Reminds me of using Vit B to fertilize phytoplankton blooms.

Thing is, this hobby is as much about people as it is about fish.

You meet good people in fish world online, in lfs, on gumtree, on ebay, at the jeti, in the dentist waiting room and even through magazines or books.

If you luck on a great fish dude/chick at a lfs then happy days!

If you meet a breeder who you can chat with and tour a fishroom over a few beers, THEN AWESOME.

If you have a mate or family who are "experts" to guide you then thats amazing.

Maybe you managed to join and active club.

Otherwise its forums and facebook.

people want the social side of the hobby, not just the fish side of it all.

On Saturday I went to a flowerhorn facebook group BBQ and it was great.

Awesome smoked meat, fresh chilli from his aquaponics and I got to meet a whole heap of fish people.

Was just....  just like the old days in fish world, before everyone thought buyers were going to rob them....

Any org that can capture the social aspect, will capture the hearts of hobbyists.

Also BBQ's are awesome!

One or 2 a year could be difference between a dead forum and a thriving group of online friends who also keep fish

You know in the trade, the "f word" is actually "fine".

As in

"have you tested your water?"

"yes its fine"

Which translates to ammonia 4ppm and nitrite 6ppm, pH 4.2, nitrates 890000900ppm

Still though, if the flowerhorn keeping savages can organise a BBQ, surely distinguished connoisseur's such as PCS can

Need to get the ol' gang back together!

Wheres Merjo?

Could visit the fam while we are there, Busselton expat here XD

Don.

As above a nitrite spike can do damage in the time it takes the biofiltration to convert it away. Its the perfect crime. Theres not much you can do, other than wait for the fishes body to excrete it. The problem is now not the nitrite in the aquariums water, but the nitrite in the fishes blood.

Testing the tapwater before you start on water changes can save the day here, likely this was the source of the nitrite spike. 

Adding salt slows nitrite getting into the fish, but does not get it out of the fish.

Nitrite poisoning symptoms ~ lethargy, gasping, bright colours.

While its just attacking the blood, once clots start forming propper you get random death spirals as they stroke out.

Its a terrible thing to watch

Get the filter outlets rippling the water surface as much as possible. Sounds like you have refilled high and dont have the same water agitation you had before the water change.

You added dechlorinator chemical yea?

If so, get some water agitation going! Even if you have to drop some water out.

Thats a nitrite spike. I dont know where you got the 0ppm nitrite reading you posted, but its wrong.

99% sure

Primes main duty is to remove the chlorine. I never do more than a 50% change as a sorta insurance to insulate me from throwing out chemistry too much.

Dont let this ruin the hobby for you.

Sometimes the cookie crumbles in a really sucky way

Plenty of coral gobies in the hobby

Any xenia is enough xenia XD

Bottom ones an umbie yea? Ah the memories you green freckled monsters you

It looks like a spilo

That is so awesome

Arripis truttaceus? Arius thalassinus? Neoarius midgleyi?

Many species are moving south due to climate change currents

Such great fish, much love for the sly foxes over here

"BLUE ZEBRA' Is about as close to an ID as I would give, pindani kinda expect black dorsal trim.

The one on left with less dots looks like a synodontis ocellifer.

Another option is to use facebook for image storage. The theory being they are too big to fail :/

The trick is in the fact that people dont actually know which microbes are flourishing in their filtration Lotta guessing going on.

Looks like columnaris, so bacterial. Something like wardley fungus-ade should do the trick nicely. Keeping temperature at or below 24degreesC is key to curing it before it kills the fish.

Possible melanophore migration due to ammonia burn about 2 weeks ago. Its a sign of healing but yea, the cause was prob weeks ago.

Chemi pure The power of carbon and macropourous resin combined!

I'd expect it to be bacterial, flexabacta infections are super common with wild caught fish like this. Its generally related to the increase in temperature from the wild to the aquarium. Very easy for slight handling damage to get infected. Temperature below 24 degrees C is the most important part of treatment IMHO.

Why bother with ammonia when its more effective to just use fish food?

*You dont need exact amounts of ammonia to cycle, just feed the tank the amount of fish food you would like to be able to feed your first batch of fish.

*At the end of cycling you then have a container of fish food to use, rather than a useless bottle of ammonia.

*Ammonia comes from protein, so the higher the protein content of fish food the more ammonia it produces.

*Just as important as the ammonia eaters, are the rotters, that break down protein into ammonia. Adding ammonia skips out the rotters, resulting in a less robust biofiltration colony.

*You will be growing microbes that specialise in handling the exact food you are feeding.

*Theres other stuff in there that feeds other microbes, things we dont test for but are also important that we build up microbes for.