Ishkabod

My jewels just had babies and i used the turkey baster to try and save as many as i could by putting them into a in tank baby net. The next day the ones i managed to suck up were dead. Personally i'm not sure what went wrong but i suspect that since there were sooooo many babies this time that the mom had to spit sooner so they were smaller and allot more delicate so the trauma from the baster killed them. If you can I'd personally not fool around with removal but try and find a way to separate the jewels from the other fish within the main tank I was thinking a divider or piece of glass or plexiglass with small spaces around the edges too small for any fish to pass through. My jewels are growing rapidly without me feeding them anything. I've noticed the parents will eat their fill and take the last bit chew it then spit it out and the babies swarm the food. With lots of cover and a very large tank i'm sure that some will naturally survive without any fuss. Hope this might help Good luck L

Any idea about which 3 months in the year Uruguay has the cold season? There is a store that sells mini a/c's that do a good job cooling a 5' by 5' area, or possibly I could build my own. Also any word on if anyone has successfully bred these apart from some egg photos? or what might excite breeding? Here is a Uruguay Weather site Weather site for Uruguay Here is the link found on that page to the local seasonal weather trends Seasonal weather averages Hope this might help you and I was thinking about doing cold air for my koi this winter and thought maybe an air pump in the fridge or a battery powerd one outside or near a draft/cold window/Fridge or freezer. I'd add a heater to make sure the temp doesn't drow too low though on your tropical fish as my koi are used to frozen ponds. Good luck and they are some beautyfull fish. Lisa

Or buy from someone how has baby guppies they don't want anymore like me.

Now to the original question Personally i bought some very pretty fancy tail male guppies with the really big tails. The guy at the store sold them to me and saild they were from a local breeder. They only lasted about a month and within a week both were dead. The really odd thing is i had fry in the tank that were days old so any water quality issues should have affected them first but no such luck. I desided after the last one died to let my water quality deteriorate a bit and see what happens. Nothing not a single fish died. Personally i think the guppies were overbread for their colour and patterns and the other guppies i had didn't die because the parents were from two completely different types of guppies so more diversity. The other reason is you could be buying fish that are allready fairly old and are near the end of their lifespan which is fairly short. Basicly DON'T buy the biggest female you see. Good luck and answer the water questions and you can probably find your answer therer. Um another thing that occurred to me is Are you adjusting your PH. If you are then the difference in the PH values of the place you bought them and the tank water you put them in could be causing the problem. I have 3 more questions How long do they last Do you have a bacteria filled filter aka very slimy goodness and how long have you been keeping fish(how much have you researched/learned) so that any advice doesn't go over or under your head I hope this might help. good luck i'm sure we can figure it out. L P.S. some guppies grew up with salt and some didn't so jukst like pleccos some need salt and others will die with too much salt. Either way a very gradual change from fresh to salt and vise versa is recommended

I'd QT and medicate. Use melafix for the wound after the fungus is gone. It could be a bacteria. I don't know if it'll work here but salt fixed the white fuzz i had on my beta fish. To avoid aggravating the wound if you are transfering to a QT tank heard the cory into a small contaner and then remove it in the container to the QTT. Good luck and i hope they get better soon Lisa

What about air for the fish. I really want to seal the tank off but my guppies don't even like it when there is some movement on the surface and no bubbles. I turned off the bubbles on my 30 gal but i just noticed the bigger plecco is shooting up to the top and grabbing a bubble of air every so often. Should i actually increase the filter airation?? Would a canopy built with an air space and the air circulation coming from there do the trick?? How much air flow might i be able to cut off without smothering the fish?? what is the littlest amount of air someone has given the tank so that i might be able to restrict the evaporation as much as possible. Thanks for all the suggestions so far. Lisa.

I have One Koi tank 40 gal-no heat or bubbles covered Guppy Tank 15 gal -Aqua giant 5 dollar sponge in tank filter with bubbles and Canopy One 15 Gal Mr Blue's tank- Heated and same filter as above 30 Gal Cichlid tank heated with a full covered and And the same type of bubble filter as above Thanks Lisa

The initial problem could be that you are useing those inaccurate sometimes faulty test strips and or that you haven't vaccumed the gravel. You can do as many water changes as you like but until you remove a major source of the NitrAtes and Ites then you will continue to have this problem. Check your filter and if there is allot of extra waste then that needs to be removed DO NOT REMOVE BACTERA only gunk on the surface. You can use Prime To help Detoxify some of the NitrAtes and iTes for the time being. The bottle says that 5 times the recommended doseage is safe in an emergency. Good luck Lisa Good luck Lisa

Here us a like i just read through that details a good method for treating ICH with salt. Good luck L Salt treatment used on Plecco's

I found this in a post on another site It might help clear the salt question up Here's the post Common Plecs (the correct Latin name is Liposarcus multiradiatus for 90% of the Plecs sold in the country, by the way) originate from the Amazon basin, where water is soft and salt-free, so the addition of salt will be a stress factor, especially if it is kept in a coldwater environment. However, they are usually very robust, and will adapt very quickly to the different water conditions, as long as this is a short term change or is a very gradual change. I wouldn't be too worried unless you begin to see a lot more algae in the tank than usual, or spot that the Plec's belly is getting hollow, which indicates that the addition of salt has stressed the fish enough to affect its appetite. Cheers, Marc Here is the link to the page the post was on. Link I hope this might help

I forgot to mention that with the increase in temp you need to be sure to add an air pump if you don't already have one because the increase in temp decreases the amount of dissolved O2 in the water and that'll just compound the problem. Hope this helps Lisa

I know for a fact that pleccos are sensitive to salt and if the plecco seems fine then maybe remove it to an isolation tank. Also i've noticed that the recommended amound of salt to treat ich will kill plants. For treating my Koi I gradually raised the water temp to 85 while i over a 24hr period dosed the tank with 1tbsp of salt per gallon in 3 separate doses. Keep in mind that thos was for a tank with only Koi in it and Koi are very tolerant to salt. I don't know if tetras are but i know plecco's aren't. Even the recommended dose on the salt container for freshwater fish on an everyday basis will kill them. Good luck L

The only thing i can conceive might work is by calling one of the windsheild chip repair places. That might work but it might not. Don't know enough about it to be able to tell you for sure. Good luck Lisa

From what i understood The buffer should increase the KH of the water. There are two types of Hardness KH and GH KH is Carbonate Hardness GH is General Harndess Here's a link that should help with muddleing through the GH KH PH Relationship. Water Chestry Basics of GH KH and PH Also Seachem=good research=usually the best to buy I'm not a discus keeper but i did my research. Hours and hours of no joke fun intersting research on fishkeeping and any related topics including water chemistry. Discus are intersting but PH alteration was too daunting a task for me right now so good luck. I would also test for NitrAtes which is the final product from the Nitrogen Cycle and takes a long long time to develop the bacteria for and the NitrAtes do seem to build quickly. I'm pretty sure it's an Acid so that might be a possible cause. Get a freshwater mater test kit and a GH and KH test if you plan to keep discus and you sholuld be able to quickly diagnose the problem yourself rather than a guessing game. I'm sure you'll figure it out. hope i helped Lisa

It was my understanding that prime changes(binds) the ammonia so that the bacteria can still remove it but it won't hurt the fish. Am I mistaken?? If not then there is no reason to worry about how much prime you do use and with the right dose of prime for every bit of added ammonia you could conceivably safely add fish before the cycle is complete because Prime does the same thing to nitrItes and Ates. Hmmm FIshless cycle with fish anyone??? cost money but it must be faster than useing cycle or any other product by itself. you would really only need to monitor the levils and dose prime for the added ammonia and some for the extra the fish make. Okay my brainwave has lost power but i hope this idea has merit. Good Luck L

I think the reason everyone yuses the same thing is that no one has found anything better and or cheeper. I've seen the cost of buffers and from what i've seen i'd have been out of my mind to even consider Africans if I had to buffer anything. All i do for buffering is some dead rock and or some crushed coral and that lasts forever in our water. Prime is cheep and very easy to use. If you compare prices ml to ml its more expensive BUT it's the opposite when you compare how many gallons 1 ml will treat. 500ml treats 5 000 gallons of water and in case of a spike of any kind then it's safe to dose five times the recommended amount. Personally I haven't found something i like more and i've looked and looked before i settled on prine but i'll continue to look for something that might be better but i haven't found it yet. Hope this helps Lisa

I'm no expert but to me it seems like you are pushing your luck with 2 90 gals in one room load bearing wall or not. Check to see what kind of joists you have and maybe if possible give the sizes of the wood supporting your home. For example 2 by 8 joists with the floor covering being OSB and 2 by 2 joist cross bar thingies Good luck L

My electric yellows didn't survive the latest tank disaster. The tank sprung another leak and they didn't make it in the bucket with the filter till i got the new tank filled. They made it fine the last time but i think this was one too many times in too short a period. :cry: :cry: :cry: :bang1: :bang1:

I just checked out a product from Nutrifin with something called NITRABAN Basicly it works by creating Nitrate and Ite eating bacteria In the Gravel or sand. Like any bacteria creating process it takes time but after a while no more WC for six months. Can't use it on my cichlid tanks because it's also a PH regulator product that will bring my PH to 7. Maybe try it and see how it goes. Budget stopped me from trying it out myself but I sugget you go for it and let us know how it goes. Hope this helps Good luck L

I have 2 sets of 3 Electric yellows from different sources so I don't know which is male or female or Brother or Sister but the colouring on all of them is great and i'm pretty suure one set is F3 and the other i Know is F2 so i'm not worried right now but i'll be sure the babies go to a good home and not back in my tank to breed with theirs Parents and aunt and uncles. Don't worry so much right now.

I have common pleccos in with my electric yellows and in with Mr. Blue No problems so far but they really like to hide behind my in tank filter. It could be that some africans aren't raised with plecco's in their tank and see them as competition when newly introduced to them. It could also be a factor of size. Anyway try some common pleccos and go from there. Good luck

Thanks for the info It's very usefull L

Any Duckweed?? I NEED A WEED to help nitrates plus nothing else will grow in my main tanks. (till i can afford a new light) and i love plants in my tanks. See you all tomorrow Lisa

Thanks for the advice everyone. someone told me once not to move holding mothers as they will spit the fry out early I guess i was misinformed. Anyway thanks again now if only my 30 gal tank hadn't cracked i could quarantine the new fish and have a baby tank. Any tips on water changes in a baby tank so i don't remove the babies?? Thanks L

If you want a lesson in cutting glass Aqua Giant will cut it for you on the spot to your specs. Basicly you score a large scratch on the glass with the glass cutter and then tap along that line to produce fractures. If the glass is very thick then score both sides. OR GOOGLE how to? Glass isn't like stone that needs a special saw to cut or else there would be no stained glass as they would never have been able to make it without that technology. Easy and Cheep Good luck L