firestorm

I service aquariums for a living and I make better money than any other job I have ever had. And no I am not a high school drop out either. I had my kids quite young and had to make sacrifices, so not all people who do it for a living are idiots. I do it because I enjoy it, heck I get to travel around all day rather than sitting at a desk in front of a computer screen, or hearing people complain about this and that. At least fish don't talk back lol. My boss has a great business going with it, enough to hire 2 employees and have free time for him to do the little details of it all. Mind you he does have over 100 clients, but he does make a living from it. You don't have to be rich to be happy, as long as you enjoy what you do and you earn enough to live off that should be a good enough reason My boss charges clients differently. For marine it costs more because we service them every week, but freshwater we only do every 2 weeks. All of it includes food and any extras except fish. If a client wants more fish we will supply them but the client does have to pay for them. Imagine a client getting marine fish for free, that would be a huge expense that not even servicing charges would cover. I don't think his rates are quite that high though. Some clients pay for every visit and some every month. The ones that pay for every visit can lose out in the long run if we have to go there for any emergency calls or anything because they then are expected to pay for us going there. You have to realize that if the guy that services that tank has people working for him as well, he also has to pay those workers for doing the work, plus additional expenses like an accountant or book keeper, and he pays separately each month for our mileage. I can understand why they are frusterated with forking out that kind of money every month, but they are the ones who decided to have someone else come in to clean it rather than doing it themselves.

Well it has been just over 4 weeks now, no signs of any plants, and I ordered 3 different ones from them. I am a little irritated as I am not paying for something that's dead. It took only 2 weeks to get my nano diffusers from them, so I don't know why it's taking all the plants so long.

Just wondering how long plants can go in shipping before they start to die off? I have been waiting 3 weeks for some plants coming from malaysia, and since they never arrived today if they are in shipment they probably won't be here until next week sometime. I just don't want to have them arriving dead. I know they can go a couple of weeks, but don't know how much longer than that. Anyone who has done this before and knows, let me know, thanks

I don't think the peroxide reacts the same way as excel does. You should be safe to dose them with the peroxide. That reminds me, I should squirt some on the wallichii

All LFS's will have bad stock from time to time, alot of it has to do with their suppliers. My fav store I always get healthy fish from just got some discus in a couple weeks ago, he was expecting to sell them within a few days cause they all appeared healthy, but a few days later they were showing symptoms of being sick, so I have been waiting almost 2 weeks to get them so he can treat them and make sure they are healthy again. Problem is most stores don't QT their new stock first.

I will have to look that up Felix sounds like a pretty good name for him though.

I put small angels in with my larger ones before. Afterall there is only 1 large one and 4 of them, so if there is any aggression there are more of them to be picked on which will help spread out the aggression. I think they should be fine as long as you have places for them to retreat and hide if they need to. Try feeding the other fish first then put the new angels in right after feeding, it usually makes them less aggressive.

Peroxide can be used to get rid of it, though only use small amounts. Hydrogen peroxide can decrease your pH being it's acidic, so using too much can harm your fish. When I use it I only squirt some on the bad parts, or you can do a dip with part water and part peroxide with your plants, it has less chance of melting them than excel.

Gold's magnets cleaners are probably the cheapest. I always use the magnet cleaner first then for hard spot algae I break out the scrubbies or razor blades It's easier on the arms.

Sometimes fish will bump up against objects or shimmy if they have flukes. My best guess is that there was something wrong with them to begin with. Which is why the mollies were picking on the one angel, normally they could live in harmony. Illness is usually why fish will pick on another fish. I have 7 angels and none of them show any signs of things like that, and they have rainbows as tankmates which can be alot more nippy than rainbows. Do you mind me asking where you bought the angels from?

What about other words like mbuna or caeruleus and stuff like that? I think that is one word many people get wrong, but they don't list it of course. Thanks for the link though, a couple of them I was pronouncing a bit off.

A couple of days ago, I bought a plant from Gold's. I ended up leaving it in the bag overnight because I wasn't sure yet where to put it. Yesterday I made some room for it, took the plant out, then dumped the remaining water down the bathroom sink. About 20 minutes later I heard my daughter say, mommy why is there a frog in the sink? I didn't believe her at first but when I went and looked, sure enough there was a little dwarf aquatic frog sitting in my sink looking a little dried out. When I touched him he moved so I knew he was still alive, so I picked him up and tossed him into my 33 planted tank. He perked up within a few minutes swimming all around the tank. I think I will name him lucky, because he almost got flushed down the sink This is a reminder, when buying plants, make sure you look in the bag before pouring the water out or throwing it away lol.

I would try removing him for good. They can be kept in fairly small tanks, so he shouldn't take up too much room anywhere. I found most of the time male bettas don't make good community fish, unless it has just been my bad luck. Then you won't have to worry about him not getting enough food

If my petricolas don't go in eating all the eggs or babies then I should get some lol. The calvus are definitely not as protective as the juli's, and the petricolas seem to be very brave. I wish I could see what's going on in there, but the nice little cave they took a liking to is impossible to see in from any angle, and it's too dark. This is their first spawn so it might not be entirely successful. I am sure glad I removed the other guys though Thanks Chris, I hope I can get some babies from them. It seems the only fish I have ever had success getting babies from are my mbuna, red jewels or convicts lol.

Thanks Anne marie, I kinda thought they might only be a wholesaler. At least I know where they are located now :P although it doesn't matter if I do or don't lol. All I know is when we drove past I knew I had heard the name before but wasn't sure what type of business they did.

Most frozen foods will pollute the water more quickly than dried foods, but overfeeding definitely contirbutes to nitrates being high. If feeding 2x a day maybe decrease the amount of food just a bit then try testing and see if it makes a difference. I know it can be hard to judge how much food to feed, especially when trying to make sure everyone gets something.

Is the tank in a high traffic area? Could be why they would smash into something that hard. Although I had a clients silver dollar knock himself out and still survive, and he really smashed the glass hard. What were the mollies doing, nipping at him? Angels should be compatible with mollies, maybe he was sick and that's why they were picking on him. I don't see how an angel can kill themselves by hitting a piece of wood though, I think there might be more to it than we suspect.

Can't wait to see pics on the other 2. Let him know he has created a beautiful tank

Today we drove by the Aquatic imports place in Calgary here, I was just wondering what type of business they are? Do they have an actual store or are they a wholesaler and distributor? Thanks

Hmm, in that case I think I might have a nice plant I can use Ponds eh, when I move into my new place next spring I really want to start one up......although my boss already knows enough about this stuff, but it would be interesting to know some stuff myself.

If you use a metal razorblade properly, it won't scratch your glass. Of course if you have an acrylic tank you have to be much more careful and I would suggest using a plastic one instead. Why buy them at the LFS when you can probably get them from superstore or canadian tire or other places for cheaper. Or depending on the type of fish you keep, the only snail I know of that will eat this algae is a zebra snail, and the rubber lip pleco is also supposed to eat it.

White calvus......thanks guys I will try and post some pics this weekend

If only, not gonna happen in a million years lol. I am too impatient to wait and set up a tank like that. He did a great job

Haha, sorry for laughing, but I probably would forget about my lights too because they are on a timer. Stacey is right though, the antibacterial's will also kill all the bacteria in the filter, so it is best to use as a last resort. I guess if your tank it well planted enough you don't have to worry about that so much, or if wanting to go the med way you will want to keep a seeded sponge in another filter on another tank if you can, then swap them out once the treatment is done and you have carbon in the filter. Good luck, keep us posted

If you have a concrete floor you wouldn't have to worry about these issues, so I am only assuming you have a wood floor. My best suggestion is to use a stand that runs all along the ground at the base, not one that only has 4 legs, and put it against a load bearing wall. If the tank is a 6'er, it should at least run across 4-5 joists, of course you also want to place the tank perpendicular to the joists. I know this because I also live in a main floor sweet in a bilevel house, and I was putting 2 90's side by side and needed to know if it was safe. I think you should be fine