A few questions..

[sara_of_sheffield]

Hiya
I havent introduced myself yet..been meaning to for ages..read lots of your posts though!
im from nottingham/sheffield in the uk and ive had my tank set up for about 4 months and ive just got a couple of questions

1) noticed earlier that down the front of the tank where the pebbles are that the things i thought were poos seem to be alive! the look like just little sticks like fish poo..but i can see something inside flowing...could these be tubifex worms (ive never put any in)..or something bad? (or imaginary!)

2) i got 2 male and 2 female dwarf gouramis a few weeks ago..getting on fine with everybody else etc..just noticed that the 2 orange males seem to now have got some brown patches on them..mainly near their heads. is this just a normal colour changing thing as they come into/out of mating season etc? they arent acting differently, and the brown just seems to be brown scales..no raised bits or fluffy lumps. i know my horsefaced loach change colour if they move to one end of the tank which has light stones..they lose their stripes, and my fire mouthed cichlids go dark and light..could this be something similar or are they ill? the water has no ammonia and nitrites etc seem fine. everybody is healthy, only had one death since i set up, and that was a horseface that had managed to somehow cut its face.

also the two blue female ones a re looking quite fat..im assuming this is just eggs..wouldnt be anything else would it?

think thats all for now..sure there was a lot more i wanted to know..will remember in time!

thanks a lot

Sara
xxxx

 

[Tempestuousfury]

to the forum. The place to introduce yourself was the newbie section, but that's ok. You can get a mod to move this or reenter it there.

I can answer the first one. Those worms show up whenever you have nitrogen in a tank. They are harmless unless you have the parasitic variety, but those would be latched onto your fish.

What type/size tank do you have? How long've you been a fish keeper.

Those are probably eggs, nothing more. However, you probably won't get them to breed (with a bubble nest, anyways) unless you set up a breeding tank. You can condition the fish right where they are and move them later.

 

[sara_of_sheffield]

hiya
had fish since i was little in ponds etc..and raised some fry inside but only had my indoor aquarium since about february. started off with the silver tipped tetras and 2 loach and they all seemed fine so went on from there. got several books etc and the guy at the local aquarium place seems to know what hes talking about..despite sounding really unenthusiastic!

tank is 4ft by 1.5..bigger than i was going to get but glad i have now..hasnt taken over my lounge as much as i thought it would. watch it more than the tv now..favourite sitting place right infront of it. my house bunnies are prob a bit jealous of me ignoring them for a glass box!
wanted to get some aquatic frogs but heard they eat small fish so thought id better not..though the ones i saw didn seem capable of catching anything!
checked my nitite levels the other day and it was really low..so do those worm things just come with even low levels?

the gouramis (mainly the guys) are sitting under some floating weed..kept looking for bubbles but cant tell if the ones that are there are from the air pump. got a fluval filter (think its the biggest one) and an airstone..seems to be keeping everything really clean..and the crabs seem to help with the bottom, though i guess i have a lot of bottom feeding things.

sara
xxx