are pretty clueless though. They do the deed....wrigglers appear....then they break away and we end up with a clutch of free swimmers....then they die....or disappear..... I suspect from reading your article we have taken the parents away too soon. We have done so as they appear to eat the babies, but maybe they are just collecting them to reposition them? We have had free swimming angel babies, fed on liquifry (have still to learn how to breed and feed brine shrimp successfully and generally only feed forzen brine shrimp) and the angel babies have appeared to be doing well and swimming strongly...only to disappear (dead?) It is frustrating. We would like to give our babies the best possible chance....to sell enough to cover our fish food costs! any pointers would be gratefully accepted as we are thinking of trying again when we next set up a breeding tank. Oh...have also found fitration to be a bit of a pain....babies are so easily sucked into a filter inlet. Was wondering if an under gravel filter might be more helpful? I have had one of those hang on the side water overflow things (cascade?) and not thought it did anything to actually filter the rubbish....but....I am keen for more knowledge. Thanks P.S. Bought the CUTEST little killie fish the other day on trademe.....have never had killies before so this is a real novelty. They have such cool personalities!

hi there.....some female fighters are beautiful...I had an awesome tank with a brilliant pink girl and an almost neon blue one.....but the boys by far are the most handsome...generally they are very well priced for such a gorgeous fish. Animates sell the boys for about $13.95..... Critter Kingdom on Blenheim Road sell them for up to $20 and (my opinion) they are nowhere near the fish that animates have although I have managed to get some awesome female fish from that store (if there is none in the shop ask the man cos he breeds his own out the back) Pet World on Ferry Road sometimes have fighters...both sexes...females seem to be hard to come by. It is also well worth a visit to Redwood Aquatics.....they tend to not have a lot of fish on display but I think there turn over must be quite high because often if you ask about other stock they will tell you if they have what you want in quarantine and when they will be available.....I bought a 'girl' there once...but she turned out to be a boy!!! those plaket fighters sure can fool you cos of the spade like tail! I have 3 awesome females right now....2 are from one of our own spawnings....and one I bought from Christchurch....think it was the critter kingdom store. (I don't live in Christchurch) anyway...the females can go from around $8 to $13.....Ferry Road and Blenheim Road tend to have their males in those horrible little jar things under lights and the fish look terrible and miserable.....animates usually have them in the tanks...sometimes in breeders but often swimming free. Both Moorhouse Ave and Blenheim Road animates are worth a look...I have got to say that animates tanks generally are by far the cleanest and healthiest looking....some tanks really put you off buying.

Well the larger ram died....the smaller one with the hole in the head is still with us. A sick sword also has died and I am unsure if it because he was sick or if it was because the hospital tank made him sicker...I was careful not to overdose the tank with melafix. Bugger...I hate it when fishies die

We've been fishy shopping! We got 5 juvenille bristlenose..... (just love those little sucky critters), 2 female guppies 1 male guppy, 2 female fighters and 1 male fighter :-)))))) Could have bought heaps more if there had been much worth choosing from but the shops supply was pretty uninteresting this trip. Very happy with my bristlenose fishies though :-))))) they are so cute!

bugger! I have to admit that quality care of our main tank hasn't been as good as it could have been in recent times as we now have our daughter's boyfriend boarding with us in our lounge.....so with it being his bedroom we don't get to see our main tank as much as we would have otherwise. Anyway....got home from fishie shopping and was removing a gourami from a newly cycled tank for our quarantine tank.....put the gourami in the main tank and did a water change...it was only then I noticed the state of our beautiful blue rams.....yuk...I suspect one has hole in the head...or maybe it is just a fungus (???) the other looks slightly mildewy...they have been removed and put in our hospital tank which we are treating with melafix. Can't believe 2 of our fishies got to that state without me realising

No female bettas in Moorhouse or Blenheim road animates at the moment but got a very handsome male from the Blenheim Road one. Picked up a female from Ferry Road's Pet World...they have others but the others seemed a bit moth-eaten. And also got a female from Critter Kingdom (Blenheim Road) but had to ask because they were out the back. Apparantly Redwoods have some females at the moment...but they were closed yesterday.....pooh!

Hi Saffaboy. Where did you get your rams from? I bought some from Redwood Aquatics some time back....and bought a couple more from animates.....they are one of the most beautiful fish I have ever seen....but what do you look for in a healthy fish? I chose my first lot by colour....but then read that they are that colour by pure chemical....second lot weren't as bright...in fact quite a dull grey....but the colour came out in them when they went into my tank. Of 5 rams I only have 2 left....both boys I think. (Have had them about 6 months) I would love to have a go at breeding rams but don't know enough about them...and don't want to be party to breeding half bred weak pathetic creatures.

Hi Caper....I just NEW you were going to get hooked....just a touch of the multiple tank syndrome huh? how cool is that! So what have you got in your tanks? We are leaning now more towards the siamese fighters (as we have had a spawning which was so exciting!) Just love them fishies!

Hi and welcome......Just got t say....that informatin from Sharn is soooooo helpful! It is amazing how quickly you can gain knwledge with people like Sharn who know all this stuff...and you hold it a lot better than reading it from a text book too because it is practical stuff....excellent sharing Sharn, thanks

I love the sound of the place alanmin described! we are house hunting at the moment...and seriously looking for a place with another bedroom for the fish . Hi Caper! How are you! I haven't been here for ages but still got my fishy fishy fishys. :bounce: We are going fishy shopping on Tuesday anyway as for the plans for the people building the house, I think a fish room is essential...but would still have a community tank for the lounge/living area....and a great big soft chair in the fish room so you can go and sit and just LOOOOOOK when you need to relax....sounds better than a holiday to Tahiti to me and you can get to do it whenever you want without the stress of travel!

I'm going up to Christchurch on Anzac day...hopefully animates will be open in the afternoon...and hopefully they will have some stock in.

any idea where I might find some quality male AND female fighters? I have decided these are the fish I want to spend time on....would also like more focussed informatin on breeding them...what to look for in a good quality fish etc....it is our intention to have 3 males and maybe half a dzen quality females to breed from.... I think we will keep the largest of our male babies as he is turning int a beautiful boy.

Hello all...it has been ages since I psted here...and in my absence we have bred sme beautiful fighters..... My remaining adult female fighter (original mother died...this is her sister)...has spawned at least nce pssibly twice (got the girls mixed up)....and is now abnormally large ...at first I just thought she was full of eggs.... she is not remotely interested in spawning...and has become distorted in size....she is the mst odd shaped fish I have ever seen and I wuld be reluctant to breed from her now even if she was interested. But what is wrong with her? I thought maybe she was egg-bound...nw I am wondering if she has some sort of internal growth....once this last week she was struggling to swim as she appeared to be full f air and kept popping up t the surface...then she would sink in the back end where she has become so ridiculously round. She is not ff her food and otherwise seems happy. She shares a tank with her young growing nieces and nephew. I have wondered if i should euthanese her....but while she is happy this seems unnecessary....there is definitely something wrong with her though.

one of my lil bristlenose died and I can't find my female blue ram

For one of my tanks I have a sheet of light weight board painted black on one side and light blue on the other....it is really nice to have a change now and again...for one f my small tanks I have some of the fishy backing paper pinned to the wall (to avoid the inevitable dribbles and condensation) I had thought of buying some test pots in different colours and just painting on paper to create different backgrounds which can be alternated either by pinning to the wall or blu-tacking to a piece of board to put behind the tank...you could try different painting techniques (sponging/rag rolling whatever) currently my main tank has just the yellow wall behind it....it had been 'black' for a month or so...I am ready for the light blue/sky blue background when we shift next week :-)...it really shows the colours of the fish up better than the black (though the black is good for showing up the plants.)

I dropped my son off at his respite care place today...and they have a small goldfish tank with (too many) largish goldfish in it. But one of these fish is seriously weird. Originally they thought he had swallowed some of the gravel....as he was always very round bellied...now he just looks dreadful (though happy enough) He is around 5 inches long...but it looks like he has a golf ball wedged in his lower belly...he defintiely has a wobbly sort of swim technique. This round tummy looks hard and seriously stretched (like he might pop). I am sure this is the same fish from months ago that was VERY fat...but this growth like thing has grown and now there is more growth than goldfish. Someone has offered to take it away to euthanase it....but it doesn't seem at all stressed...and the owner has said she wants it to die naturally so she can perfom an autopsy on it! Anyway...any clues what it is that might be wrong with this poor fish?

I've just bought some fish! Not as many as I would have liked...but oh it was such good fun! 3 cute lil wee bristlenose! Oh they are so lovely! 2 dwarf blue rams 1 siamese fighter (male) *sighs* and thats all the live stock but did get some filters for the small tanks (eheim ones? $30 off at animates) and a few other fishie goodies.... I need more money....there were LOADS of fish I DIDN'T buy!

You possibly don't NEED either....but I like to use Aqua Plus and Cycle. And when I buy fish I always feel more happy with the lfs if they put a squirt of stress coat in the bag. Definitely I have found aqua plus helps my fish settle after a water change. As for cycle I have just added it to a 2 foot tank I set up today (no fish to cycle it yet and clean filter media so want to give the cycle a helping hand before adding my poor old guinea pig cycling fish)

I have lost a lot of fish the same way and now use a cut out piece of mesh fabric (net curtaining stuff) held over the intake part with a rubber band it is wider mesh than pantyhose but does the same trick...and it WORKS!. The fish I lost being sucked into the filter were not dead when they got sucked in but became damaged with being trapped....some survived once the filter was turned off (and they could limp away) but of the ones that did most of them died a short time later.

That's great news...congratulations! I am pretty sure I have 3 males.....lol....I keep buying 'females'....I shall keep trying we will be shifting soon anyway so it's maybe just as well I don't have lots of mini bettas.

My daughter bought me some beautiful dwarf gouramis....and I have to say I really like my gouramis.....but these ones have never lost their shyness. One of them has looked particularly ill for a week or more now...just sulking and looking a little thin on it. They do seem to be quite timid fish. I lost both my beautiful honey gouramis.....and was very sad about it, they had been very happy fish and were probably my most favourite of all my gouramis....and one day I came out and found one dead....the other one died about a week later