Nyasa

A worthy endeavour.

Best of luck with the breeding.

Welcome to the forum George.

Beautiful fish. You should be proud.

I don't think it's chlorine. 2 caps of Prime for a 90 gallon tank should be more than sufficient to deal with the chlorine. As far as I know Calgary does not treat their water with chloramine. Chlorine only.

What type of substrate do you have? How deep is it?

Blasting sand is great too. Very clean. Light colored and comes in a variety of uniform sizes. I would recommend sil 8. You can buy it at Consolidated Compressor in Calgary.

http://www.consolidatedcompressor.com/abrasives

I think it's a little cheaper than pool filter sand as well. I've used both.

No this has been very helpful. I am now certain that I did use too much Safe. I discovered Cochrane's water is treated here in Cochrane and they are only using 0.9 ppm of chlorine.

I feel comfortable enough in this knowledge to try the Safe again at a much lower dose.

Thanks for your help.

Thanks for the reply RD,

I believe Cochrane now receives some of its water from Calgary. I don't think they have the capacity any longer to meet Cochrane's demands. Either way the water is probably not treated with chloramine. It seems I had a bit of a bump in my ammonia and nitrites that quickly resolved after a second water change two days later. This would lead me to think that maybe I undertreated my tap water and the chlorine knocked out some of my biological filter. How would overdosing with Safe cause a spike in ammonia?

I appreciate your insight and experience with this product. I actually read the rather lengthy thread you contributed to on monsterfishkeepers as well. Great information. I am going to look into how my water in Cochrane is treated more closely. I may be switching back to good old sodium thiosulfate. Can you recommend a quality chlorine test kit?

Hey flyfisher,

Thanks for the advice. I'll only use the Flourish Excel as recommended. The BBA will have to wait until my nitrogen cycle gets back on track.

Hey Neil,

I am curious what your experience with Seachem Safe has been.

I started using a water conditioner years ago as I have more tanks now and having buckets of water around the house dechlorinating is not something my wife approves of. I have been using Prime for many years and have been very happy with this product. However recently considered trying the Seachem product Safe as I have a couple larger tanks and felt this would be more cost effective in the long term.

I tried this product the other night when doing a water change on my 125 gallon tank. I changed about 40-50 gallons of water. With the Prime I would add 0.5 to 0.7 mL for a 5 gallon bucket. With the Safe it is so concentrated I opted to add it directly to the aquarium. I decided to add 1/2 a tsp which should treat 100 gallons of water as I was adding to whole tank volume. I added this prior to adding water.

A couple of days later I notice the water is cloudy and there is a dead fish. I test my water and discover my NH3/NH4+ is 0.25-0.5 ppm. My nitrites are 0.25-0.5 ppm and my nitrates are ~10 ppm. I don't routinely test my nitrogen cycle but haven't had NH3/NH4+ or N02 anytime in the last couple years. The tank was cycled and has been up and running for 5 years.

The confounding factor is that I also decided to treat a black beard algae problem that I have been battling. Just received all these chemicals in a recent mail order. I had read that double dosing with Flourish Excel kills bba.

Now I am not sure if the Seachem Prime treatment or the Flourish Excel caused the spike in ammonia and nitrite. I doubt it was the single dead fish. Did I undertreat with Seachem Prime? Should I have used 3/4 teaspoon? Or did the 25 capfuls of Flourish Excel factor in? I treated a smaller tank with twice the recommend treatment of Flourish Excel post water change using Prime and had no spike in ammonia or nitrites.

I am a little reluctant now to the try the Safe again. I did a 40 gallon water change with Prime after discovering the ammonia and nitrite spike.

Has anyone else had a similar experience using Seachem Safe and/or Flourish Excel?

I like the idea of the frozen bottle of water. Thanks.

Jason, I typically do weekly water changes with my Tanganyikans and have seen no detrimental effects. Although, I've heard smaller more frequent changes are better tolerated and this makes perfect sense.

Which Tanganyikans are more sensitive? My calvus seem the most persnikkety to me.

Thanks for replies.

I decided to go cautious. I did a 40% water change with gradually cooler water. Got it down to 28C.

Jason, I keep mostly Tanganyikans and plecos. What is your experience with temperature change in Tanganyikans?

David.

My house is exceptionally hot today. Lots of south facing windows and no air conditioning. Came home to house temperature of 31C this evening and my tanks were 32C. Fish appear to be fine.

Due for weekly water changes so I figured I would help bring tank temperature down by using cooler water to try and get them down to 26C. How should I best do this? Or will this sudden drop stress them more than the current temperature they are at?

I'm using buckets and watering the plants outdoors with the discard. About to refill now. Should I start with water of ~30 C or use water more like 20C and bring the temperature down quicker? I'm thinking slower gradual changes is better, but I may not get it cool enough. Any thoughts or experience with this would be appreciated.

Thanks, David.

All the hotels in this area look truly sketchy. I drive by them on my way to work each day. The ones up by Canada Olympic Park or down by McMahon Stadium may be your best bet.

Hey there,

I bought a polypterus delhezi a few months ago. I was originally worried that he wasn't getting much to eat as he was hanging out at the top of my tank and rather lethargic. I would float frozen directly in front of him which he would peck at before it sank.

About 3 months later he has grown from 4" to 7" and is getting thicker. He now actively swims around the bottom and feasts on NLS cichlid pellets that get missed by my cichlids. He is a voracious eater and very active. I believe he has eaten many of my julies' fry as well. I am no longer worried. It seems he has hit his growth spurt and hasn't quit...

I keep him in my 120 gallon with my 2 frontosa, 2 cytocara moorii, baenschi peacock, leleupi pair and julies. I filter with a Fluval FX5 and do 40% water change every week. I realize he may soon eat my julies and my leleupi but I am fascinated by this fish.

It sounds to me that your fish is well fed and doing well. Perhaps moving him to a larger tank will boost his growth.

They look like Mpimbwe to me.

I would go for the 1" twenty dollar option too.

I scored a bag of lamprologus caudopunctatus. They were being auctioned shortly after I arrived. Didn't get to preview them but took a chance and bid on them. Very pleased.

Turns out they were brought in by a fellow AA member (Burbot, I think). Thanks.

Good to see you back into it, Kyle. Congratulations on your baby boy.

Blue dolphins (cytocara moorii) can get quite large. You could start out with a group of 4-6 juvies but eventually you will likely only want to keep a pair in a 90 gallon tank. I have a pair in my 5' 120 gallon tank with my frontosa. The male is ~ 7" and the female is about 5". They are beautiful fish.

You could keep them with most Malawi haplochromines that aren't too large or aggressive. They also compliment yellow fish nicely. I keep an Aulonocara baenschi in this tank. Yellow labs (Labidochromis caeruleus) would also go nicely with them.

Beautiful looking tank. Love the aquascaping. Any full tank shots?

Welcome to AA.

I loved your fly fishing pics from Iceland!

Beautiful severums!

Beautiful fish and what a fantastic photo!

I think that you will have better success achieving a specific pH if you add baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) to your water when doing your water changes.

I assume that you have a pH test kit. A little playing around with baking soda and your tap water and you should be able to find a consistent formula to achieve the pH you want.

Beautiful fish, sorry to hear about your loss.