Loopy

Ok i suddenly realised that i am thread-jacking so i shall start this thread about the little weirdos i bought as "glass kuhlis" I am not convinced that they are kuhlis at all as they don't have kuhlis type fins or barbels. They appear to be more like an eel. do they look familiar to anyone? See here for previous posts. http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/7-vt18 ... l?start=90

No. I had a look at that site and I don't think that is them. My guys heads are much longer and ...well everything seems to be long on them. They don't appear to have any fins as such either! They swim like eels rather than kuhlis. Just waiting for photos to load up as i type....... :roll: I am much happier with these photos. Note the green airline T intersection in the 1st pic. These wee guys are thin enough i reckon they could swim up and airline tube! Their gills seem to be behind the first bulge.

yeah there are a few left. It is going to do my head in until i know exactly what they are!

I went along and got me 3 of the "glass kuhlis" Took some photos but i am not happy with any of them. this was the best of the lot. Gonna try again. Haven't the foggiest what they are but i noticed they do not have barbels which i thought is a requirement of being a loach? They burrow into the sand backwards! :lol:

1L at 8am measured 7.2*C

1 Liter of water straight from the outside tap that i always do my water changes from at 11am this morning measured 10.2*C. Only time i ever warm the water up for a water change is if it is for very newly hatched fry of any sort. My whiptail fry which are about 2 weeks old are getting 1L of cold water every 2 days in a 8ish Liter tank. No problems. We find our fish seem to love the cold water. The angel fish kids complain a bit if they have a 60% change with cold water but they handle it and also get over it. No-one dies or get sick from us doing cold water changes.

Try making one of these for him. i use the 2.250L bottles. They are bigger than a store bought breeder trap. And i use a glue gun to stick the polystyrene to the bottle to make it float.

Hi fluffypants! Yeah bettas are really naughty wee jumpers! I used to train mine to jump to take food a lot. I had about 4 at one stage that would all jump to take food. Was really funny seeing them popping up at dinnner time. Lots of species are jumpers. Danios also terrible for jumping and swordtails. Good lids are a must!

I personally wouldn't do it. I think your fighter would just entertain himself by hunting the babies. Do you need to seperate him for some reason?

i have a pair of gold severum who used to be perfect role models for what a good relationship should be like. They were inseperable, spawned every three weeks like clock work and got on really well. But for the last couple of months they have been scrapping like cats and dogs, not spawned for ages, and really can't seem to stand the sight of each other! At one point the female disappeared for nearly a week behind a slab of rock because the male would attack her everytime he saw her. My hubby and i have been making jokes about the severum and perhapes the male has been cheating with the pleco or something :lol: The good thing is, *crosses fingers* it looks like they might be finally getting over whatever it may be. They don't seem to be trying to rip each others fins off all the time. Hopefully you angels are just having marital issues and will get them sorted by themselves. She might be picking on him for not fanning the eggs often enough!?

My trick for feeding the fussy fish in our collection is to stick a bit of food on the end of a piece of wire and dangle and bob it in front of their face. Means i don't have to get my hands wet :roll: and i can direct where the food is going, remove it easily if they don't want it and the fish like the action of it wiggling. i used frozen cooked shrimp mostly for putting on the end of the wire but i am increasingly intending to used bits of beef mince (and i might go out right after this post and get me some worms!) The above method is essential for my puffs and it seems the axolotls. My black ghost knife is a black hole and eats everything. :evil:

i go to Gordon at Critter Kingdom on Blenhiem road. He has built, repaired, resealed, or made lids for a few of our tanks now and we are always very happy with the price and quality of his work.

Wow i have a number now too!! I am surprised to see that alanmin and i are the only Chch members! All my little killies are looking great! Such cute wee guys!

I got a phone call this morning.... "do you want 2 axies?" (axolotls) "umm Yeah! ok!!" :roll: On another forum i used to visit they had a little smilie icon holding a "sucker" sign. perfect for situations just like this one. I think we need it in this forum too. :oops: I know that one of the kids seemed to take a real shine to the axies at the pet shop so i reason that they can be for the kids and they also won't need a heater too.

Oh i just had a thought!! At feeding time give each of your snails a cat bikki or fish pellet of their own to munch on! they will be so busy with that that they won't be so inclined to chow down on your fish and by the time they have finished their breakfast, the fish will probably be finished their flake too. The snails will catch on pretty quick. Just wait for them to do their stretchy thing at the top of the tank and drop a pellet down onto their foot or hold it in front of their mouth steadily. They should grab hold of it and then leave everyone else in peace!

Apple snails are highly under-rated! And they are quite complex in my opinion too. They eat phenominal amounts of food if given the opportunity. And yes they will eat algae but it is not exactly a favourite. and they are not that great at algae eating either. They are more like lawn mowers that just crop algae back to a certain length rather than like a pleco who does a much better job. They have dormant or quiet periods over winter. ANd so they eat less and will be pretty slow during that time. They are NOT hermaphrodites therefore require a female and male to breed. I personally found sexing is not very easy. They have teeth which are both creepy and funky to see. They are NOT slow (well. not as slow as you probably expect!) and they can become quite tame and crawl over your hand if you will permit them and you can hand feed too. (just watch out for those teeth!) They do have some bad habits too like having an attraction to eating sponge filters, plastic plants, and note: on the rare occasion, fish. They are extremely messy pigs, and if you don't have a lid on your tank they can go walk-about at night too and you may find a snail tucked under the couch or half way across your fish room floor! Otherwise i think they are fantastic!

ha ha Nick777 If only you knew! Do NOT underestimate an apple snail! Sure they can get blinkin big (like tennis balls) and i have seen they get this (_) close to catching a perfectly healthy fish. It is usually when they are at the waters surface and the snails stretch out towards the middle of the tank to reach something, usually flake at feeding time when the fish are at the surface too and darting around, they will swim all round the snail and between the snails foot and the glass. As the snail pulls itself back in to latch on to the glass, a fish can get trapped between the glass and the snail because the fish is so bussy scoffing flake, he doesn't notice the snail closing in till it is too late. and thus the snail has caught himself a tasty dinner!!

LOL! yeah i think i forgot to add that one to my list too Caryl!

jeez the puffs are still sulking! At this rate it is going to be a week at least before they get over their ordeal! I don't think they are going to die now but they are pretty miserable. They are not moving and surprisingly not interested in food. they are just sitting there looking sad. I don't like situations like that I felt so helpless and guilty! It is so hard seeing your finned babies so unhappy!

Curious to find out what everyone else thinks are their most indespensible tools regarding fish keeping? My favourites would be - a chopstick (to prod around in the shallower tanks) - some long grey contraption, think it is fluval brand?, with a claw at the end for grabbing stuff out of deep tanks. - a 10ml syringe with some airline on the end as an extension - and my DIY modified breeder traps Whats yours?

ok i think i shall have a play and get one of the old sponge filters in there with them. just got a couple of young cories for dither fish.

puffs still look rather sad. at least the one who was upside down is round the right way now! temp is at 26*C now. I think i just have to wait for them to stop sulking :roll:

Thanks dragon!! that is a huge help! I had 11 hatch last night. Most fungused pretty quickly after i move dad away. I have started a brine shrimp hatch for them and aim to give as wide a range of foods as possible. I will see if i can locate some one with some dither fish as i don't have anything myself.

Ok now that just makes the day worse! :evil: I had just typed a big post to explain what happened and pushed the wrong button and lost the lot :evil: :evil: The heater in our puffer tank had popped it's lid! the whole black top has popped off. The glass is still intact! When it blew it must have tripped the overload thing-a-ma-bob on the multiboard and turned off the heaters and lights to the other tanks on that system Which just happen to be all the fry tanks. everyone looks fine except for the puffers, one of which is sitting upside down and not moving. The heater that i recieved at conference got ripped out of its box rather viciously. thanks guys!! who would have thought i would need it so soon! Thankfully the board had popped it's switch so everything was turned off and noone got cooked!! No i am just waiting for my puffys to warm up and hope they get over their chilly experience!

We had our whiptals hatch last night. HOWEVER the thermostat in our puffer tank blew apart big time. Our puffers do not look good at the mo.