Dawn

Hi Billaney I have an AR980 and did have five Jewels in it when I first got it. After awhile I decided it was such a waste of a huge tank to have the fish hiding all the time so I changed it to a community tank. The lighting in them is excellent, so good that it didn't take the algae very long to show up! The filter is also excellent although I have one little gripe - the long bit on top where the water is filtered out of is too long for my bottle brush so I have to go outside and clean it out with the force of the hose! It would have been much better if you could pull it apart to clean it. At first I had a bit of a problem of where to put the lead from the lighting hood as I didn't like it hanging out the side of the tank. In the end DH cut a small piece out of the filter hood so I could thread the lead through that and out the back of the tank. You can see photos of it when it was new if you click below - one last thing - AR tanks are designed to be filled with water right to the plastic rim of the tank so the water line can't be seen, I didn't find that out until after I took my photos!

I use boiling water, put them in net and pour the water over them, all over in a matter of seconds and no blood.

Wow Colin, they're doing better than the three I kept - mine are only about 2cm if that! What are you feeding them on? Mind you my three are in a small tank so I expect that doesn't help.

How old are your pair Billaney? They need to be at least a year old and that's when the male's bristles start developing also.

Skite :roll: :roll: My pair don't seem to have a clue even though they are more or less always showing their mating colours! And they make sure their end of the tank is free of roaming Bristlenoses - still no babies though!

There's always another way - use your imagination! How about a scrubbing brush and a bucket of hot water :roll: then pour boiling water over them. You can also get a product here called 'Steriliser' that you could soak them in. Your local Aquarium shop should sell something like that.

I can understand Kuhlis and baby fry going up the filter but this is a full grown Zebra Loach, far too big to go that way! Yes Wok - Nemo would be an easier name I reckon.

When they are going to spawn you'll see a lot of activity in and around where they're going to do it, my male never chased away the female that I could see. Do they have a nice DARK little cave or hidey hole where the father can fan them with his tail to his heart's content? I had this chinese pagoda thing that had just one entrance hole, it was quite small and the male had to go in sideways - it went up to a point and that's where the babies were, I could see the father inside with his tail going nonstop for days - even when he came outside for a rest his tail never stopped! They spawned the FIRST night after I put the pagoda into the tank! Before that they must have been frustrated because there was nowhere suitable for them.

Yes I shall! How about Sir Edmund - he went to the pinnacle of his world!

Congrats Matt. I'm sure there will be lots more although in the photo they looked to be quite big already - maybe a lot of them were eaten earlier. My BN pair bred dozens every month - it quite took my breath away!

I've just had the strangest thing happen! On Sunday I bought a new Golden Zebra Loach home as a mate for my other one - he was fine for a day or two then he just seemed to disappear. For the last three days I've scoured that tank and he was just nowhere - oh well I thought - another one been eaten by the mob! This this morning I thought I wonder if somehow he's managed to get into the filter compartment (AR980) - the water is filled to the lip of the tank so it's not that far from the filter compartments, about 3cm or so I reckon. There's one square hole at the back for all the leads to go through and another two round ones in front of it, for more leads I guess. So I looked but no nothing there - then as I was about to put the lid back on I spotted him - he was in the first filter compartment on top of the black filter pad squished down at the edge as much as he could to get into the water. Luckily for him there had been water - albeit dirty - washing over him the whole time he was there. I trepidly picked him up in the net thinking he'd be dead but he moved! So he's back in the tank and I'm hoping he'll be okay - probably as hungry as hell but none the worse for his adventure. I want to KNOW how on earth he got up there, the holes in the filter where the water comes out are far too small for him to have gone up the filter so he must have climbed or jumped - do they have a sucker mouth similar to that of the Bristlenoses? He was darn lucky he didn't fall out of the side of the hole where the leads go as he would have fallen down the back of the tank then! BTW I have now covered the holes with aquarium filter wool so it won't happen again - I hope.

Depends on how dirty they are and where they come from I guess. If you bought them from a store then all you need to do is give them a good wash but if you find them in the river or sea or they've been in soil for years then probably a boil up would be good - but then your mother won't let you boil them will she?

Yes well I actually like to SEE my fish every now & then!

I had one of those fly squirty things for about a year - it worked fantastically and I could leave all the doors & windows open and never had a fly or a spider or an ant! Then I got my first fish tank and gave the fly thingi to my son - the one I had had a warning on it do not use near fish - if you have two levels in your house apparently it's okay to use it upstairs and have the fish downstairs or vica versa. That's the only regret I have about keeping fish!

Oh yes, can't you tell from my picture?

I swapped for one female Swordtail, one female Guppy and another Swordtail of unknown sex as yet! Lovely fish and I think I got the best of the deal - I reckon Colin doesn't know how horrid Jewels can be when they grow up!

I was cleaning out the tank and changing a few things around (yet again!) yesterday. I put the pair of Jewels in a bucket then put it outside to keep warm, sat the bucket on a chair and forgot about it! Well, we nearly had fried fish for tea! Luckily a short while later I went outside to empty out another bucket and saw that the male had jumped out of the bucket (only about a quarter full) and was lying on the pavers gasping his life away! How on earth did he get the momentum up to jump that far from about 10cm of water? I dosed his tank with Antiseptic afterwards then today bought some Melafix and added that - so far he seems to be okay - he even let me try to rub the dirt off his side with my fingers without moving away - mind you he didn't have far to go because he was still in the bucket at that stage. He was probably still stunned!

Most of my 16 Jewel babies left home today, I swapped 12 with Niloc, kept 3 and one went up the filter last night & died before I found it! I've put them into the same 34 litre tank with a pair of Honey Dwarf Gouramies and was wondering if they'll be okay for a few weeks? I know I can't keep them together indefinately but at the moment the fry are only about 1cm long.

Okay, here's my list of all the Fish Shops I've visited in Auckland - they all have their good points & all worth a visit. Pupuke Aquarium Centre, Lydia Ave, Birkenhead - the only that is dedicated just to fish (I think). Hollywood - 36 Frost Rd, Mt Roskill & Albany (get the address from Mt R) Jansen's - 985 Mt Eden Rd, Three Kings & Cnr Porana Rd & Cherry Lane, Glenfield. There's another one at 12 Amera Place, 371 Ti Rakau Drive, Botany that I haven't been to. Massey Pets & Aquarium Centre - 406 Don Buck Rd, Massey. Bird Barn - 158 Lincoln Rd, Henderson. Many more I'm sure, just never been to them myself.

Claire's Swamp doesn't look like a swamp to me, it's looking very nice Claire.

Actually I'm starting to think we might all be having our leg pulled here....

Could they be females which seem to be a non-descript colour, at least my female dwarf cobalt blue Gourami is, she's plain grey!

What I don't really understand is WHY you didn't have time to feed your fish - it takes me all of five minutes to go around my five fish tanks sprinkling in enough food to keep them going when I'm busy and don't have much time to fuss around thawing out frozen food and such like. If you had some flakes sitting on top of your tank or close by it would take you not even ONE minute to unscrew the lid take a few pinches and screw the lid back on again! Who the heck doesn't have one minute in their day to spare? :roll:

It certainly looks like you'll need to buy new gravel then. However, if you have a BBQ you could boil them up on that, I'm sure you'd be able to find an old battered saucepan or pot of some sort at your local Op shop for a $1 or so! Or you could soak them in a good strong solution of bleach for a couple of days then lay them out in the sun for a week, rinse them thoroughly before you put them back into the tank - that should do it! That is if it's not snowing where you are at present

Which Kings Plant Barn please DiverJohn? I tried the Mt Albert one a few weeks ago but they directed me to their Silverdale branch which did have some - but I wasn't about to make a special trip and haven't been up that way yet. Mt Albert don't have Bog plants unfortunately, don't have enough room was their excuse!