Mighty Prawn

I'd call for someone else to start bagging the fish, and go call the cops right there. -Hideo

http://www.pesticideinfo.org lists Acriflavin as being slightly toxic to fish. What is this stuff used for? -Hideo

Bust out the water test kit. I'd do it but I dropped my ph tests. -Hideo

I've read conflicting things on feeding fish meaty foods. One of the biggest problems in fishkeeping, is there's always 2 groups, 1 group who thinks something is good, and another that thinks it's bad. So what I do is ignore what every group says, and just try my best to replicate what the fish eat in the wild. And if I can't do that, I just feed NLS. I wouldn't feed any of my animals ham, though, because ham is gross ;-) Usually though, people don't feed mammals to fish. What I have read is group #1 says you can feed lean meats or organ meats (like beef heart) and group #2 says don't feed any mammal at all. I personally tend to sit somewhere in the middle. I don't feed my fish anything that lives on land, unless there's a chance it would fall in the water and get eaten, like some insects ;-) -Hideo

Have you ever been asked...."Is that a fish in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" LMAO! No, but people have accused me of having a fish in my pocket, so I just say that I peed myself. -Hideo

I just put the fish in my pockets. -Hideo

Hrmmm, I'd guess that the eggs will be okay, but I can't be sure. I think the holding fish should be fine. I had my carbon in the tank, but some people might say to remove it. I'll be honest, the only fish that died from my ich tank were fry :-( Might be best to move them to another tank and half dose it. -Hideo

I just did a presentation on this very thing :-D Like I always say, a good photographer can take a decent photo with even a disposable point and shoot camera. Most people who buy point and shoot digi cams don't bother to learn about its features and just assume the automatic functions is the be all and end all. Nice little write up! And nice to see another photographer who isn't always pushing better equipment. -Hideo

Yes I would definately forget about the medicine, it stresses out the fish and lowers their immune system. But don't worry, you're gonna find it's a very easy thing to cure. Do a 50-60% water change. This may or may not stress your fish a little bit. This is to get rid of some of that ich medicine. Now what you're going to do is increase the heat on your tank to 84-85, 1 degree per hour. This could take you a whole evening or longer depending on your temp. Go out and buy either some aquarium salt, or you can even use table salt. I prefer the aquarium salt myself, because the table salt is for me ;-) Now, you're going to use 3 tablespoons of salt per 5 gallons of water. Add up the entire volume of your tank, and portion out the salt. Now this next part is important. Space out adding the salt over 2 days. If you have the luxury of 24 hour access to the tank is it best, but if not you can make do. If you can't slowly add bit by bit every hour for 2 days, simply add a portion in the morning before work, a portion when you return home from work, and a portion before you go to sleep. Be sure to dissolve the salt in a bowl or tupperware of tank water, or dechlorinated water from the tap. Try to match your tank temperature. Now, once all the salt is in there, and the heat is comfortably at 84-85 degrees, keep it that way for 14 days. Most sites will tell your 10 days, but I play on the side of caution and the extra 4 days add a nice window of safety just in case one of the ich tomont's is hiding well enough to avoid your salt. Now I should also note, don't stop when you notice the white spots are all gone. They should probably dissapear after 3-4 days. The reason why is the heat speeds everything up, and has them fall to the substrate, reproduce and release again to swarm your fish. However, with the salt in the water, they'll die when they do release. If you do weekly or bi-weekly water changes, be sure to add back in the amount of salt taken out. For example, say you remove 10 gallons of water in a water change, you're going to want to dissolve, and replace 6 tablespoons worth. You can just dump it back in there at this point, as the fish are already used to the level of salt. Also, if your water is just evaporating, just top it off, no need to replenish the salt as it's still in there. Once the 14 days is over, start doing water changes to remove it. I personally was doing a 25% water change every fourth day, until I had done 100%. There will still be salt in there, but the amount will not harm your fish. Note: If you have plecos, or other scaleless fish, you may or may not want to handle it with heat alone. I found many sources that said salt can hurt these fish, but nowhere could I find a solution to treat them. So I personally moved my plecos to a seperate tank, and slowly raised the temperature to 85 degrees, and brought it up to a very high 87 degrees, 1 extra degree per 12 hours. Be sure if you do this to increase the oxygen in your tank with a couple airstones or an extra filter. Ich cannot survive at 85-86 degrees apparently, but I wanted to go 87 just in case. My fish did exhibit some signs of stress as expected, but they made it out fine. Since that experience with ich, I found out it's very easy to handle. If you spot it early enough, you can take care of it very very easily. I recently had an outbreak in my quarentine tank with 2 severums. I noticed 2 little spots on one of their fins, so I immediately began the salt dosing, but leaving the temperature low. This way the trophont stays on the fish until my salt is where I want it. Once the salt was in there, I started raising the temperature. By than a few more spots had appeared. 2 days later, the heat is up, and there's no sign of the ich. Just to be safe of course I'll keep it going for 14 days anyways, but I saved my fish a lot of annoyance by catching it early. Pretty much everything I said you'll find in various ich treatment articles, sometimes they vary the salt dose, however. -Hideo

I wonder the eye is it only a glit with taking the pic. What do you mean by power symbol on a computer? Can you be more specific? -Hideo

Yeah I forgot to mention that. I personally rinse things staggered, 1 month I rinse the sponge/carbon, and the following month the biomax, and so on. -Hideo

I should mention that even though it's am entry level camera, it's really the photographer and the lenses that makes the biggest difference for the most part. Which is fairly obvious by your photos of course. -Hideo

Yeah it could be one of 2 things, mating behaviour (if there is also tail slapping and sort of quivering), or it could be the establishment of a pecking order. Many fish are happier if they know their place in the order of things, even if they're not on top, they're just establishing who is Achilles, and who is Hector ;-) -Hideo

I really like the second photo, it's rare that in aquarium photos you get any interesting movement or action. The way you captured it, seems like the fish knows what you're doing and is showing off. -Hideo

I've seen quite a bit of the ceramic bits come off myself, but I usually rinse the new biomax and move it around until it stops. -Hideo

I was hoping the fish was gonna catch hold of one of those guys hands. -Hideo

Just as a note, cycle is pretty much useless. The best method is definately the fishless method, or using established filter media for an instant cycle. -Hideo

Zebra Nerite snails. They'll actually eat your algae (other snails either replace what they eat with snail trails, or poop so much you might as well just keep the algae), and they do breed, but eggs, if produced at all, are always infertile in captivity. Plus, they look awesome. -Hideo

Just wondering if that's an offer? LOL! Only if she'll sign a model waiver that says I can sell the photo and not have to give her any money :-D Tattoo magazines are always interested in tattoos that aren't common, so I saw an opportunity to make a little money, and have a photo published ;-) -Hideo

You should find yourself a professional photographer and have them take a picture of it for you. -Hideo

Maybe you've got it all wrong. Perhaps he's displaying to you, and those are flames of passion in his fishy eyes, and you're just constantly shutting him down? He's just trying to impress you! That's what I say about mine, anyways. They flare and display because they're all gay fish who wish I was also a fish. I couldn't handle having my fish hate me ;-) -Hideo

He's the guy who looks like a successful doctor. That's the best way to describe Tom, I think! -Hideo

I'm building a "Betta" holder that will be used expressly for taking photos of bettas. It'll be acrylic, about 8 inches long, 4 inches wide and 8 inches high. Simply plunk the betta in, set up lighting accordingly, and easy, non obstructive close up and macro photos of bettas :-) It'll have a little lip on the back so you can slide in different colour card on the back, for an all white backround, or all black, all blue or whatever. Once I finish making that, I'll take some photos of my splendens and post em here :-) -Hideo

That's awesome that you train seeing eye dogs. I always wonder, if I was blind, would I want a seeing eye dog? Or would I want to make my way on my own? One of these weekends I want to spend the entire time blindfolded, so I can get a sense of what it's like to be blind. It's interesting, with my primary source of income dependant on sight, and at least half of my hobbies and future sources of income, I'd still rather be blind than deaf. -Hideo

20$ for Java Moss?!? Holy cow. -Hideo