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What she said.

  Goedendag, DD!   In terms of rescuing the one poor betta from a tank rammed full of DGs, that was offered the more cost-effective solution, certainly.

  On another forum, I am now Locky_McLockface - and if you don't know why that's significant, Google "Boaty McBoatface"!   The tank is looking shocking at the mo, I'm too embarrassed to post photos.   The same shop had a single male Peacock Gudgeon left,with no apparent price, and you know how...

Pah!   Over the years on this forum, I have advised countless people not to buy fish on impulse.   So there I was in one of my LFSs, and there was a crowntail in a tank full of dwarf gouramis, and it was just constantly hiding behind a large piece of bogwood.   So I bought it. He's quite happy now.

Thank you all.

I'm sorry, I've only just spotted your post.   I don't see any reason why not, but I would suggest that you make it clear that you haven't definitely made the decision to buy.

It's difficult to tell but on the face of it, it looks like a 0ppm result to me.   The API nitrate test is notorious for giving false zero results. The reagent is a powder which seems to easily precipitate out of the solution. If it is not properly dissolved, it won't change the colour of the...

A second point. No-one I have heard has seriously suggested that we want to abandon the reasons we originally joined, ie easier trade between countries. Therefore, we would, I suspect, look to become part of EFTA, the European Free Trade Area, joining Switzerland and Norway. Switzerland and...

  Do you not think there will be scaremongering from the "out" crowd also? Both sides will spin their rhetoric to make their view seem positive, and the other side negative. That's what every single politician ever does.   I personally think we have to suspend our political allegiances on this...

  How am I supposed to know what they are called in the U.S?! I'm British! Only a few days ago I was talking to an American friend by email and said I was going to see a physio and he didn't know what I meant! I now think before I type because what we call things here in the U.K can be totally...

Definitely have a canal tour in Amsterdam, it's one of those things that is a must-do - the boat drivers are all multi-lingual, they will often have to say their script in 3 or 4 different languages, depending upon what nationalities are on board.   Having seen the bike park at Amsterdam Central...

The simple answer is that once you have completed the cycle, you can  stock as you please, up to your maximum - so if you want to just put a couple of fish in, that's fine. You will have some "surplus" bacteria, that will go dormant. As you increase the stocking, you should  find that the...

  I don't know of any strip tests that test for salt, and I can't see why a water utility would add salt to water. Basically, water that comes out of a tap (fawcett) does not have salt in it.    Baylor, when people talk about neutral water, they pretty much always mean pH. The OP was answering a...

  The problem with adding fish food as a source of ammonia is that you it is virtually impossible to accurately control the amount of ammonia being added. If you read our fishless cycling instructions, you can see you do need to be fairly accurate. You can buy household ammonia from Amazon.  ...

  I would suggest that.  Let him acclimate for a few days to the new tank, and then raise the salinity after that.     I would agree with that.

  You heard wrong ;). If your API test is old, then the chemicals may be out of date, and that may have skewed the reading. Other than that, I'd always back a liquid kit over a paper strip.   The source of the stress would be the presence of nitrite (if it turns out that the API was right)...

85l is a bit small for kribs, or indeed any cichlids really, and they breed as readily as livebearers, and then actually look after their fry. You'd have a huge problem rehoming those fry. The possible exception might be shelldwellers, but even then I'm a bit dubious (not being a shelldweller...

  EA's suggestion would depend upon how much salinity the other tankmates in the freshwater tank can tolerate. 

I would agree that you need to get a test kit. As a minimum, you need to be able to test for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH. Most people on this forum recommend the API liquid drop tests, as they are reasonably good value, personally I prefer Salifert and Nutrafin, but the API works nicely.  ...

  That's annoying. I would suggest not to do the water change, then, as this will only dilute the treatment. With regard to how long to treat, I would say you would probably want to treat for a week to ten days. My logic behind this is, as I said before, the protozoa are only susceptible when...

With Ich (whitespot) treatments, follow the instructions on the bottle to the letter. Does for however long it says, remember that the protozoans inside the white cysts are protected from the medication, you have to wait for them to reach the free-swimming stage before they'll be treated. You...

  Oh, he will be. :) He's a very helpful chap, is our Byron.    My answer to that is to vaccuum the substrate as part of your weekly water change procedure.

  That's my personal fave too.

Welcome back Oldman, it's really good to see you here again. As others have said, you were a great help to me when I first started.

Could what be a possible start of Dropsy?

  To flesh that out a bit, carbon is used to remove chemical pollutants from the water, and most fish medications are removed using carbon. However, carbon filters become "spent" after around 4-6 weeks in use, so you would probably need to put a brand new carbon filter in the tank to remove your...

I've moved this to the Emergencies section.

  Coincidentally, we've just had our biggest jackpot ever in our National Lottery - in the run-up it was estimated to be around £54M, but with loads of people (myself included) buying additional tickets, it went up to around £64M. Ours is capped, so the draw after it hits £50M cannot be...

Meh, he's Admin. He's a law unto himself. 

Welcome to the forum, we hope you'll enjoy being part of the community.   Erm, yeah, you need bigger tanks. Clown loaches grow huge, and need to be in a group of 5 or more to really relax. The problem with having potentially large fish in small tanks, with plans to upgrade is that, with the best...

26l is too small for neons or cardinals, or indeed dwarf gourami and all the cory species I can think of.   Guppies - errrr, maybe.   A 26l, tbh, I'd only use it for shrimps or a betta.

"Scary Monsters...... Super Creeps" was one of the best albums ever, in my not so humble opinion.

For the information of those who don't know, Neale Monks is one of the worlds most respected aquarists.

It might well be that the other angel caused the loss of the eye. Unless you have a matched pair (male and female that "like" each other), two angels is often problematic.

TBH, I doubt it's the ammonia that's making them lethargic (if you use the API kit, that very often misreads a 0 as a 0.25ppm anyway), Most fish will not show outward signs of distress at that level of ammonia, and if you have low pH water, most ammonia will be in the less-harmful ammonium form...

With tiger barbs, it's a case of the more, the merrier.    I normally say that 6 is the minimum level for a shoal of a shoaling species, but with tigers, and the aggression issue, you would be better off with at least 8, and preferably more.   Yes, you are approaching your stocking limit, so I'd...

  Looking at it scientifically, I reckon the chances of us being the only sentient life in the universe are somewhere between nil and zero.   There are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand. A recent report stated that there are potentially more Earth-like planets in the...

It's not normally wise to add additional fish to take care of snails. Yes, loaches such as clowns, yo-yos, etc., will eat snails, but I would not recommend them. For a start, you haven't said how big your tank is, so we can't say whether it is suitable for a shoal of loaches or not.   I used to...

What you don't say is how often the fish are dying, and which species. Neons are often quite iffy in a newly established tank, so that might explain that one, although a 10 month tank would ordinarily be established (ie it's built up its biofilm).   It's a difficult one, but one thing is that...

More than likely, she dropped fry, and then she and the other tank mates ate the fry. After this time, she would probably be 3/4 of the way to the next fry drop. Guppies, as with all common livebearers, are basically fry-making factories.