Recent content by ElwoodPDowd

Lighting really only matters for you and plants. You'll need to tailor your lighting to the plants you want to keep - if you're not using them, or using fake plants, it's not an issue and just go for whatever looks nicest. I've been seeing some fantastic effects from LED strips off ebay lately...

It could well be pregnant, but I tend to find mollies don't spawn until they're settled in to the tank's chemistry, which can take a while. Sexing mollies and other livebearers is easy, look for the anal fin. If it's fan-shaped and coming away from the body, it's a girl. If it's thin. straight...

So, I'm ready to commit to a bigger tank. I want something that's going to wow visitors. And I've got some questions. It'll be a freshwater tank, probably filled with two schools of different tightly shoaling fish (love leopard danios, they look just like tiny salmon; undecided on what else) as...

That's so weird! I chew my fish and serve them to guests! We should swap notes.

Re-tested this afternoon, and things looked grim. Ammonia up again, to 1.25 (ish, 1.0-1.5). Nitrites up to 1 (!!) and nitrates down to 10-20. Could I have buggered up the cycling with my PWC's? Did another 50% PWC after that reading, two hours later as I'm heading to bed, readings are pH 7.6...

Did another 50% PWC late last night, since ammonia was still high (1ppm), nitrates were rocketing (20-40) and the fish were gasping. They seem good this morning, no losses overnight. I'll re-test this afternoon, if ammonia's still up they're in for another PWC!

New-ish (one month) tank and owner here. Had 9 neon tetras, 4 mollies and an inspector plec (Zig) this morning. Now have 7 neon tetras, 4 mollies and Zig. The mollies came from the LFS with an extra bonus, velvet. Treated the velvet with a proprietary copper sulphate treatment earlier...

That looks pretty neat. I had a choice between a 30L biorb or a ready-to-go 60L standard tank, both £95... Then I looked at the extra gubbins the Biorb wanted and the kit you have to replace every month or so! The future costs of running a biorb kinda put me off, I have to say, but that one...

Out of interest, how much algae is there in the tank and what did you treat the ich with? It's vaguely possible that if it was a copper compound used to treat, algae sucked it all up. When the algae died off, it'd release a bunch of copper back into the tank and maybe cause copper burn (which...

OK, ammonia's gone back up a little, to 1ppm. Nitrite is at 0.25ppm and nitrate is 15ppm. Off I go to do another 50% water change!

When I get home from work, I'll test and post the ammonia/nitrate/nitrite numbers. I'm prepared to get me a bigger tank when the plec grows up big and strong, but planetcatfish informs me that these ones (Inspector/Snowball plecs) generally grow to around 6". If he outscales the tank, I'll...

When I was five, we won a couple of goldfish at a fair. They travelled halfway across the country in a tiny sweet jar. Then sat around in a salad bowl dodging cats for another 10 hours while my dear mother went about trying to find a tank going cheap (the family was quite poor). Then we went...

This! I've just got my first four mollies, first time I put my hand in to place pea puree proximally to my plec they came and said hi. Rubbing, sucking, headbutting. It was kinda fun. Can't believe how playful they are, really, specially since they're not used to me yet! They'll learn, first...

Bigger water changes won't be a problem, nothing's too good for the wee pups. Like the peas idea!

Thanks for the speedy reply :D I'd assumed if the ammonia was going down it would be OK - I can do daily 10% water changes until it settles. I certainly don't want anything else to die... the neon going ventrals up got me all emotional. If the mollies karked it, it'd be at least twice as bad...