Recent content by Don155

Could be something died and got hidden somewhere where its decomposing. Check everywhere, including inside your filters if you can't find one of your inhabitants. Heck check inside your filters anyway, you never know what can suddenly get sucked in there by chance.

One of my younger Cories did the same thing. Sadly I couldn't save him, but I did put a small block of Aquaclear 20 filter foam on the end of the filter intake to stop that from happening to my other small fish.

If it has surfacant in it DO NOT USE IT!! A Surfacant is a mild soap and will not work for a cycling tank. I see you're in the USA, If you've got an ACE hardware store in the area, go buy some of their brand ammonia. It's their "Janitorial strength" formula. HTH

I actually feed my Rainbowfishes freeze-dried bloodworms almost every day. Although I also feed them daphina every day too. What fish need to keep them healthy depends on the type of fish and their natural diet. The more accurately you can simulate the natural diet of your fish, the healthier...

Seacham's Prime. I wouldn't use anything else. http://www.seachem.com/products/product_pages/Prime.html

Good bacteria reside everywhere in the aquarium, but the filter sponges and bio media are espically rich with it as fresh water and oxygen are flowing through the filter constantly. I would wait until you get rid of the Ich before swapping the filter as the fish are already stressed by the...

Does the Nitrite test start out purple and go to a clear or almost light green state? If so, then the reading is offscale high. You can bring it back down to a readable level by diluting the sample with fresh tap water before you add the test drops. However if it stays a light blue the whole...

Listen to Tolak, those filters are quite good, and you can be flexible with what media you want to run. Most others are restricted when it comes to media choices. Just watch the little fish around the intake. Small fish can easily get stuck in the intake as my poor departed Peppered Cory can...

Hey there!! Read this site, they have breeding info: http://members.optushome.com.au/chelmon/Contents.htm HTH, Don T.

The readings still look a bit high. From what I've heard, you should shoot to keep both Ammonia and Nitrite below 1 ppm. Just continue changing the water until the readings come back within that range. You may need to do a couple of back to back changes of about 20-30% to get it there. (Change...

I hold it slightly away from the card under natural light. Funny my Nitrite reading never seems to get any darker than 2.0 until it goes a light green color inticating that its offscale high. The Nitrate test as well doesn't seem very accurate as it seems to read at about 5 ppm if there is any...

Also, don't hesitate to try to re-seed the tank with more bacteria from a mature tank if you think its taking too long. You're not limited to that one initial seeding, you can re-seed the bacteria at any time throughout the cycle to help speed the process. Of course that can be easier said than...

Daily partial water changes are too much for almost anybody, me included... :S I'd rather do a weekly or bi-weekly PWC. Anywhere from weekly at the minimum interval to monthly at the absolute maximum interval is best for most tanks. The next question is how much water to change out at any...

The point is, I've been advised that you should do a water change during a fishless cycle when your test readings seem to have frozen with the same readings for an extended amount of time. This state of "frozen" readings could be because pollution levels in the water have reached such a high...

Take a small cup of your tank water and dilute it with fresh tap water by say a factor of 3 or more. Then check your Nitrite reading again. The API test kit will "show" a reading of 0 if your Nitrites are actually too high for it to read. At this point in your cycle, I would say there will be...