Ishkabod

I got a really pretty Mint Green coloured rock there along with some slate and i think it cost me about 3 dollars or so. Also Sil Industries just off Yellowhead is an option for your ray sand. I'm nearly positive they have quartz sand but you best call them first. It's 20 bucks for a 100 pound bag. Good luck L

For those of you who use Garden hoses for water changes Be warned many newish PVC Garden Hoses use Lead to Stablilize the plastic. It can and Will leach into water left in the hose between uses. This information came from Bill Nye`s new show Stuff Happens. They reccomend using the hose to water plants for a few minutes before filling a childs pool with water and i think that advice should be followed with garden hoses for water changes too so as to reduce the lead your fish are exposed to. Just thought some of you ought to know so you can take precautions. L

Ah darn sorry bout that. It was 3 hours past bedtime and i really should learn not to post at that time. Thank you for the information Harold it gives everyone a better idea as to what fish food to buy and they don't have to rely solely on the word of someone else or take anyones advice. Neil is always helpful and has earned my respect. He does promote NLS over any other dry fish food but rightly so and i doubt it's only because he's the distributor. Now it's three hours before i should have woken up without the alarm clock and i need to get going so have a great day everyone L

I didn't see any there the last time i was there but I KNOW they carry a wide variety of them at Big Als Good luck L

:welcome: Is that pretty Arowana in your pic Yours?? L I have an arowana and a few clown loaches.

This'll probably get moved to the Breeding section of the Forum but to answer your question a Sponge filter that you would attatch a air pump to, or a BIG chunk of fine enough foam that the fishies won't get through overtop of the intake of any normal filter. My Eheim would suck them up but they'd just end up stuck in the bottome of the cannister so not too much of a worry there. Good luck and :welcome: L p.s. you might need more then one depending on the size of the tank.

Neil You really really know your fish food and thank you for watching out and correcting false info. I learned a little bit more today allthough it's useless to me right now with the type of fish i have but all in all Good info. For everyone else i'm sure NLS is good. I can't get my cichlids to touch anything else. A floating pellet would be welcome in all sizes to help keep the bottom clean in those rocky tanks and allow removal of excess for those who can't help but overfeed. Neil isn't the first person i've heard the NO beefheart/red meat thing from. I forget wherelse i read/heard it from but I remember it was somewhere reliable. oubt even oportunistic pirahnahs(sp?) are immune to the deadly affects and if they aren't well then better safe than sorry Personally I didn't take Neils word on the benifits of NLS and until i see Bloat in my Cichlids I won't believe it's worse than Hikari or Omega One as both of them have caused bloat in fish i've seen. Now Ask Spencer Jack if his fish are on Xtreme and if he has had any reports of bloat or had any bloat in his fish when feeding them Xtreme and we might just have our answer. Not to mention the video on their site is allot more impressive than a little bit of bragging that their ingredients are the best of the best of the alaskan fishery. Give me more proof that it's better not just your word is what I ask for and NLS is the only one who has delivered. Okay well that ends that bit of OFF TOPIC STUFF and here is a bit of advice why not try what Fairdeal did with his Rays. He's an expert in my opinion. And that was one of the best bits of advice so far. Now as to CHEAP alternatives. Well... Umm??........ Zucchini???????????? And one last thing I think we can safely say NO BEEFHEART. Now everyone on this topic seems to be trying to help. Please keep that in mind. L Please i reallly don't mean to offend anyone EVER.

I have a couple of ice cream pails with lids that i would use to haul long distance. The other thing is to get Bag buddies or a dose of prime in the water to help deal with the ammonia during transport. L

I have to say that maybe the person who ordered them in didn't really realize what they were getting. That or they didn't care and someone had asked for one. Either way i think this fish is best left to specialty orders. Unless the owner has connections and buyers for the fish it would be unprofitable to even pay the shipping to get one in. Thanks again for the referene to the the inexpensive store. L

Yup that's right and from personal experience your best bet is to get a small group of each one you want a male of then when the male shows himself then you can place him in the 30 gallon. this will also provide you with a hospital tank to Quarentine fish before you add them to the tank. I don't know anything about Biowheels and don't know of anyone on here that has them. If the Biowheel is rated to 30 gallons then you might want to add another filter. There are a couple of other considerations. and i HIGHLY reccomend you read the articles i'll post a link to below for you. There is much more aggression in fosh when you have males that are roughly the same colour. The last two things i must add is get a robust plecco that won't grow too too big (4inches) and it'll take care of the glass cleaning for you, and if you wanted a planted tank then forget africans as they will dig them up. Hope this might help L P.S. Get some crushed coral to add to the tank to help buffer the PH. You also might luck out and find someone selling the fish you want in the buy sell section or at the auction. Setup Begginner fish Cookie cutter setups Reference Library

Wow what a big fish. Thanks for the tip on the cheap store. I think the owner would serve his customers best if he posted this picture right next to the tank they are going in. I wonder if they would survive the winters here in a outdoor pond. Thanks L

It was most likely the move that stirred up the water in the gravel and mixed it so that you had a great big PH Jump along with GH an KH so maybe a water change or two would allow things to settle down a bit and things should go back to the way they were. It shouldn't hurt to wait if you wanted to before you change your substrate. Good luck l

One capful (5ml) of Prime is good for each 200L (50 gal) of new water. It also states on the bottle that when adding directly to the tank you must dose according to the size of the tank. So for a 33 gallon tank i'd do 1 capfull and for 135gallon tank i'd do three. That little extra added can't hurt anything but the pocket book but i'd rather add a little extra than a little less. Good luck L

If at all possible Quarentine her first so it doesn't spread to the other fish. Also whenever a fish gets sick you always want to check to see if there is anything that is causing stress in the tank, DOUBLE check the heat (2different thermometers) the water parameters and fish aggression. Good luck L

I'm guessing he is like me with fish and can never have enough :thumbs: i wish i had even a slight clue but the most i can distinguish with most likely some confusion with similar species is Java Moss, Hornwart, vals(no distiction), and maybe some Anubius and java fern but not too to sure on the last two. Have fun L

If his whole belly is swolen then it would be bloat I wouldn't remove him unless other fish in the tank are picking on him and in that case you best do it asap(DON'T quote me on that as i'm nowhere near a plant person but i haven't heard about it killing any plant and it didn't kill mine ). Moving causes stress and Epsolm salts shouldn't hurt plants at all so that should be safe to use not to mention that if you have one fish with bloat problems then there is something wrong and the other fish could be susceptible or getting it too. Watch for stringgy white poo. It's the first warning sighn. For doseing Medication it's always a good idea to remove the fish from the main tank otherwise avoid it unless nessasary.(aggression) I hope someone with more experience with that type of fish might have more information for you. Good luck L

A while ago i was visiting Aqua Giant and they had in these beautiful bright deep pink nyassaie(sp?) and over the period of a month or so the colour on them (males and females) started to fade. The employee told me they had used hormones(came from asia) and that the fadeing is normal as they are still juvies but the colour would come back when they grew to adults. If you experinced the colour fade than maybe hormones are to blame. Anyway when the fish are taken off hormones the colour should fade and you should have seen that but that is not to say that it's a 100% accurate because i'm sure there are different hormones they use and every one is different. Maybe when you go back to that LFS politely inquire as to where they get the severums you bought and you might have your answer. Good luck L

Unless you have the plywood and rubber handy the Dricore sub floor panels and shims are you cheaper option. Not to mention if there are any spills the Dricore will alow air for it to dry out. Just paint the top as they are plywood i believe. i live in a basement too but my only problem is the slope tilts the stands away from the wall. Shims are your best bet though if the floor is just unlevel one way. And i'd also like to know How the High Density Foam will help since i'm thinking of using it on some of my tanks and allready have it in use on my 80 gallon project. Hope this helps L P.S. I'm pretty sure i saw the Drycore sub floor panels at Home Depot for 6-7 dollars each

I don't think the shrimp are reacting to ph changes because they react soo fast. If you can, get a jug of Distilled water Float a jug of it in the tank and then when it's temp is equal to the tanks then add it to the water and see if the shrimp react and the cories too. If the cories don't go to gravel so to say then your best not to worry about the PH and get some Prime to add with water changes from now on. I'm thinking the shrimp will most likely go crazy anyway and not to worry too much. Good luck L P.S. the clocest thing i can compare chlorine and fish to is how Carbon Monoxide affects us. In small amounts it causes headaches and long term causes health issues. In larger amounts headaches become life threatening illness that if you don't get out soon it will kill you. I'm not sure but if Airdre's water supplier is Calgary then the chlorine in the water will dicipate and the Cories recover. If it was Edmonton water then i doubt they'd survive.

A small change in PH could be the cause but i'm more inclined to say it's the lack of water conditioner. The shrimp might be expained by the fact that you are adding fresh water to the tank and shrimp thrive in clean water. Good luck L

Thanks for the info but i'm sure that's not the issue because i just set upt the filter and i cleaned it really really well too. I think it might be an air leak. Thanks again L

I have some. I live in NE edmonton though Let me know if you would like a little baggie from me and we can go from there L

Hornwart. It needs a little light (mine is a very old florecent tube light(25wattmax)) Because they float it takes a fraction of the light to get good growth. It grows in long strings so it's easy to remove withought nets and whatnot. You don't need or probably want ferts for it either. Let the fish have at it because at that amount of light i doubt they will be able to keep up with it's growth. Good luck L

I don't know about having no Nitrates but i know that when i had a tonne of hornwart in my african tank (before the auction) when i went to test the water after 2 weeks(work picked up so i got behind) the nitrates weren't more than ten ppm and that is low for some people even after a water change. I recommend hornwart simply because it's African freindly(or at least my africans usually leave it alone unless i'm gone for a weekend and the snack on one or two little itsy bitsy bits that you couldn't tell unless you saw them do it) It grows rapidly even from a tiny clipping and it's ME proof(i can't kill it) It even survived my salt attack when i had my first and only Ich outbreak. Allthough slightly worse for wear it bounced back and 2 weeks later i needed to remove even more. Good luck L

Thanks for the advice so far. It was full of water when i plugged it in. I even went so far as to make water come out of the spray bar before turning it on. I'll check for leaks but that darn cold medication is kicking in again and i'm sure i'll fall asleep any minute now so i'll check tomorrow. I do have 1 concern and that is i don't have any valves to close off flow so i'm kinda stuck. Tips and tricks and maybe some advice on a cheap diy or where i can get the valves would be appreciated. I think i'll turn off the filter and then place the outtake in a bucket and have the water flow into that for a minute or two. I didn't realize that little tidbit about any leaks so thanks for that. The webpage was helpful too so thanks again. Thanks Any more tips appreciated L