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I know somebody who used to use a similar product. For long term use, they end up being about as expensive as strips for daily testing. When she wasn't testing daily anymore, strips were cheaper, and liquid tests much cheaper, as she could stretch an API kit for six months before some of the...

I hit all of my LFS at least once every couple weeks, I try to make it every week when they bring in new stock, but schedules don't always agree. I might buy fish from one of them once a month, sometimes less. Most of the managers make a point to know their regulars, and most of them know why...

Before I kept fish, I had a summer job at PetSmart in high school stocking shelves. Even though I rarely came into contact with customers (I started work an hour before closing) I still went through their training. They do water testing as a show - chances are they don't even use the right...

It happens sometimes with a first spawn. It can take a few tries for them to get things right.

Big chain stores generally won't buy fish. Another option is to use excess fry as feeders. Get yourself a 25 gallon tank and a mid-sized cichlid like a convict, and he'll take care of most any unhomeable fry. Even if you do have someplace to sell them, depending on what you breed and how...

Generally, all those cyprinids are intolerant of anything that looks too much like them. A red tailed shark won't mix with a rainbow shark. While I'm not entirely sure on the flying fox in that mix, I don't think I'd try mixing them, as I wouldn't trust the shark to behave - depending on your...

It depends on whether or not they're giving me the fish. If they are, I say "Thanks." If not, I say that if their son wants a new toy to occupy himself for another year or two, the Xbox 360 just got a price cut.

Ever seen what happens to a dog that's been restrained throughout it's life? It doesn't stop growing, it develops leg and spinal deformities and eventually dies far short of it's lifespan. Also, for a more gruesome example, look up a practice called footbinding. It works on the same principle...

I wish you could, too. I have twelve sites that I check before I give info on a fish I'm not entirely familiar with - nine of them give 36", the rest give 24". I do have a book that coincides with your info, but it heavily overstates all the tank sizes it gives - usually twice even the most...

The apple and ramshorn snails will eat unhealthy plants, but leave healthy ones alone. There is more than one species of apple snail, and at least one of them is a plant killer. While I'm bumped, here's a few updates: Patience finally paid off - Petricola came out and posed for this one...

They can get 4, but they usually don't get much more than 3". A 36 inch tank is sufficient for zebra loaches, they certainly aren't going to outgrow it. 36" is the normal recommended tank, sometimes as low as 24".

Wow, I guess fish getting stuck in the siphon is more common than I'd though. A trick I use now, make a little loop in the siphon and hold it with your other hand. If a fish starts getting sucked up, squeeze it to cut off the flow. You can unleash a little cloud of fish poop doing this, but it...

If I see it at the store, I tell them. Most of the stores here know me, and all of them at least have somebody there who knows their stuff and will put a hold on the tank if they catch anything. Sometimes they already know, but not always, and I've managed to catch problems with hiding fish that...

Considerably, since most of them are quite large and destroy the 1" per gallon rule anyway. Bottom feeding fish account for just as much as a comparable mid/surface fish. In fact, as for actual space in the tank, they also tend to take up more, since they share a two dimensional plane, from...

I don't think the shrimp would have done that much damage, at least not so quickly. I get leaves like that in some new plants occasionally. They may have been in poor shape or had their roots damaged at some point, or they may have been grown out of water, in which case they might die back...

The tank is in the neighborhood of 15 gallons, so by the rule, 15 inches as a starting point after a fishless cycle. Beyond that may be possible with sufficient filtration, and comes down to sustainability and water quality, which it's hard to gauge over the internet. Fish options depend on the...

If you wanted to go the DIY route like waterdrop suggests, hit fabric stores and craft stores. Not sure about the plastic portions, but you could easily get silk that would pass for leaves. Possible idea if you can't get plastic, attach them to something that'll sink, like a heavy glass bead or...

Your goal is 4-5 ppm of ammonia. The calculator link at the top of the page can help estimate how many milliliters that will take, but different brands of ammonia vary in their concentration, so it takes some trial and error either way. The way I estimated was to measure out a gallon of water...

Not that much you can really do with only 5" depth. You've got a good pick of fish so far - small tetras, barbs, male guppies, etc are probably best. For plants, Valis and other tall growing plants would be best. There's some artificial plants that will be tall enough, but valis will grow to...

From the description, bottled bacteria product. Unreliable at best, snake oil at worst. It doesn't name any of the bacteria in it, but it does name one of them by shape, which means nothing - "bacillus" could mean something you want in the tank, it could mean strep. Marine and freshwater tanks...

API Freshwater Master kit runs about $30 in the US, and is one of the most widely used and recommended on the forum. Other brands are similarly priced, you just want to make sure it has ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate tests. Most include pH as well, some include hardness and alkalinity tests...

Ammonia over 7 is around the territory where a cycle will sometimes stall. The pH should still be alright, but in my fishless cycle, it dropped by about 1 a week or so before it dropped by about 3 more. I think a big water change is in order, and then top back up to 4-5 ppm.

The liquid available in the US (Well, API's anyway - there's two other brands of liquid ammolock at my LFS I'm not familiar with) contains a chemical with a very long name which somebody has posted several times. It doesn't convert ammonia to ammonium, it converts it to an entirely different...

The one Rach3l has posted about in her other threads is a blood parrot, the hybrid. Nobody's completely sure what they were bred from (aside from the initial breeders, anyway), but there are likely suspects. They're often infertile, but not always. They'll form pairs with many new world...

Please review this thread in the meantime: http://www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=113861 Unfortunately, "letting the tank settle" for a week doesn't do anything. It's common advice from pet stores, but pet stores aren't renowned for giving good advice. Following the standard advice...

Interesting - looking them up, definitely a better match than FSAE or flying fox. Are the pink lips a mark of the species, or just a mature male? Any particular identifying features? I'd like to add this species to my SAE cheat sheet.

Looks like a baby blood parrot, or similar hybrid cichlid.

It has four references down at the bottom, but they're print references, some of which you might have to dig up by microfilm. Mythbusters did get Adam bitten by them quite a few times, without any ill effects. Spiders have venom for hunting and defense - few spiders have the ability to...

Some cichlids are perfectly fine in communities. It's not a long list, but it's not really a short list, either. Anglefish, apistogramas, and rams are the best known for this, kribensis, discus, festivium, severums, and some others can work depending on tankmates. Keyholes are one of the most...

With gravel it's a bit easier to control them - babies can't hold on and will get sucked up with a gravel vac. Sand, you'd suck up the sand at the same time, though.

That sounds more like it - 7.4 is a decent enough pH, though I know nothing about any of your fish. The 0.0, I'm assuming that's the ammonia result? Pure yellow and sky blue are the good 0/0 colors for ammonia and nitrite.

The inch per gallon rule is a good starting point, I still count my inches at 1.6"/gallon. HOwever, it's also generally an underestimate - everything past that is entirely dependent on water quality and related factors like maintenance and feeding.

Glad to hear she's settling in. They're not often recommended as a community fish, but I've had wonderful results with mine. If you have room in the tank, consider keyhole cichlids, too. The two species give add an interesting "big fish" look to a small fish community.

I'd say false SAE, actually. I'm not aware of a false CAE, only the actual CAE itself (which this isn't). Fairly similar to flying fox in most aspects, but all three siamese algae eaters have different taste in algae (false SAE, true SAE, and flying foxes get mixed up constantly at the LFS...

They will heal with time and water quality, but if ammonia is that high, there's other risks such as gill damage, which quite often doesn't heal. This may shorten the fish's life, but I've acquired fish from far worse conditions that have still recovered and had good quality of life. Any...

Depends on the snail. Apple snails can't do this, and ramshorns can, but it takes longer than pond snails. Trumpet snails actually give live birth, and while they don't breed that fast, they can still overrun a tank, and can do so very suddenly when they run out of food in the gravel and come...

Black spot disease is pretty unusual - it isn't something you generally develop at home, but comes in on wild caught fish (parrots, being a hybrid, aren't wild caught). I don't know anything else about it, as I've never dealt with it or even seen a definite case on this forum. Anyway, catching...

Have you bought a testing kit yet? I can't stress enough how important it is to get water stats in this situation - if there's anything at all amiss with the water quality, it'll have to be fixed post haste. Discus are sensitive to water quality, and as long as they aren't satisfied with it...

I doubt the spider getting eaten will be a problem. North America doesn't have too many dangerous spiders as far north as you are - most species that like to live in your house will likely feed on nothing bigger than a fly or mosquito. If it is a problem, there's probably not much you can do...

Most of the information on this site reflects that rainbow sharks will claim a very large territory - often encompassing the whole tank. Red tailed sharks have a worse reputation, but their relatives aren't entirely innocent. They're particularly intolerant of any similar species, or anything...