humpty

My plants seem to be growing just fine. I thought there might just be too many nutrients iun the tank. That's why I have been keeping the lower nitrates and phospahtes. I will try boosting everything up this week and see if it makes a difference. I'll black the tank out if I can't get a hold on this problem.

Ya it moves water but I definitely could use another powerhead for better flow. I'm wondering the same thing. I bought the light fixture with the tank about 1.5 yrs ago. Im sure they were old when I got them. I was just planning oin running them until they died.

OKay so I have a 120g planted tank. It's been up and running for a 1-1.5 years. I have an fx5 filter and 2 aquatic life fixtures with a total of 220w. The tank has a few swords a lot of crypts and a couple anubias and java ferns. At one point 2 of my swords were about 18" tall and very thick. For fish stock I have: about 50 cardinals 6 petricolas 4 upside down catfish 4 bumblebee catfish 2 electric blue rams 1 german blue ram 1 blue panaque pleco So I dose with a ppmd formula, 1part kno3, 1 part k2s04, 1 part MaSo and 1 part CSM+B. I mixed it according to the directions and dose 5ml a day. I also dose 5ml a day of glutareldahyde. I do %50 water changes every week. In the middle of November I went on a 2 week vacation and had nobody watch the tank. when I came back it was covered in cyano. Since then I have been trying everything to get rid of it. My lights are on a 6 hr schedule and and gravel vac as much of the cyano out as I can every week. All my plants are growing fine. I've done the blackout which works great but slowly every week the cyano spreads. I test a lot these days and i'm trying to keep my nitrates around 5-10 and my phosphates around .5-1. That way there is some for the plants but not too much for the algae. I've managed to slow it down but its still spreads. I just can't figure out what ius causing it to keep coming back. Anybody have any ideas or suggestions? I really don't want to have to black the tanked out every month or 2. I'm just not sure what to try and which direction to head in next.

Bigalpets.ca has them. You can probably find them in there store on 32nd ave as well

I think that may suggest that they may have internal parasites. Since it seems like you have had this problem for a bit it would be best to treat the whole tank instead of just scooping out the sick ones for a quarantine tank. Prazi Pro and Metronidazole are 2 treatments that can help and are not supposed to be too hard on the fish. You can treat with both at the same time. Metro can be dosed in food if your fish are still eating. Prazi is dosed in the water. You might want to look into those 2 medications and see what types of problems they can cure and if it sounds like the symptoms you are having. I've heard dosing epsom salt in their food and in there tank can help them pass some of the parasites. Hopefully this helps a bit, I'm no expert and I know how much it sucks to be going through a problem like this. Goodluck!

I agree super awesome fish. I want one of these so bad but my 180 won't be big enough and the wife won't ever okay a 1000g indoor pond, lol. How old is that catfish?

Im no expert but the big one looks like a common pleco, which probably means the little one is a common as well.

I thought these fish were fairly expensive. Do you mind if I ask how you came into possession of it without knowing what it is?

I bought 20 of these from petland because they were a $1.50 each, but they were tiny. I acclimated them properly and had good water conditions. They went in a heavily planted 120g tank with 25-35 other fish. Every couple days I would lose one, I am down to 3 which are doing great now. But im chalking the loses up to weak fish as well because all of my other fish were fine.

I would leave them in, if they survived to that size in there they should be fine

Hey Everyone! Thought I would share some pics of the tank I have been setting up for the last month. It is 120g tank located in my office near the front door so it is viewable from all 4 sides. It is very heavily planted. It is currently stocked with: 6 Syndontis Petricola 6 Upside Down Catfish 4 Bumble Bee Catfish 2 German Blue Rams 6 Blue Neon Gobies 6 Black Neon Tetras 3 Neon Tetras 1 Blue Tetra 2 Mollies 1 Platy I scored the tank and some of the equipment off a member from these forums and I also got a bunch of plants from another member on here. So thanks to you guys, you know who you are!!! Front Left Back Some Fish Syndontis Petricola Upside Down Catfish Male German Blue Ram Female German Blue Ram Blue Neon Goby Any comments or input would be greatly appreciated! Thanks for checking it out.

Not sure if they are compatible with your piranha but I've always used catfish to cleanup the snails. Currently I have 6 petricolas and 6 upside down catfish in my 120g planted tank. They do a really good job of eating the snails. Or I've heard copper treatments kill them quickly

I just recently had an outbreak of ich in my 120g tank. I have a bunch of pants and 12 catfish in the tank. There are about 30 fish in total. About 10-15 of the fish started getting the ich spots. The catfish are extremely sensitive to salt so that option was out. I used the Heat Only method. All I did was turn the temp up to 90-92 degrees and left it there for 10days. The ich has completely disappeared and I didn't lose a single fish. If your fish aren't sensitive to salt you could turn the temp up to 86 and add some salt. The heat speeds up the cycle and the salt kills the ich. I read that ich's life cycle is sped up by heat. At 86 degrees the parasite is not able to reproduce and at 89 degrees the heat effective kills the ich. So if you keep your tank under 86 you are just speeding up the life cycle of the ich making it even worse. I suggest you crank the heat up to 90, my fish all handled the increase in temp just fine. I find the natural way much better then using meds and much safe for the fish. It'll take a few days for the spots to fall off. Once they do make sure you keep the temp up for another week to make sure you kill all the ich. As for your raphaels I know scaleless fish can't handle meds or salt very well. The Raphael must be in that category. Just treat it like a catfish and don't use salt or meds. Its the safest route.

I am only going to be adding one more, the albino red tiger I was talking about. I take extra precaution in not overfeeding them to keep the tank cleaner. Not so messy at feeding time and not as much poop in the tank. I've had the oscars for 3 years, I know when they are being overfeed and when they are hungry. Also I may be wrong but I thought 2 FX5's each rated for 400g, on a 200g tank was overkill for the filtration. They are very cool, but I dont see it doing to well in my tank. All the other fish can hold there own, I don't know if a clown knife could or would.

that sounds very plausible didnt think about that. unfortunately I already bought the albino, so we will just have to see how it goes. If it dont work I have a buddy with a big tank that has room for another oscar.

well i decided to get an albino tiger oscar. It is way to small for the 200g right now so I will have to grow it out a bit in my 33g. Now with the current stocking list plus another oscar am i fully stocked?

well, I have 4 inches of sand in the tank but I am not a big fan of eels, thanks for the suggestion tho

those are nice fish! I would definately consider something like that, unfortunately you live in red deer

lol you guys are funny. Anyways i lowered the tank down to a 1/4 then siliconed in the piece and clamped it. The piece was 7" wide. I did this on tuesday morning which was the 6th. I then filled the tank back up to 1/2 so that my filter could keep running. I just took the clamp off this morning but plan to keep the water at half until tuesday giving it a full week to cure. On tuesday I will fill the tank about 90% and will wait another week to fill it completely full. Other then the condensation on the glass, which hasnt started until today when i put the lid on, there will be no water touching the silicone. So other then a hinge which i will pick up in then next couple days my conversion from plastic lid to glass tops is complete. Thanks for the help everyone!!

the aggression in the tank is minimal. They chase each other around now and then and have there little uh showdowns i guess. You know the face to face backin each other down. But like i said there is never any injuries and all the fish seem to be happy, all showing great color. I'm assuming they all do well together because they are all aggressive so they respect each other. The jewel fish seems to be doing just fine, he has his little squables, but is pretty much left alone. I seem to have a very good balance right now, because alot of people tell me this is not a good mix of fish, but it seems to be working just fine. I'm thinking I will need a fish that is semi-aggressive because if they are not they will probably get picked on. Nobody gets picked on right now because they stand up for themselves. It seems once a fish stands up for itself the other fish respect and dont bother it too much. i was thinking along the lines of maybe a jag or a texas cichlid or something of that nature, something that is similar to the fish that I already have. So im assuming you guys think that the stocking level is fine and there is room for another fish? I've also considered getting an albino oscar but would that be pushing it?

Hey i was just wondering if I could get some comments on the stocking of my tank. I was wondering if I would be able to fit another fish or 2 in there or if the current stocking levels are good. I have a 200g tank running 2 Fluval fx5 filters. I currently change between 30-50% of the water evey week. Right now in the tank I have 2- 12" tiger oscars 1- 4-5" jack dempsey 1- 4" green terror 1- 4" jewel cichlid 1 - 5" convict 3 - 3" upside down catfish 2 - 3" synodontis petricola I have a rock pile in the tank that has lots of hiding spots for the smaller fish. My catfish pretty much stay in the rocks and I have had them in there for almost a year and all the other fish leave them alone. All the fish get along right now and there are no major fights. Just minor skirmishes which I consider playing because there are never any injuries. My oscars are very good tempered. I put the gt in there when he was 2 maybe 3 inches and they never even bothered him. They dont seem to mind smaller fish at all, they just keep to themselves. I was wondering if I would be able to put in another 1 or 2 SA cichlids, because the tank looks awful empty at times. Something similar to what i have in there maybe like a jaguar or something like that. But I know all these fish are not full grown yet and I dont want any problems when they are. Please let me know your thoughts or suggestions. thanx

okay thats what I was going to do. The piece will be 6"-8" wide depending on the size my buddy has left. Now it should be okay to fill the tank back to 3/4 after the piece is siliconed in, but while the clamps are still on, Because the clamps should hold the glass in place without it bowing right?!

Okay so I have an 80g tank that has one of those plastic lids. I have decided to add in some supports so I can use glass tops. Now I just noticed that the middle of the tank is 3/8" longer then the sides. This would mean that the glass is bowing approximately 3/16" on each side. I read somewhere that it was okay for glass to bow half the width of the glass thickness. The glass on this tank is 3/8" which would make acceptable bowing 3/16", which I'm at. Anyway the question I have is when I brace the tank should I cut the center brace the same size as the ends and just clamp the glass into the brace so its all the same width? This is the way the make more sense to me. Or should I cut the brace the size of the bow and not push the glass in? This would hold the glass from bowing further. The first way seems better to me but I just wanted to make sure that pushing it in would not affect the integrity of the glass or something.

opening windows will not help the situation. The problem is cold air is brought in from the outside house and cold air doesnt hold much moisture. The air is then heated inside the house. Warm air can hold significantly more moisture then cold air, so it starts sucking the moisture out of the tanks. I would bet that you didnt notice a problem during the summer and that is because the air coming into your house is already warm and is holding moisture and cant take in much more so not too much water is evaporated from the tanks. The best thing to do IMO would be to put a dehumidifier in the fish tank room. As far as the bathroom goes as long as you leave the door closed and run the fan for at least 20min after you shouldn't have a problem there. I have the same problem with the moisture and it shows on windows on the main floor and up stairs as well, even though I dont have any tanks upstairs.

well I changed 75% of the water and the next day it was gone. Thanx for the help