DFishkeeper

Love  a fish room full of fish

Room there for another rack through the centre

Hi guys,

I'm unable to locate a pure strain of Metriaclima aurora on the East Coast and am hoping there may be some still around in WA.

I'm keen to keep a pure strain of these going so they aren't lost to the hobby in Australia. 

Cheers, Doug

most lfs have oxygen instore, try your local ones.

Back on topic, I along with many others of the "silent majority" in Australia will be watching Trump's presidency with interest before considering my voting options at future elections. I'm not happy at all with my current options.

I'm with you malawiman85, I'm sick and tired of our jellyfish politicians giving in to every minority interest group in Australia and overseas and using my taxes to pay for it.

And don't start me on "immigrants" who aren't interested in learning English and assimilating. As far as I'm concerned, we should welcome anybody of good character and background who wants to move to Australia because of the lifestyle and culture we have here and wants to become a part of it. The rest can buggar off.

I love Trump, at least he has the guts to outline what he stands for and be true to it, I'm so sick of our namby pamby backflipping faction driven career politicians here in Australia.

Only problem is I don't think the other politicians will let him get away with it, they will throw every roadblock they can at him. But at least he will be very vocal about what is happening and who exactly is stopping him and the American public will be able to see it. And if nothing else he will give politics in the US the huge shakeup it needed.

Now we just need the same thing to happen here in Oz.

Don't you hate it when you can smell something dead in the fishroom but can't find it.

I could smell something off for the last day or so but despite a couple of quick looks couldn't find a body big enough to generate the smell. On occasion I've had the odd big fish or bristlenose escape from a tank and stink the place out but have always been able to find them fairly quickly by following my nose.

But when I opened the fishroom this morning after being closed up all night I almost fainted from the smell. Luckily it became almost bearable once the room was opened up and aired, but I knew I had to find it as it would only get worse.

So I spent a few hours today trying to isolate the general area it seemed to be coming from and looking for it. I cleaned out most of one end of the fishroom, including moving and cleaning under and around my fish food/beer fridge and still no luck.

So as it was obvious the body wasn't in clear sight anywhere and was most likely stuck in some inaccessible little spot, I had a brainwave and went and got the trusty blue heeler. Since it was unlikely it would be in a place where she could try and roll in it (trust me, she would). And she was straight onto it, trying to get behind my main return pump and under the Nally megabin I use as a sump. So in I crawled with a torch and a scented hanky over my nose and there it was, a dead rat covered in maggots.

So sparing you the gory derails, once located I managed to drag it out and get it into a bag and in the wheely bin, losing my lunch a couple of times in the process.

At least one end of the fishroom has had a spring clean now

My understanding is that white spot has two life stages, one where it is visible as small white spots on the fish, and another where it is either encased and reproducing somewhere in the tank, or in the water enroute to either stage. This is apparently why white spot can seem to have disappeared from your fish only to reappear a few days later and be much worse.

If the fish had no visible signs of white spot when you purchased them, it is possible that either :

(i) the fish did not have whitespot when purchased and subsequently developed whitespot due to stress from different water conditions in your tank and non-optimal acclimitisation.

(ii) if you added the water from the bags the fish came in to your own tanks, you may have brought the whitespot in that way.

(iii) the fish may not have whitespot and may be suffering from something else altogether eg flukes.

It may be sad, but 50 years fishkeeping experience has taught me that quarantining new fish is very wise.

I don't believe the major problem exists on forums where there are experienced people available to help beginners who have joined a forum seeking guidance.

In SE Qld the major problem is with inexperienced breeders selling poor quality fish to other inexperienced people on facebook and gumtree cheaply. Plus the growth of Pet Barn style stores who have young people with no experience advising customers. And I just don't know how to provide guidance to these people if they are not participating in a forum.

I am 61yo and have been breeding African rift lake cichlids for 20+ years now and American cichlids for 10+ years before that. I believe there is no easy way to educate people, particularly if they don't believe they need education.

Like anything else in life, efficiency comes with a combination of education and experience. There are lots of avenues available nowadays to obtain information on how particular fish should look, I only had access to pictures in books and other hobbyists through Aquarium clubs and managed to get on the right track.

My best advice to beginners is to research how the fish you are breeding should look and spend time observing them as they grow, over time you will develop the ability to see anything out of the norm in a tank full of fish. If one or more fish look different to the majority, then you need to explore that further. And don't try to judge and sell them too small, grow them to at least 5cm for African cichlids when it is much easier to evaluate their quality.

Cheers, Doug

Hi Natalie,

I see you are a new member, welcome to the forum.

All fish are different and the broad question you are asking can only attract broad answers. All fish have different needs and if you are wanting specific answers, you may need to ask specific questions.

eg ~ We have some (type) peacocks, (number) in total and would like to breed them. We believe there are (number) of males and (number) of females. We have had them for (period), they are around (size) cm long and we keep them in a (size) tank (by themselves or with which other fish?). They have not bred for us and we would like some advice on how we might assist them to breed.

Cheers, Doug

On the occasions I have shipped fish to Perth I have found it works well to send them on a late flight the night before so they arrive in Perth late at night and are ready for quarantine inspection and pickup first thing the next morning.

Cheers, Doug

Hi Kathy,

I'm looking forward to following this fishroom build, quite a project

I use stainless steel strainers myself on my fry tanks (see link below) and have never had an issue with blockage and overflowing, or with fry getting through strainers. The mesh is quite fine on them and works well in fry tanks, and they screw straight into standard bulkhead fittings. Dural do free delivery Australia wide, so you can get a couple first and have a play with them before committing to a large order

http://www.duralirri...-Strainers.html

Cheers, Doug

Have you checked and cleaned the impellor?

I assume you guys know that City Farmers have been taken over by the Pet Barn (orange and black) chain, which is owned by Green Cross Vets.

Here in SE QLD they have rebadged and/or reconfigured all the City Farmers stores to the Pet Barn model, reducing significantly the number of holding tanks instore and the range of fish stocked, and restricting them to buying their fish only from AI in Melbourne.

They have also been taking over large numbers of existing privately owned pet shops and rebadging and reconfiguring them. On the Gold Coast alone in the last few months we have lost two longstanding shops that made an effort to stock a wide range of fish.

I personally believe this huge corporation is a real and growing threat to the diversity of the fishkeeping hobby in Australia and I refuse to support them by spending any of my money with them.

Unfortunately, this type of thing will happen more and more as we lose more specialist lfs due to the proliferation of large chain style pet barn type operations.

Cheers, Doug