fishface29

Love my CPDs! They are interesting little fish and quite hardy. When they get settled, the males will colour up nicely. I haven't had fry yet from mine, but they display lots of breeding behaviour yet are very peaceful with other tankmates. I have a nice clump of java moss in my tank, which they love zipping around in. Great little fish for a small tank.

Thanks for the info everyone. Jewels, I have a dozen glowlight tetras in the tank right now with the Amecas and they are cool so far, but from the sounds of it, they will start to cause trouble as they grow. I will likely take the tetras out then and put them in one of my other tanks...no problem there. I thought I had 2 females and one male, but it looks like I got 2 males and one female. The second male has female colouration right now, but is smaller than the other 2 so likely just doesn't have its adult colouration yet. It does not have the yellow bar on the edge of the caudal fin, but does have the double lobed anal fin. I'll probably just go back to the store and try to swap it out as they had loads of fish in the display tank. I'm very happy that they are such heavy grazers. My planted tanks generally don't have lots of algae, but I always get some algae growth as the days get warmer and I get some sunlight on the tanks. They seemed to start foraging within minutes of being introduced into the tank. And very cool that you keep them in an outdoor pond in the summer. Is it a big pond and do you have to do anything to keep the water cool in the summer? I'd love to do a pond, but I have a smallish yard and a dog that would love nothing more than to have a pond to jump in! lol

Hi all. Just picked up some Ameca splendens from a LFS yesterday (I broke the cardinal rule and bought them before researching!). I saw them in a large display tank and had never seen them before, and so went ahead and bought 1 male and 2 females. I understand they are very rare in the wild and are very interesting live-bearers, but other than what I've seen on the net, I don't really know anything about them. Anyone kept them before? I have them in a 20 gallon naturally planted tank right now, but have larger tanks that I can swap them into when they grow larger.

Yeah with a 28-30 gallon tank, the congos would be way too big. They get quite enormous. I like the suggestions from the other posters as well...either dwarf gouramis or rams. I personally love rainbows, but the larger species will eat shrimp and bully smaller fish. Killifish are very cool as well, but having only kept them in a species tank before, I'm not sure if they are aggressive towards other fish.

Thanks guys. I had purchased the powder through April's Aquarium (Pets Beautiful) on the BC Aquaria site and it came pretty quickly and was effective after a few treatments. I was just hoping to find a local source. I know it's hard to come by now. It used to be available in a medication called Discomed, but that is no longer around. The medicated foods available are not very potent, and I guess it tastes odd as my fish don't really like it. I ordered a poultry dewormer on-line a while back too, but I am a bit leery about adding it to the tank as it's in a fairly thick suspension of who-knows-what and I don't want to kill my fish trying to get rid of the worms. I haven't seen any signs of the worms in my 20 gallon for a few months now so I think I finally got rid of them. I didn't lose any fish in the process either, but the parasites are tough and came back a few times, so I had to dose several times to get rid of them completely.

Hi all. Well, after finally ridding my 20 gallon tank of the dreaded camallanus worm, I see it has now shown up in my 55 gallon! I was very careful about maintaining both tanks with separate tools, etc, but I may have inadvertently transferred the worms to my larger tank. Either that or I was unlucky enough to get 2 separate batches of fish with this parasite. Anyways, I had bought some levamisole powder from a seller on the BC Aquaria site, but I'm wondering if anyone knows of a seller in Calgary or Alberta. I have used the Jungle Parasite medicated food, but my fish don't readily eat it, so I'd prefer to just treat with the straight powder. I've also had a hard time finding livestock or pet dewormer with levamisole and don't want to go to the trouble or expense of going through a vet. Thanks!

Thanks Werner! I think you are right...they do look like rhizoids. I just wasn't expecting so many on the moss...looks almost like algae but none of the other surfaces or plants in the tank have it, so it must be the little "roots" I'm seeing.

Do some research on the cichlids you wish to stock you tank with as well because many species are absolutely ruthless on plants. Many cichlids like to dig by nature and will quickly uproot all your hard work. I've not really kept SA or CA cichlids other than apistos, so not sure if they would eat the plants as well. I have kept Malawi peacocks and Haps though and they are herbivores, so plants really wouldn't have stood a chance. A planted aquarium with angels would look great though. A lot to consider when planning a planted tank. If you are doing a high light set-up (more than 2 watts per gallon) then the plants will pretty much require CO2, which is something I have not attempted thus far, mainly due to cost and time involved. I find it challenging enough to keep my low light set ups balanced! I'm trying to keep my tanks low cost and low maintenance, so have just made some minor modifications to the stock lighting (plant specific bulbs, retrofitted reflectors and replaced my black lids with glass ones) and used organic topsoil capped with a mix of regular aquarium gravel and Flourite. No CO2 being used, HOB Emperor filter, Hydor powerhead, premixed ferts dosed twice a week and things have turned out quite well. There are so many options and with a 90 gallon tank, you can really make a great set-up for your fish. Have fun!

New to this forum but glad to find a site specifically for Alberta. I have a 20 gallon tank. No CO2, low light with a 15 watt Coralife bulb. Few Java ferns in the tank as well as a few blobs of Java moss. The moss seems to be growing pretty steadily since I got it about a month ago and has more than doubled in size. The tank itself really has no algae at the moment with the exception of some green algae that forms on the glass (gets eaten by a SAE though so is not a problem). For a while there, I thought my moss was dying off in certain areas because it looked like it was turning slightly brown. Upon closer inspection though, it actually looks sort of like a fuzzy brown algae or something. I tried to take a pic, but couldn't get it to show up well. I dose the water about twice a week with a 1/4 capful of Seachem Flourish. I don't have a test kit for nutrients, so I have no idea what my levels are at. Is there anything I can add/remove to try and get control of the brown algae on the moss? It's not horrible at the moment, but I don't want it to take over. Thanks!