Many thanks to everyone for the prompt answers. I have also bought a Japanese text book which does have latin scientific and Japanese common names. With this I am able to match the Japanese characters and photos. There is a huge range of fish here and very reasonable so despite a shortage of living ...

I was in a Tokyo Aquarium store recently and found a couple of fish I am trying to identify. There was a language barrier, absence of scientific names, no literature and a difference in common names and so I am hoping some of these are well known here. Information I received and my personal observat...

Good advice Mats. - Fishcube, you will get a friendlier reception at http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/ if your keeping larger (cat)fish. Less experienced aquarists overall but there are some fanatical fishkeepers and great ideas there too.

On the same topic but with a slightly different aspect, I have posted here before seeking help with hormone induced breeding and been criticised. We have slightly different laws in Australia which mean all rare fish here have been illegallly imported. Crazy prices for some of your everyday cheap fis...

Just feed some commercial algae wafers if you want to feed algae. Alternatively you could soak some spirulina or algae based flake and then sun dry onto some rocks. If your hellbent on growing algae I used to culture green algae on hardwood sticks. I had about 60 pieces approx 2.5cm x 2.5cm x 25cm l...

Have you siliconed some of those rocks? My first instinct was that it was a house of cards and some may move during vigorous spawning and trap your breeders. Good that you gave them so many choices and sizes though.

Here is a RTC photo I took last week. They are hand fed and seem to enjoy being touched.

weeellll if your very confident your ammonia and nitrite are zero and you simply have no idea then I would do a large water change or perhaps two half changes a day apart. If its a big water change then ideally the new water from another established tank. Could just be the white spot irritating it t...

Great thread/link Jonathan,
With each problem you had, I kept wishing I had known earlier so I could have offered some advice. Then again there are so many ways to do things.

Thanks for the read.

Good idea. Might I respectfully add that unless you need to change your water chemistry you can bypass the water aging barrel. No need for float valves, extra water pump, aging barrel etc. Water drip -> Overflow -> Drain. I usually put the overflow drain on the central sump. I change about 10% total...

I have several small above ground pools in a fishroom and have a large inground pool too. Its not too difficult but recommend a UV filter if it gets direct sunlight to reduce green water. Unsure how long/cold your winters get but outside I use solar heaters (home made or aquaculture models if your n...

Well if others have succeeded and you have not, what do you do....? Most fishkeepers would either keep trying till they get it right or try something new. What is your dosage difference between hydra and cory fry mortalities if you have been unsuccessful? I really cant see hydra being more copper re...

Larry, I HAVE used copper effectively to remove hydra with fish present. Baby cories are pretty sensitive but I would expect them to be okay. I was going to suggest vinegar eel as a good BBS alternative but I guess you want something that sits on the ground. Nuking the tank with a chlorine based com...

Larry, I found a great informative site about Hydra here: http://members.optushome.com.au/chelmon/Hydra.htm The author doesnt recommend copper but has some other suggestions. Some of which I have used for fish internal parasite treatmets successfully. How is your Hydra treatment going? I have a scie...

Larry, Just read your other post (before you started this thread) and in that other post you mention plant safe remmedies. I have not used copper with plants since I run all my tanks bare bottomed and keep strong light out of my fishrooms. ie I dont have any plants. Copper is probably okay but I hav...

Larry - I have periodic outbreaks of Hydra as I use a LOT of live Baby Brine Shrimp in my fry tanks. Luckily it is pretty easy to remove. I just run some Copper Sulphate through the tanks, usually without any fish fry present if possible. CuSO4 is much more detrimental to invertebrates than fish and...

Sounds like Hydra if they are mobile (Hydra oligactis). Ive also had anchor worm (Lernaea sp.) come in with goldfish but these are bigger and dont move, just spread when they multiply!! Google for images to make sure before you start treating for anything.

Paul, Thank you for your reasonable post. I think if more people took this reasonable approach here this issue wouldn't be an issue. I have read the big cat sticky and have emailed Shane in the past. While I agree the majority of people buy these cute little babies in ignorance, those which come her...

Paul, I am defending this because yet another potential forum member has gone. No way of telling how many others who have never even posted have also disapperaed. I am defending this because this forum has the potential to be so much more interesting to large cat keepers. There so many better ways t...

Excellent read thanks Shane. Always nice to hear first hand experiences, especially from intelligent sources.

Thanks again.

My point exactly. I wonder how many others have gone, never to return? Sharkman came here looking for some advice.

Steve, Excellent tip. I have used a sponge filter to add water into a smaller tank, but was just letting it overflow back. I can see the sponge at the bottom will concentrate the food and provide a constant known food location for these lazy fish. Previously I would add food in small amounts as freq...

There does seem to be a bit of hostility towards those keeping large fish or hormone induced breeding here & I am not even going to mention the hydrid word. While the moderators of this forum show sensible constraint, I have noticed the same negative sentiments expressed by Sharkman in many plac...

Mycopur is not methylene blue. It's very effective against fungal infections on fish and can be used to hatch eggs at one third dosage rate. I've had excellent results and rate this better than a UV although I do use UV for some eggs. I have also tried various tumblers, from a circular one which rot...

A few hormone injections might kick start breeding them naturally, especially as they get older. I've seen this happen before but time will tell. Wouldn't be too hard on yourself using hormones, it's not as easy as most people think. I use an anti fungal sera product called mycopur for hatching. It'...

I use an above ground wading pool - 3m diameter x 1m depth (for only about AUD$200) with a powerhead driven bucket filter into an overhead trickle. Approx 10 tonne of water which takes 7 hours to fill :( Luckily I have a sizeable fish room/shed so several of these are easy to setup. RTC are quite ta...

I've used fluidised beds but don't think they are necessary for breeding tanks. I use them effectively on high bioload tanks such as growout or high density stocked tanks and not noticed a decrease in oxygen. They do need to be watched to make sure they are always working through. As a result I empl...

There seems to be a bit of resistance to hormone bred fish in this thread. Seems to me that hormone induced breeding of healthy pure breed fish should be encouraged, not discriminated against. At very least it takes pressure of the wild populations. Natural breeding of captive fish in confined gene ...

Clare, Please let us know how it goes. A few weeks fasting won't hurt a large cat in the least if it is in good condition. One other thing that might help. I once had a 2 purruno (about 45cm) in with a large silver arowana (70cm). Although they seemed to get on well the silver would attack them on t...

Allan you can use yeast but it's very easy to overfeed which will crash the water quality. Best is if you collect real seawater and leave it in the sun to grow even more microscopic life if you can. Drip feed this in to feed the growing shrimp. Just think of them as baby fish if your already used to...