Shelley

I bought some neon tetras the other day....and when i got home one had died...and another died shortly after...the rest are fine...but what is really gross is it looks like their tummys had burst open....why would this be?

that is the cutest wee thing!!!!

LOl we have guppies sword tails and p[latties BECAUSE they are so well known for breeding...but as yet have had no luck. Unfortunately the guppies will have to go on hold as i am waiting to get my hands on some nice female guppies (we have 6 guppy fry in a tiny tank in my daughters room which came from my mothers guppy)...but our female (albino) guppy is very very sulky. We have been quite worried about her she has been picked on something chronic and currently we have her inside a plastic floating container in a small betta tank (he is the only inhabitant of the tank but chsed her after we let her out of her container and she hid for a couple of days before we decided to put her back in. She likes it much better on her own....and it gives her tail and fins a chance to recover after having been picked on....when our next tank caomes down from Christchurch i will pop her in it on her own to start the cycling process...and hopefully the baby guppies can join her when they become a little bigger. I don't think she will be going back in the main tank again....which is a huge shame, as we have a very handsome male guppy (named penelope of all things!) in the tank that is desperate for a girlfriend. As for the platties...i missed the first lot of babies...she was soooo close...i had her in the breeding box thing....and she was stressing out as she had been in it for a few days.....so i let her out.....next time i looked she was lim again...and NO babies in sight...bugger! The horny male plattie...who wouldn't leave either of our females alone in the tank in the shop (it was one of the reasons i bought him) seems to have become celibate why? is there something we are doing wrong? the tank seems happy and healthy. I can't seem to shift nitrit to 0 (permanantly .05) nitrates seem to hover around 10-20 despite an excellent new filter, weekly water changes..... taking care not to over feed. ammonia sits at about .6.... PH i feel is a little high....7.6 is as far as my scale goes...and currently it is slightly bluer than that. temp 27. I did get some stuff that came with one of the tanks i bought which 'automatically sets PH to 7.0' but i have been reluctant to use it...how does that work? i dont get how it can lower high tanks and upper low tanks (if you know what i mean)....why aren't my happy fish (and they are) breeding? (Penny can be forgiven...his girlfriend has left home and lives in another tank....but Les Janice and Cilla (the platties) and Spoon, Black tailed sword and female sword (must get them names) just don't seem to be partying at all.

I don't recognise the clear algae type stuff you are describing and have not liked to use algae rid or similar in the tank after having lost some fish in the past after using it. My algae problem is much better now and when I do water changes...if i notice it growing back bad i will take out the plants and ornaments...and soak them in a bucket with algae rid while i clean up the tank....then rinse them well scrub the ornaments wipe off the leaves....and reposition in the tank...it occurs to me that maybe there are some beneficial bacterias that i am cleaning off but i figure that the stones should be holding enough of that. Sometimes the glass walls get quite thick with green, as we live in a very sunny house. Again when doing water changes...if this is bad i will wipe the walls down. We scored a pleco with one of the tanks we bought...and he is doing a wonderful job cleaning up...could probably do with another one at least for this tank and one for each of the other smaller tanks. He is so much fun to watch sucking on the plant leaves...polishing them up :-) Hope you can sort out what it is you have.

I have a female albino guppy. I have to say she is the sickliest sulkiest wee fish. I consider her to be a true albino although sometimes she takes on a yellowy colour. she has red eyes, and her tail is slightly yellowish although sometimes it can look quite blue. I will try and get a pic sometime...I thought she was lovely when I got her but would like some 'normal' guppies now. Haven't been very successful with breeding from her...although it is not from lack of attempts from our handsome male guppy (not albino). She was preggers at one stage.....we had her in the breeding thingy but felt she had been there for too long so let her out....next time we looked she was skinny and no sign of any fry.....bugger. She spends a lot of time sulking on the bottom of the tank....and her tail has had a rough time from fin nippers also. Fish seem to sense when another fish is not prepared to stand up for itself and she hasn't been particularly happy. I may shift her to the 'new' tank with her boyfriend once it has cycled.

*catches it and chucks it back* lol :lol:

What is he?

Before I got my breeder thingy (which must be the wrong sort cos it has big slits along the bottom that I am sure the fry would slip through) I separated the fish using one of those Glad plastic containers...it might work as an emergency breeding box anyway....but if you put the lid on it you will have to pierce some holes for air and allow a few millimetres for air.... that way you could turf the mother out as soon as she has finished spitting our babies as she is sure to eat them the second they are born. I don't recommend those containers for a long term hospital visit but until you get a net thing or even a breeding box thing (mine only cost about $5 and I think the net thing is even cheaper). Having said that...I hate leaving them in the breeding box too long as they don't like it...I have missed two lots of babies now (guppies and Platties) by letting them out of the breeder thinking they had been in there long enough and weren't 'ready' .... next time i looked they were skinny fish...and no sign of babies lol DAMN! (I will be quicker next time )

we had a fish called Nemo too...he was a neon tetra and is the first of this batch of neons to go to the big pond in the sky...old age i think he got old and wrinkly and a bit shrivelled up looking. Oh...but I bet you only bath twice a year whether you need it or not.

Hi Laura. I gather you are the Laura of number 1000 fame (the 1000th member) is Wellington Hospital THAT bad! I love the sound of your weird fish...fish DO have personalities the ones that don't are just so dull....most of ours have names. :-)

wanna see! wanna see!

My teens do that (even the vegetarian...you should see what she can do to bread!)

when I was buying my kissing gouramis I looked at angels too and the lady at the fish shop said you wouldn't put angels with gouramis.... I gather the angels were the aggressive fish. But let me know how you get on because it would be nice to have some if this isn't the case.

Of all my fish i have found gouramis to be the most shy and in hiding for a week or more. Perhaps they are still adjusting to the new tank and feeling pretty vulnerable as well as shy? My siamese fighter was also extremely shy and the other fish seemed to sense it and pick on him he is now over his sulk mode and gives as good as he gets. I hope yours improve I have found the honey gouramis to have the sweetest nature so I hope yours settle and become great tank mates.

Wow Caryl....I am impressed! You just turn the hose on? don't worry about temps or currents or anything? Holy cow there has got to be something wrong with our water as my fish ALWAYS go into sulk mode after a water change.... I have found though that aqua plus is a God send. I am holding off my usual 25% water change as I have the stuff being sent to me now from Auckland (a wonderful little store that I found online that can't do enough to help www.hippo.co.nz/ ) since using aquaplus I have not had fish deaths after a water change I still have some sulk a bit but they seem to recover quicker. I don't age my water (although I added some water ager today to my new tanks) as we don't have chlorine (water direct from a well). I would like to get our house water checked as I suspect that copper content might be an issue. When I change water i use the siphon thing to siphon it out and also to siphon it back in thinking that the siphon hose is less invasive than tipping water in from a container....i add the aquaplus to the bucket i am siphoning from...and keep topping that bucket up with similar temperature water to flush it through. We are gradually getting smoother faster better and less messy at this ;-) Always interesting to hear how others cope.

Hi and welcome...isn't this such good fun!?! Good luck with the guppies.....from my mothers days of keeping fish years ago I remembered guppies as being hardy wee things but I haven't had a lot of luck with mine so far. The male I have is beautiful he was very ordinary when we first got him but has matured over the last few weeks...and if our albino guppy isn't pregnant by now she damned well ought to be! She has never been a particularly happy fish she was pregnant before but we missed scooping her up in time we never saw her have her babies i actually thought she had about a week to go....but next time we looked she was skinny...being albino she didn'ty have a positive black spot...it was more a pinkish spot which one of our pale platties has now.... (I have just put her in a breeding box thing because she looks pop-able...but she doesn't like it in there much and she has been in there for 24 hours now and nothing has happened. She certainly isn't as fat as the ones that were shown on this site a day or so back....but I am looking for that right angle look that Alan (I think it was Alan) said to look for and I figure she can't be far off. why am I waffling? sorry....anyway welcome...hope you have a great time with your fish. keep us informed of how the breeding goes.

Thanks everyone for those great replies. I called in at our local Hammer Hardware shop and they gave me a sheet of stuff which had been used for packaging at no cost...it was a bit corrogated looking in places but i got out the trustee electric knife and trimmed the thin wobbly bits off....and now have my 2 new (2nd hand) tanks sitting on polystyrene. Got a brilliant pump with one of the tanks and some other pumps I have yet to try and figure out (I am so thick when it comes to anything like that). Also got thrown in some light fittings although only one of them works but i can get tubes for the others.... Supposed to be going to Christchurch tomorrow to collect another couple of tanks I won on trademe also.....if I can arrange it. And a third tank is being held up there for me to collect when I next go to Christchurch as the owner is away on holiday at the moment. 3 of the tanks are a nice smallish easyish size of 60cm x 30cm x 30 cm. One will be propogating plants one will be a breeding tank and one might be for adolescent fish...the ones bigger than babies but still small enough for the community tank. Heh heh heh....and don't tell the husband but I also have a bid on one more tank for a second community tank.....or possibly I might make it a gourami tank because I love my gouramis. This is fun (costs a bloody fortune but it is fun :roll: )

Hi and welcome Nana and JJ. How lovely to share a hobby over the generations. My mother and daughter are enthusiasts too and it is great to talk FISH. (I am fast becoming a fish bore and I am sure Maree my 15 year old daughter is the same...she talks "fish" with her friends at school she thinks they think she is strange! (huh! fancy that!) Good luck with the breeding sounds like you have approached this thing from the right angle by doing all your research first, I wish we had done the same but it is all systems go now (although my husband will have a fit when he returns from his weekend away to find we have bought 4 fish tanks in his absence and have 2 more we are bidding on (ooooops)

Please don't throw things at me.....but where can I get my hands on some polystyrene for under the tanks I have just won on trademe? I have been ringing around various stores thinking they may have excess from packaging....but most of that seems to be moulded. I have contacted picture framers.....the glass shop was closed by the time I thought to ring around. We are collecting some of our new tanks this weekend (It's all Mystic's fault! :lol: ) and we are dying to set them up but want to make sure they are sitting on polystyrene first....I'm going scavenging around the recycling area today on my way in to collect 2 of the tanks and hope I can find something there. Who would have thought polystyrene would be such a problem? I have checked the yellow pages for packaging companies but a trip to Christchurch might be in order

I agree with whoever it was that said the smell may have been coming from the gravel. When i bought my tank (I must stop saying that! When I went to view and collect the tank my DAUGHTER bought.....) they had just emptied the tank...and the smell was quite strong. We cleaned the tank but didn't wash the stones, we felt this man that we bought it off (who had kept fish for 12 years) would know what he was about....i suspect he did however we didn't! I think I had heard something similar to you about the 24 hours thing but that wasn't for cycling it was for a minimum time of aging the water. I don't age my water here....I don't have enough buckets for one thing and to make sure the water is close to the temp of the water i am removing it would be impossible (i think it might be a bit risky to add a jug full of boiling water to a bucket of aged water in the hope of getting the temp right.) also I believe the purpose of aging the water is to let the chlorine content evapourate and we dont have added chlorine in our water....but I have found aquaplus as a water conditioner makes water changes much less stressful on the fish whenever i have changed water without i have had losses...the tank is desperate for a 25% change now but I am waiting for the aquaplus to arrive before i do it. Anyway....fingers and toes crossed that your tank is on the road to recovery.

I don't know about what is 'better' but my own preference would be for the wider tank rather than the deeper to me i feel it must be more comfortable for the fish to have the space of swimming side to side (and up and down in that area obviously also) as opposed to being constricted to swimming up and down in the narrower confines. However I have been bidding on a few hexagonal tanks (cheaper take up less space) with the thought of housing some of the smaller varieties. (tetra neons and similar sized little 'zoomy' fish (Cant you just tell i am a novice )

LOL again Brian.... that must make life complicated. Flaming heck AGOH.....keep us informed...scary stuff indeed.

lol Brian....does the same thing apply to men?

a very creepy thought. they (whoever 'they' is) reckon pets know when something is going to happen cats horses dogs cows go nuts when there is some sort of weird weather pattern about to occur....it may not be as far off as you think Caryl having said that i didn't notice anything weird happening with my gouramis...and i was looking mighty close because i have been staying with a freind for a few days..... said hi to the family when i walked in the door...and went to tell my fish all about it ;-) (how sad is THAT!) lol

Hi Ulrike. I do understand the distress losing your pets causes you particularly when you are trying so hard to do everything right. I hear what you are saying when you say the fish are so small and the tank is so big...but I think the point that is being made is that the tank needs to cycle first...which is why the gradual input of fish is recommended. I knew nothing of cycling when I first came 'here' (this forum) and my beautiful fish paid the price. Maybe a couple of fish to start things going would have been my bet .... I test my water quality quite a bit but am not quite sure what to do with the results if they aren't how they should be. my nitrite sits at about .05 and nitrate I find very hard to read but the colour is far more pink than I would like. Although I have a large tank, I think I have overstocked...and am desperate to get my hands on a relatively cheap tank to set up and start cycling...so I can fish out my fin nippers (2 little red things which I think are barbs of some sort)....and later my beautiful 3 black widows which are also fin nippers. It is great you have a sister that has such healthy fish although her tanks sound REALLY overcrowded to me. My mother had fish VERY successfully for years in Christchurch when I was a kid and the only thing she ever tested was PH she doesn't understand my need for constant reassurance that the water isnt going to kill my little darlings! Although the last few times she has shifted she has started and restarted the fish habit...and not had as much luck and i suspect it is down to the water. Don't despair. Is your smaller tank still set up? or did you clean it out? Maybe removing some of the fish to the old tank while the newer one cycles would be helpful but don't do it if you have cleaned out the old tank completely because you will have the same problem. I feel a bit suss really offering this advice as most of it is what I have read here and I really am very inexperienced in this hobby myself...but have found the advice offered here to have been a God send....inevitably we are going to make mistakes.....the purchase of a fish tank here was spur of the moment when the opportunity landed at our feet...in hindsight I should have come here first and READ and READ and READ...... some advice is contradictory...that is ok listen to the feedback others offer to advice given too it is really helpful....and i wish you good luck with your fish tank with your rather dramatic fish loss, it may give the remaining fish a fighting chance (although they must be stressed). Also you said you feed several times a day. I am trying to make myself feed only once every 2 days now after a bad algae problem and being told I was probably over feeding my fish. I think the tank is healthier for it though i do worry the inhabitants might be starving....but they certainly clean up a lot of the residue (they seem to feed from the algae growing on the leaves/ornaments etc) when not fed daily. Like i say i have a large tank (360 litres) and we feed a smallish pinch every second day with a small piece of freeze dried worms (broken up from the original size in the packet) i am looking into supplying them with some live worm food but want to learn how to raise/grow/breed (???) our own. Let us know your progress we are all interested.