The fish thread

[eggman]

^ thanks for that .

Also, do you know a good way to clean turtle shells?. (has green stuff on it)
What I'm doing at the moment is leaving the turtle in the sun for an hour to let the turtle shell dry and then pick the green stuff off. But it's really time consuming especially when I have no finger nails.

My mum said something about iodine might help take it off.

What did you do to clean turtle shells?

a very week iodone solution would help. what you are doing though is helpful and its what i do. you dont need to pick all of it off, just enough to expose approx. 30% of the carapace surface area.

a build up of algae may stop UV rays getting into the shell and could lead to shell rot and/or soft shell

 

[neverwas]

SO i finally managed to snap an awesome photo of one of my bristol nose plecs :D One of of the six we own isn't to bad

Betty Bristol

She loves the sea shells in our big tank. Our two new bristols are to young to know if they be male or female yet...im wanting a boy and girl cause we have one boy so far out of the six!

I did a gravel vaccumm and got some more. The bristols go nuts when everything is stirred up. The it.

This is our only boy...

Brian Bristol and a sneaky electric yellow lurking in the back ground. The electrics arent happy right now cause they ate away all the greenery so their cover is nothing but rocks and they live at the bottom of the ocean and hide...oops...siily fish. I just havent had a chance to buy them more plants yet.

Barbra Bristol (she''s actually bigger than the boy!)

She hides a lot...

 

[Klue]

Well my fighters are both cranking. Both male and female have grown and are bright and colourful and very active (especially Fightey).

But its a total pain because fightey just wont blow a bubble nest. I have tried heaps of stuff. Partial waterchanges, fresh high protein food, he just wont blow one the little bugger.
Oh well.

Oh and Simon the Golden Apple/Mystery Snail is happy as ever. He loves eating tomato. He eats all the fleshy bits of the little slice of tomato and leaves the skin there perfectly cleaned. He loves loves loves tomato.

:D

 

[neverwas]

I really need some advice before i take the drastic step and seperate the fish...

The problem...

One of my spotty gold platties fins seem to be disappearing. Like desintergrating. He has hardly any fins left...i thought the convicts or lombardis may ne eating him but it doesnt appear so. I first noticed it a few weeks ago when the under fin and the one of top looked shredded. When i looked at him again tonight his dorsal fin which is the tail fin i think is totally....well...shredded!

All the other fish seem perfectly healthy and their fins look fine. he is one of the smaller fish but there isnt any bullying going on.

What could the problem be? Fin rott? Stress?

I cant see ant blood or inflammed parts...

Apparently fin rot can be caused by over feeding, bad water quality, over crowding in the tank etfc. I added plants from our local fish shop the other week...maybe thats had some bad bacteria on it?

Wouldnt all the fish get it?

He doesnt seem to be in pain. hes swimming around normally. Maybe sticks to the top a bit more but hes swimming around for food ok and everything.

I added some anti fin rott stuff to the water in hope that might help if it is but i dont know what else to do. Should i seperate him till hes bigger and stronger and hope his fins grow back?

What happenes to him if they dont grow back??

One of the convicts looks like their dorsal fin is starting to shred. Theres a small bit missing!!


So...its now an hour later and iw as nearlly finished draining the spare tank and i noticed a baby fry swimming around!! I thought my platty has aborted em all cause there was a heap of black gross tuff but hes alive and kicking and eating flakes :D Im putting some fresh water in. Poor thin hasnt had the heater on for weeks let alone no filter!! I wonder how he survived!!

 

[NickyJ]

The tail fin is actually called the caudal fin. The fin on top is the dorsal. I'd suggest putting that fish in quarantine with some of the fin rot treatment. If he keeps eating well he should recover. If he stops eating, you're pretty much fucked.

 

[neverwas]

I went to the aquairium...

He died

It isnt fin rott either. Theres no growths or weird things. Dont know what it is but something ate his fins. The guy at the lfs said it was most likely bad bacteria or just a dodgy fish. We were given to water treatments to do for 7days before a 25% water change. he was happy and eating but just couldnt last any long with no fins

But our solo baby (hercules) is alive and thriving in our quarrantiene tank :D

I have to figure out what to do with our fish because it looks like our electric yellows need to go into our 3ft and it means we have to change the fish around because they cant go with small fish like tetrsa and etc cause they eat them apparently...so im trying to figure out whos going where right now...

 

[tapout]

Hey SF69, sorry to hear about your fish, based on what youve written im 99% sure its not bacteria or fungus, or if it is its likely to be a secondary infection, fish rarely get infections in the fins without some form of mechanical damage - ie fish nipping at the fins. The other clue is that the dorsal and pectoral/ventral fins were attacked, most fish aim their attacks at these fins by attacking from underneath or on top, if its a fast moving fish you'll often find damage to the flanks ofthe fish because they can get their body out of the way but often arent fast enough to get their training abdomen out of the firing line. You not seeing happen just means that its happening at night or when your not looking, when your around the fish are probably more occupied with getting fed than trying to massacre each other, i'd suggest not putting slow moving fish in with any type of cichlid, regardless of how peaceful they might seem.

Anyway, here are my babies, there blue crowntails at about 3 months old, just off live feed.

 

[tapout]

Well my fighters are both cranking. Both male and female have grown and are bright and colourful and very active (especially Fightey).

But its a total pain because fightey just wont blow a bubble nest. I have tried heaps of stuff. Partial waterchanges, fresh high protein food, he just wont blow one the little bugger.
Oh well.

:D

Sorry didnt see this - make sure there is no surface agitation, even the slightest ripple will put him off building a nest. if there isnt, is there anything for the fighter to blow a nest under, like some floating plants? try cutting a styrofoam cup in half so it looks like an aircraft hanger - if that doesnt work try seperating out the female - put her in a seperator so that the male can see her but not get to her, itll give him the impression that she is playing hard to get and it might give him the motivation to go building, if that doesnt work then ive got no idea, sometimes they just dont make nests, if they do spawn he will quickly learn why he needs a nest though.

 

[Klue]

Hey! Thats some great advice mate! My tanks (two tanks, one with the male one with the female) are on top of my fridge and there is heaps of agitation! Everytime I walk past it there are huge waves! Im so glad, thank you! I will move them straight away.

The female is almost popping she is so full of eggs!

Your fighters are awesome! Great colours! So vivid!
What colour were the parents?

Thanks again

:D

 

[neverwas]

Hey SF69, sorry to hear about your fish, based on what youve written im 99% sure its not bacteria or fungus, or if it is its likely to be a secondary infection, fish rarely get infections in the fins without some form of mechanical damage - ie fish nipping at the fins. The other clue is that the dorsal and pectoral/ventral fins were attacked, most fish aim their attacks at these fins by attacking from underneath or on top, if its a fast moving fish you'll often find damage to the flanks ofthe fish because they can get their body out of the way but often arent fast enough to get their training abdomen out of the firing line. You not seeing happen just means that its happening at night or when your not looking, when your around the fish are probably more occupied with getting fed than trying to massacre each other, i'd suggest not putting slow moving fish in with any type of cichlid, regardless of how peaceful they might seem.

Thanks for that Beautiful fish tapout!! We treated the tank with special stuff for a week then did a 25% water change and they seem ok now. I actually changed some fish between the tanks so the small fish like our guppies and platties are in the tank together and the cichlids and other larger fish are all together in the 3-4ft tank. There doesnt seem to be anymore nipping if thats what is was

The good news was we found a lil baby plattie in our tank...he lasted two months then passed away. I think the water went bad.

 

[tapout]

Thanks for that Beautiful fish tapout!! We treated the tank with special stuff for a week then did a 25% water change and they seem ok now. I actually changed some fish between the tanks so the small fish like our guppies and platties are in the tank together and the cichlids and other larger fish are all together in the 3-4ft tank. There doesnt seem to be anymore nipping if thats what is was

The good news was we found a lil baby plattie in our tank...he lasted two months then passed away. I think the water went bad.

Good to hear that your fish are doing well!! youve done the right thing by separating out the smaller fish and the bigger fish. Just a quick note though, is the "special stuff" malachite green? If it is, just be careful. Malachite green is a mutagen and a carcinogen, whilst you'd need to drink the stuff to really hurt you, its worth at least knowing what your exposing yourself to, the most dangerous part of it is the dried flakey stuff around the top of the bottle. If you've got Cichlids and platties with no plants your probably best just to use a weak salt solution, about 5ppt (5 grams of salt per litre) of course salt without iodine and anti caking agents should do the trick, works wonders on skin infections as it kills the infective agent and helps the fish maintain osmotic balances (freshwater fish are "saltier" than the surrounding water so they "leak" there salts out if they have skin infections) no good for soft water species like tetra's and anything else from the amazon though.

 

[tapout]

What colour were the parents?

:D

Havent got a handle on this whole quoting two people in the one reply thing yet! The parents were a crowntail Blue male and a blue female of unknown origin there are some interesting colours coming through though, the gunmetal/blue fighter is going to be a stunner if its fins develop!

 

[LittleSmoke]

hehehe
I was cleaning up old stuff and found one of those comics with the sea monkeys ads...
Anyone remember the Sea Monkeys?
Not sure if it was a fish, I think it was a crustacean. Did any of you get to grow them? The ad used to say you could teach them tricks, heheheh... scam? ...
Any pictures?

 

[Klue]

Artemia salina nyos

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea-Monkey

I always wanted them as a kid. Have you seen that south park episode.

:D

 

[vanth]

They're freeze dried brine shrimp. You can reanimate them. Zombie shrimp!

No tricks though.

 

[eggman]

My fish eat sea monkeys everyday

They love them for all of their monkey goodness

 

[Samadhi]

I love giving brine shrimp to our fish... I bought sea monkeys when i was little and they grew.

I also remember Mr Samadhi and I, taking a walk to my local servo when we first started dating - we were chopped, and thought it would be awesome to buy sea-monkeys - they didn't grow, though, but it was fun.

 

[tapout]

They're freeze dried brine shrimp. You can reanimate them. Zombie shrimp!

No tricks though.

They're actually collected from salt lakes, not freeze dried. They are a freshwater shrimp adapted to living in high salinity salt lakes, when the lakes fill up they breed like crazy, as they dry out they start to produce resting cysts that can stay in the mud for months until the lake fills up again, unless the cysts are collected and sent off for packaging. There a pretty useless fish feed, particulary live shrimp as they have a pretty poor nutritional profile, better off getting frozen mysid shrimp. And you can get them to do "tricks", they are phototaxic meaning they are attracted to light, any "trick" is just them following a light, but it can look pretty cool.

 

[Klue]

:D

 

[vanth]

Oh. I'm not sure why I thought they were freeze dried. I have really enjoyed using the phrase "freeze dried brine shrimp" throughout my life. And now it is over.

I stand by my statement that they don't do tricks though. Unless sunflowers can also be described as "doing tricks".