Search results

Just to be clear here, you want to paint the OUTSIDE, not the inside of the glass. Paint can be easily removed with a razor blade from glass as most paint doesn't bond well with glass (there are exceptions, but usually the paint for glass is a fair bit more expensive). I have never had any...

No, from picture 6 the rainbow shows the tell tale vertical bands that all boesemani have. You can't always go by color, there are other signs like fin shape and body shape. It's a little difficult to tell without a closer picture.

When I paint the backs of my tanks, I use a good quality spray paint and just take my time. It's cheap, waterproof and covers well if you do 2 or 3 even coats (never hold a spray can still while painting, this causes runs and uneven coverage.) Here's a video of my tank with a black background.

Sounds like green water, and water changes are not going to fix it. Green water is caused by the presence of ammonia and light. There does not have to be much ammonia to trigger it though, less than what our test kits can measure. I recommend the "black out method." What you do is perform an...

The only thing missing is a heater. They need to be kept quite warm to hatch on time. They will still hatch at lower temperatures, just more slowly. Usually what I do to keep them warm is to put the hatching container inside a heated tank and attach it so that it won't tip over. If you put a...

From those pictures, that rainbow appears to be a female Melanotaenia boesemani. If you got a close up picture I could tell you for sure, I'm a rainbow guy :D

I feel sorry for the fish in people's tanks that don't gravel vac! All that leftover food and poop rotting produces excess ammonia. Besides, who wants to see a layer of poop when looking at a tank that hasn't had the substrate cleaned in quite a while. I understand is certain situations deep...

That's not always the case, high quality spirulina is generally as high or higher protein than standard tropical flakes. I've been using spirulina flakes for many years and having tried different brands, not all are created equal and some have many fillers. Here's a link to one of the best...

No, it's high in protein, but instead of being animal protein, it's plant protein. Pure spirulina flake: GUARANTEED ANALYSIS: Protein 45%- 60%, Carbohydrates 19%, Lipids 6%, Minerals 8%, Moisture 7% Tropical flake: Guaranteed Analysis Crude Protein 47.0% min. Crude Fat 10.0% min. Crude...

I don't see a huge problem with that, but your rainbows will need a little more care than your average tropical fish. See the article found here.

The first thing to do when you see your fish aren't doing well is to test for the primaries first: Ammonia, Nitrite, nitrate and pH. This should be performed any time that something seems off as many times, a simple presence of ammonia or nitrite can cause the very symptoms that you have listed...

Honestly I always hear about the benefits of moving around the substrate, and that snails do a good job about it. Don't you move the substrate around enough when you do gravel vacs? I always cover my entire gravel bed when I do a water change and have never used snails to "turn" the substrate...

If you are seeing a nitrite spike already, that means that there was some colonized bacteria on the media that was transferred. It seems like this is just a mini cycle and will probably sort itself out in a few days to a week. Just keep testing and do a water change when the ammonia or nitrite...

Yeah, from what I have read and observed on my own, the bacteria use ammonium just like ammonia with the result being nitrite and eventually nitrate. Think about it though, ammonia turns to ammonium with a low pH, but many people that have low pH set ups have that same ammonium turned into...

Hmm, taking your fish to a LFS for keeping? What about your cycle? After a few days your bacteria start to die off, and after 6 weeks they would all be dead leaving you with a fish-in cycling situation. Bad idea IMO.

To maintain that strong population it would be best to dose like you were when cycling. Inevitably there will be bacteria die off when you purchase your fish, but the die off depends on many things like number of fish, waste production, and feeding (there are other factors, but these seem most...

Spirulina flake is a very high protein algae flake, but it has fish meal in it too. It's fine to feed to most community fish, but variety is a good thing.

Well, too many snails usually means overfeeding. If your fish eat all the food given to them, there will be little left for the snails to eat. When a tank gets this overrun, take a piece of lettuce and lay it on the substrate and leave it overnight. In the morning, remove the lettuce leaf and...

How about a nice Severum?

If you get young discus, you will need DAILY large water changes and a high quality high protein diet to ensure proper growth and shape. Nobody likes looking at a discus that is shaped a little like an arrow head.

Fiddler crabs are not entirely aquatic, meaning that they NEED to be able to get out of the water and spend some time on land. Totally unsuitable for freshwater aquaria. Fiddler Crabs

the thing about plants, they would much rather use ammonia as food instead of nitrates. In fact, some plants will go as far as converting nitrate into ammonia. This might explain why there is a myth that you need tons of plants to use up all of the nitrate in a tank. If the plants are getting...

It's called a Nospill by Python. You attach it directly to your sink's faucet and you control the temperature by mixing hot/cold water from the tap. I haven't carried a bucket of water in 10 years :)

Water changes are important! They serve more than just to remove nitrates, in fact water changes replenish the trace minerals that are used up and they also remove some of the other compounds and toxins that we do not test for. There are literally hundreds of compounds that build up in your...

It's possible. With the API test kit, the nitrate test kit can be tricky. You need to shake the bottles thoroughly before you do the test, and then agitate the test tube for the full duration listed in the instructions. I usually test nitrate twice to make sure because of this.

Nitrate levels in a cycled tank should never be 0 (yes I know plants can use it, but it is very rare to have a nitrate reading of 0 even in a very heavily planted tank). I wouldn't worry too much about that pH. pH down is a real good way to mess up your tank in a hurry. It does what it says...

There really is no such thing as a maintenance free tank. You can definitely change the water using timers, etc, but there is no substitute for gravel cleaning, which must still be done manually.

Kind of off topic a little, but You seem to have the same problem that I do with pH (essentially a hardness problem). You may try crushed coral in your filters as I have written in my article (link can be found in my signature). I found that in my particular case, I could reliably predict when...

Actually, 4 weeks is best. Some afflictions can take a full 30 days for the fish to show symptoms. 2 weeks is better than none at all, but you are still taking a risk with less than 4 weeks.

That means that you have carbon dioxide in your tap water. This is a common thing.

Holy cow! Now that's expensive lol!

Make sure you keep your water nice and clean. Rainbows require a bit more care than your average tropical fish. They need weekly 50% (yup, 50%) water changes and high quality foods with at least 60% of their diet vegetable.

Make sure you treat for the entire duration of the recommended treatment. Ich has a life cycle and even though the cysts (white spots) are gone, the parasite may still be lurking in your tank.

Sounds like popeye to me. Popeye Info

From what I gather, they are pretty easy to get to spawn, but the problem is keeping them from eating their eggs/fry. I believe most move a male and several females into a special breeding tank with marbles as the substrate. When the fish spawn, the eggs fall down between the marbles where the...

You might try salt as a treatment for fin rot. I have used it in the past, and it seems to work well enough. The most important thing though is to make sure that there is no ammonia and nitrite, like WD said.

Ammonia is a bit alkaline so that could account for the slight rise from 8.5 to 9.0. I still think you have carbon dioxide in your tap water. When it leaves the tap water, your pH will rise since carbon dioxide dissolved in water makes carbonic acid (which in turn makes your pH show lower than...

Threadfin Rainbow Information Read that article. Loads of information in there.

Most LFS are in business to make money, and educating your customers can result in lower sales volume, BUT if a good LFS educates their customers, they usually will become repeat customers and provide word of mouth advertising which results in higher sales. Unfortunately it is easier to just...

I always just ran the worm between my thumb and forefinger squeezing lightly to clean most of the stuff out before I fed them to my fish. As long as they come from clean soil, just rinse em and squeeze them out and you will be fine.