Ted

+1 for ugly fish. Be interesting to find out what the other farlowella is. Hope you can get a decent pic Theresa

Awww. this just warms my heart when I think of what you rescued them from and now they are happy and healthy and have spawned. Could have easily gone the other way.

OMG. $24.99 or $29.99 (can't remember which) here in Edmonton. I was looking at some today that were about 2 1/2 inches long.

A good place to look is the Angelfish Forum at http://www.angelfish.net/VBulletin/index.php and look in the gallery.

You can also add a product called Stability (I think that is the one that John is thinking of) or get a big filter squeeeze from an active tank to get a boost in the beneficial bacteria in your tank. PM me if you want some from my tank. Theresa

another option might be a hang-on or in-tank breeder box. I recently picked up a large size Marina one that has a built-in bubbler to provide flow so it can be filtered by the main tank. This gives you something you may use again for fry while you may not use the tank divider again.

I use the tetra vacation gel packs. They have ones that are smaller that are supposed to be for a weekend (I just use them for my smalller tanks) and ones that are larger that are supposed to be for 2 weeks. They contain flake food in a gelatin base and look like canned cat food. I have used them for periods of up to 2 1/2 weeks for 3 years now. We have 23 tanks and we have only had 1 casualty (a female swordtail that looked like she ate herself to death!). They are stable in the water and can be removed when you get home if there is anything left. I think that having someone look in is still better because of the potential for power failures, etc. just to check on your tanks. I have also done the baggie bit. The small craft bags work great. I laberlled each tank with a number and put the corresponding number on the bag. I also made a legend of what was in each tank including filter info so if there was a problem, the fishsitter could explain to the contact person. Can you put some small feeder fish or other live food in with your Axolotls so that he can hunt for himself if he needs to? Theresa

Thank you to everyone who worked so hard to make this a success. Had a great 3 days and even saw a few people we hadn't talked to in a while. Loved the talks - great speakers who brought their passion to the room. Bought what I set out to get this weekend (corys & plants) and even ended up with an unexpected saltie (clownfish)! Thanks again Theresa and Ted

No and thanks. I will look at the rest. This had been running for about 5 years. Theresa

Second time in 6 months! Came home last night to put my new shrimp from Jason in a tank and, spur of the moment, decided to feed the 90 gallon while they were acclimatizing. Trailed my fingers in the water (which I never do) and found that the water was really really warm. Turned down the heater and ran and got a thermometer. The water, heater set at 74, was over 94 degrees and rising. The heater had still been on. Unplugged the heater and everyone seems to be OK so far. Lost an entire tank of clown loaches due to the same thing last fall except that when we came home everyone was dead. The heater is an Eheim Jager 3608090 250 watt model. The last one was the same brand but only 100 watts. I guess I will slowly be replacing these in all our tanks. Theresa

I have some black bottle brush algae on some of my plants in my shrimp tank. I have been reading that I can use a syrnge of H2O2 aimed right at the bottle brush algae while the shrimp and fish are in the tank. Anyone try this? Thanks Theresa

Same thing happened to me. The tank sat empty for about 6 months. I took everything out and washed the gravel and scrubbed the rocks with fully chlorinated water. Washed the walls of the tank down with a salt rub just to remove the grunge. Rinsed and dumped several times. Threw out the bio media in the filter. Soaked my plants for 2 days in chlorinated water on web advice but they all melted, just started to come back from the rhizomes (wouldn't do that again). Ran the tank for a week with chlorinated water then dumped again and put in primed water and a filter squeeze. Tank has been running for a month now with guppies before I put in the expensive fish. All seems well. Funny thing is that the guppies were just to test the tank but I have found I really like them. Theresa

We just squeeze the sponge, generally the most mucky one we have, into the new tank water and then trade the bio balls. Take the bag of the new rinsed ones and put them in the old filter and add the pre-cycled ones to the new filter and sponge. We've added a small fish load the same day ( on 20+ tanks) and had no ill results. The more tanks you have the easier this becomes as you have more bacteria to add to the mix.

Unless the thermometer was silver, it is tinted alcohol, not mercury. It wouldn't hurt to do a vacuum of the substrate to pick up any of the little metal bb's used to weight the thermometer. I have had the same thing happen and no causalties among my livestock.

Good sources of info are canreef and reefcentral. You might want to post there as well.