Recent content by canuck

I have a 29 gallon tank with 10 tetras (5 strawberry, 5 black skirt), 1 red wag platy, and 1 pleco. I want to add a fish with some different colour and was looking at a blue fighting fish at my local LFS. The fellow there said that I could put a fighting fish in with my current fish with no...

Well, I bought a new test kit today and got the following results: Ammonia: 0 Nitrate: 40 Nitrite: 0 Hardness: 150 Alkalinity: 80 pH: 7.8 Obviously the nitrates weren't reading properly on my old kit, if not everything. I had the water tested at my local PetsMart (the local LFS was closed...

The tank has been set up for about a year and the temperature is 78 degrees. I using a liquid test kit that is about a year old. Do they have a shelf life? I just checked the box but I don't see any kind of expiry date on it. I'll take some water to my LFS to double-check today. I got these...

I've got 10 red wag platys (4 of which are less than 6 weeks old), 4 black skirt tetras, 4 other tetras that are pink and silver and I can't remember the name of for the life of me :/ and a rubber lip pleco in a 29 gallon tank. There were two plecos until sometime today, when one of them died...

Hi Skye, Thanks for the help - you've helped me in the store a couple of times as well but I never seem to catch you there. Now I know when to find you... I got the feeding advice from Kevin as well, so I'll take your post as a vote of confidence for him. Thanks to everyone else who responded...

How often should I be feeding my fish? I have 4 tetras and 2 platys in a 29 gallon tank with artificial plants. I've had them for about 4 months. I was initially feeding them flakes twice a day, enough that it was eaten in 3-5 minutes. I've been having problems with brown algae and went to a...

I do gravel vac and change the water weekly (about a 10% change). I don't think I overfeed the fish... I give them enough that it is all eaten in 3 or 4 minutes, twice a day. Would that be considered overfeeding? The odd flake gets caught in the "current" and ends up at the bottom of the tank...

That does help - thanks for your advice!

Over the last week or so some kind of rust-colour deposit has been building up on the gravel, plants (plastic) and decorations in my tank. I've tested the water and all the levels are testing fine. I've searched around these forums a bit and it sounds like this is some kind of algae. The other...

Just a question about setting up a new betta tank (probably 2.5 gal). I read through the pinned post above and it sounds like the water in their cup needs to be gradually changed to fresh water before putting them in the tank, but I didn't see anything about setting up the tank. What I'm...

I picked up two female platies a few days before Christmas, not knowing that one or possibly both were pregnant. One of them had babies a few days later, which I separated into a little floating plastic breeding tank (probably not the correct term, I know :) ) that the fish store recommended...

Well, there are 4 little fish now so it looks like I've got a whole family. I'll see if they're all still there in the morning and if so, I guess I'll have to look at another option for keeping them. My daughter has already become quite attached. I have no idea what a breeder net looks like. If...

After a month or so of waiting impatiently for my tank to get through the fishless cycling process, I picked up two female platys a week ago today. As I was checking the tank tonight, I noticed a baby swimming around, which was a surprise to me. After reading some of the posts in this forum, it...

This kind of situation is by no means limited to an LFS or any other pet or livestock store. I've worked in the computer retail business for almost 20 years and we get people like this on a regular basis. They refuse to accept any advice that doesn't agree with their own (often misguided)...

I'm in the midst of setting up my new fishtank and I'm trying the fishless cycling process that was linked from one of the posts on this forum. The original article recommended adding 4-5 drops of ammonia per 10 gallons but the followup article recommends adding ammonia until it tests at about 5...