Pier Pressure

That is a great idea, rudy! I had never heard of this product before. However, at this point, we cannot even get to the silicone. First we have to get that top piece off. Thanks for a wonderful idea, though. If we can figure out how to get the top piece off I shall definitely be picking up some of that stuff. So you had a 60 gallon explode in your office. Did you manage to save the fishes? We saved everybody but spent Christmas Eve doing eight hours of hard labour saving fish and cleaning up water.

The tank weighs over two hundred pounds, and my significant other was in a car accident and hurt his back so he cannot help to move it. We thought if it was easy enough to take it apart, we could between the two of us move the individual panes of glass. However, we are having a heck of a time trying to remove the top piece to even get to the silicone. I might have to send out a help needed/cold beer provided kind of post!

Hi, everybody. As most of you know, I am in the process of trying to return a 150 gallon exploded tank to Petsmart. The good news is that they will give me my money back. The bad news is I have to move the tank and stand back to the store. I am, however, allowed to return it in pieces i.e. slit the silicone and bring it back as panes of glass. Does anyone know a slick way of taking a tank apart? Last night we were trying to remove the top piece to get to the silicone, and we could not even get the top piece off. Any tips or tricks from somebody who has tried to do this before?

I have been there, too. Thought I had lost a cleaner shrimp and it turned out to be the molt. Don't feel bad!

Currently breeding: F1 Electric Yellows; Demasoni; and Red Empress. I do not spend a lot of time looking up latin names I cannot pronouce - I would rather be watching the tanks!

As already stated with a 450 gallon tank you have many options to choose from. I would suggest a reef tank - that would be stupendously beautiful. Expensive, too, though. If you decide to stay in the freshwater game, I have a tank load of juvie cichlids you could choose from for free. Three different breeds at the moment - F2 electric yellows, red empress and demasoni. Let me know if you are coming to Calgary. I cannot imagine how bad you are feeling about that kind of loss. I have had tanks go south, but nothing like that.

Oh, man, I feel awful for you. Deepest sympathies. Such a simple thing, too. Try not to beat yourself up over it - sh*t happens sometimes.

Is the baby showing the blue colour yet? Mine were born with the black stripes but the rest were white. After they were in the breeder net about two weeks, I really started to notice them changing to the blue colour. I would say if they have blue to them, they are over two weeks old. I hope that helps.

Hmm - it is hard to tell from the photo because there is nothing to compare the size to. However, my demasoni babies are about 1.5 weeks old now, and I think they are still quite a bit smaller than this. I would guess about 3 weeks old.

That is an idea. Doen't your tank look a little lopsided being completely bare on one side and aquascaped on the other? Not to mention we are talking about a 150 gallon tall aquarium so it would REALLY look lopsided in our case. As to the fry and grow out tanks, I like to keep a lot of fake plants in them because my babies are many different sizes so once I let them out of the breeder nets they need to be able to hide if need be. Thanks for the suggestions, though! :smokey:

Hi, everyone. I posted not long ago about how my red empress have started to breed, and now I have demosoni breeding as well. They are very cute - already have the black vertical stripes. We stripped one female and she had fifteen babies so they may have already been breeding for a while. Two more are holding and here we go again. Thank God I have 55 gallons worth of fry/grow out space! I know, I know - post pictures. If only I could find the time to clean up the aquariums enough that I would want to post shots! Winter is coming and I am hoping for some time. The problem is that when Rod chases the females in the main tank he destroys the aquascaping with the net. The same is true in the fry/grow out tanks when he is catching babies to sell or give away.

Hey, Brad - try canreef. They are much bigger into the saltwater stuff than this board. It is Canada wide but I know some people are willing to ship. I hope this helps! I tried to buy live rock on here once and found nothing. Went over to canreef and was all set up with live rock within 24 hours.

Exttra water conditioner will help, too!

We converted all our tanks from gravel (black with neon colours mixed) to the Target Play Sand and I wish we had not bothered. I like the look of the sand better as long as it is completely clean - but the fish poo seems to jump right out at you as soon as it starts to get dirty. I still have all the gravel to switch it back, but my fish seem to like the sand better so I guess I will have to get used to looking at a bit of fish poo every time I check out the tank. Black sand is a great idea because it would camo any debris a lot better than the light brown sand does.

Red Empress may be another one you are thinking of. I call them "gasoline fish" because the males have all the colours of a gasoline rainbow if the gas is spilled on the ground. Google them - I am sure you will find them beautiful.

Thanks, everyone. They are sure a lot smaller than I thought they would be. They are no bigger than yellow labs. No this is definitely not my first batch of fry. I have a colony of F1 electric yellows that is constantly breeding and we usually do not have too much trouble finding homes for the F2's. I have a 33 gallon fry tank that is full of electric yellows! The reason this is so MAJORLY exciting is that we have been trying to get babies from this pair for over a year now. She would be holding and he would harass her until she spit them out and went back to breeding. Now he chases the peacocks around while she hides with her mouthful. Once I have a couple more females for the 150 gallon, I shall lose the peacock females. I am thinking that - though hybrids - if a blue peacock female does manage to breed with the red empress male - I am definitely going to keep them around and see what they look like when they grow up. We are to the stage now where we have figured out how to put pictures onto our Apple computer. Now I just need to take some shots of my tanks and get them up. I heard photobucket is the easiest way to do that. I have the babies in a breeder net at the front of the 33 gallon so getting a shot should not be a big deal. Maybe I will have some time this weekend. Thanks for all the good wishes! I will post pictures when I can! Karen

Thanks. Baby fish are so much fun! And the good news is - I can get my red empress females out of this first batch of fry. Nothing wrong with line breeding them because they are not wild caught or F1 or anything like that. My male is gorgeous and I cannot wait to continue the line. Did all the clocks stop around here, or what? I cannot wait to see them!

Hi, guys. Some of you may know that I have been looking for female Red Empresses for a while now because I have only one male and one female and I had heard the male would harass the female to death or make her spit prematurely. While I am looking for the females, I added some mid-size peacock females to try to take the stress off the Red Empress female. Now I am happy to report it worked! Rod stripped the female today and got 12 - 15 red empress babies. My new prized possession. I cannot wait to get home and check them out! :smokey: :smokey: :smokey: Karen

I saw the ones at Gold Aquariums last night. They are not for sale as they are going to be using them as breeders. I really love seahorses but am going to reef-keep for quite some time before I go into such delicate territory myself. Of course now TELUS has sea horses all over their advertising so that should bring on a bunch of people buying them who have no clue what they are doing. I hate when that happens.

Seahorses are saltwater and very delicate. They eat just about constantly so produce a lot of fatty waste so your water quality has to be top of the line. They are not the greatest tankmates as most other animals will out-perform them for food so the seahorses will not get enough. I would not suggest getting seahorses unless you are an experienced saltwater fishkeeper. I know that Wiis in Calgary had some the last time I was in there. I have been researching them and I would suggest doing a lot of reading before you take this step. They are tough to keep alive!

We are running a Fluval FX5 on a 150 gallon tank - no problems. We are also running two Rena XP3's (one also on the 150 gallon and one on a 33 gallon) - no problems. However the equipment is all under three years old. Once I start having trouble, I shall be able to vote. But so far both filters have been very good to us. We were turned off the Eheims because they were so much more expensive.

Hmmm - many longhairs on the board I see. Both my significant other and myself have long hair. We have never had a problem during fish maintenence, but a couple of weeks ago the downstairs shower backed up. We had the City come out and THEIR pipes were clean. When Rod ran a snake through our pipes - he said he cannot believe that we have a hair left on our heads! However, my house was built in 1964, and I doubt this has ever been done. So longhairs throughout the sixties and seventies are probably to blame as well. I shall tell Rod to watch out for this during tank maintenance, though.

Good call. I gave up that over-priced beer anyway. Old Milwalki (sp.??) tastes a lot like Budweiser at just about half the price! Pretty sad they can import beer from the States and sell it cheaper than beer that is brewed in our own country!

Duly noted. So you drink that imported crap? Pier Pressure (aka Karen)

Thanks a lot for letting me know. Karen