Recent content by AJ

My tank should be renamed the Death Tank. I can't keep anything alive it seems. I seem to destroy it all. I have two neons currently dying of what I assume to be neon tetra disease, they are turning pale in the red stripe. I lost my poor female dwarf gourami today from some unknown cause...

I have a tank with a pH 8.2 (bad water quality here). Fish are doing fine. I just take extra precaution when adding them to the tank - I had 1/4 cup of water every 10 minutes for 2 hours. Might be excessive but I haven't lost anything. High pH isn't the end of the world. I, too, tried to...

I have had two small female red dwarf gouramis for some time now and they have been doing exceedingly well in the tank. I purchased yesterday a male powder blue dwarf gourami. I was curious if anyone has any experience breeding dwarves. Will powder blues breed with reds? Or should I have...

I had a rainbow shark once - I eventually had to get rid of him. They absolutely MUST have a hiding place. Unfortunately mine staked out his territory - which grew to about half the tank - and eventually ended up doing physical damage to his tankmates. Now mine was with tetras only, maybe...

It's not the pH. High pH is fine if the fish are adjusted. It's actually pH swings that kill the fish. I am keeping neons quite happily at pH 8.2. Don't sweat it. Lowering pH is very difficult because high pH usually has high alkalinity. The whole purpose of alkalinity is to keep pH...

I have an aquaclear. You'll need more than one filter in that big of a tank I think would be your best bet anyways. They don't both have to be powerheads though. A canister filter is usually good for that size of tank.

I have guppies mixed with platies, neons and dwarf gouramis. You can also have swordtails. All of your livebearers (guppies, platies, etc) tend to be mixed colours and very colourful. All of the tetras should go well with guppies too. I'm quite pleased with how my dwarf gouramis did in the...

I have a HOB filter in a 20 gallon. The cartridges should be replaced monthly. I've never seen "restricted" water flow, seems to me that would be WAY too long to wait, but anyways...... I have the carbon and the 'sponge' in my filter only. To keep my bacterial population I just change them...

I've found all different types of poo - the different species of fish seem to have their own "range" of color. I've spent far too much times looking at fish poo since my intestinal worm incident. :(

I wouldn't mix guppies and barbs together. Tiger barbs anyways - you might be able to get some cherry barbs or something like that. I wouldn't mix a puffer with guppies either. As far as I know puffers don't like any other fish period. However if you plan to put the adult guppies elsewhere...

I don't know if this helps but I have heard that stressed fish (perhaps in a new setup) will actually try to hold their babies in - causing them to die.

I don't know why you'd want one. Vast majority of us run on normal bulbs just fine I think. And I can't imagine killing bacteria being a good thing - they are necessary for cycling! Cichlids are hardy creatures, I personally wouldn't bother.

So I think I have my tank set at an equilibrium again (knock on wood). Ick is gone, got a new bristlenose pleco who seems happy and healthy. I lost 3 neons, leaving me with 6. I would like to replace them with something different but I am not sure what to do. I could get 3 tetras of a...

I had a UGF that I ended up tearing out. I had a HOB filter (Aquaclear) run alongside it for awhile to build up some bacteria in the filter media. I also added a powerhead with a quickfilter unit attached. Seems to keep the water crystal clear for me.

When you are removing the water you are removing the endproducts that cannot be further metabolized by bacteria. That's why water changes are important. Most bacteria reside on the surface objects as said above. You probably don't have much bacteria right now given your problems. You need...