Znaika

I have never seen or heard about a female dropping eggs without a male involvement. However, if they carry them too long, they may become infertile.

Depends on what you want. Personally I prefer to recreate natural conditions and lean towards biotope systems. I usually start with one central species, which I want to keep and then sift Internet to find information of cohabitant fishes and plants. Fishbase.org is a great resource. Go to your species, then to "Point Data" and then check each location for "All Species at {coordinates}"

You are on the right path. Couple of improvements, if it does not work: - Keep males and females separate for at least couple of weeks, better 3 or four weeks. Feed them well (seemingly you did) - Condition the females right in the future breeder, so that you do not need to stress them by the move. - Do not just use clean water. Use 50-70% of RO water. You can buy 5 gallons for about $3 in Walmart. Have a suitable bottle. - Keep water level at 4-6 inches. - Make water in the breeder 3°C/6°F warmer than in the tank(s) where you conditioned the fish. Good luck!

It sounds like you need to start with a good book. This one will do, for example: http://books.google.ca/books?id=jM1eJxj_fwUC&printsec=frontcover The hardcopy is available from Calgary public library (central branch)

Pay it forward, ckmullin.

Baensch atlas recommends 100 cm (39") as a recommended aquarium length for these puppies .

Yes, "clarity"-like products. Some of them are simply tannin extracts and are not risky. Look at the content. Activated carbon is simply an adsorbent, which filters at a very fine, actually at a molecular level, not at the level of visible particles. So if you use tannin acid - based coagulant, using activated carbon would be counter-productive, as it would be filtering out the tannin acid itself. Carbon's life-time is indeed limited, but unless you actually need carbon for some other reason than providing manufacturers with a continuous stream of revenues, you do NOT need to change cartridges, just rinse them gently in the drained tank water. I cut my cartridges, threw out carbon, put in instead bio-media and did not change them ever since. Besides old carbon may crumble and itself become a source of dredge.

Add some coagulant. It will make particles to stick together and help the filter to filter them out. Sold everywhere even in WalMarts. But the main question remains: where do these particles come from?

How much was "some" algae scrubbing? One gram of algae, if decomposes quicker than the filter can manage, equated roughly 1 ppm of ammonia/nitrite in 250 Gallon tank. If the tank is 50 Gallon, then it is 5 ppm. One gram is a lot of algae, though. Was it a lot?

Since they are crawling on the glass, use a 10X magnifying lens to have a better look. By the sound of it, it maybe small worms or snails. Copepods have an outer shell, antennas and usually swim, not crawl.

I guess everything depends on concentrations, but the same concentration of Hydrochloric acid is way more corrosive than bleach (sodium hypochlorite) and not even comparable with table salt NaCl. Moreover, unless you are into developing chemical weapons, do NOT combine Hydrochloric acid and bleach - they will react producing chlorine.

Yes. 10 min in a microwave will kill anything water-based.

If you want to sterilize it, another option is to microwave it.

HCl is a hydrochloric acid - a pretty strong substance. Not sure if you need to go that far. Beware!

The two widely available master test kits on the market are API and Nutrafin. Nutrafin is about twice more expensive, but includes tests for iron, carbonate and general hardness. Nutrafin includes regular pH and wide-range pH, whereas API has regular and high-range pH test and does not allow to measure pH lower than 6.0. If you need those, then the price-wise they become about the same. A friend is using Nutrafin; I am using API. Have not heard about one being better than another in readability or otherwise.

According to Piscespets.com events calendar, there is no such seminar. Here is the list of February events: http://piscespets.com/events/february/ May it be that they cancelled it because of CAS meeting the same evening?

Some (low) nitrite 6 weeks after the tank start is a bit on slow side of things, but is not completely unusual. What filter and filter media do you have and did you tamper with it since Dec 15?

That's interesting. Let us know it it worked. P.S. If this WMD works, do not forget to change water frequently.

Otherwise than not being able to provide it anymore, yes, it has been good

I have been told by PetCareRX support staff that currently they are having issues with printing mailing labels for Canadian addresses and and not able to ship to Canada

All I know - special heat packs for fish transportation are offered here: http://angelfins.ca/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=8&products_id=387

All 1000W heaters I have seen are controller-based and cost about $200 and more. You can buy 500W heaters from ebay for less than $20 a piece; admittedly individually they may be less reliable but two together will probably be more reliable than one 1000W.

They have fish?? I could not guess... What kind of?

Depends on how cold is your "cold" water change and how big is the change. The general rule - resulting temperature in the tank should not go below the lower limit for your species and the change should be gradual (as it normally is with water change).

Buy two 500W ones. Not only it will be twice or thrice cheaper, but reliability will be better and heat distribution will be more even.