Pet Forum / Aquaria / Freshwater / December 2004

I recently purchased five red phantom tetras.  I added them to an
established 10-gallon tank. They are rather small at this time and did
not want to add them to the 55 gallon aquarium with larger bleeding
heart tetras, yo-yo loaches, pl*co & Chinese algae eaters until they

I have a 12g tank, planted, with 5 golden barbs...wonderful fish, very
lively, hungry all the time.
I also have a hair algae problem I'm trying to get rid of...and now I'm
resigned to get another fish to get rid of it.

I have a large tank that I let get high in nitrates (it's been a while
since I did a water change), and I think two of my 8 gold barbs have
columnaris, but I'm not sure.
One had a large white patch on one side of its body, that has now

I have a 120 litre tank with five shubunkins and two golden loaches. I
have two questions:
1) All the plants in the tank are getting covered in some kind of brown
substance. It looks a bit like rust and it seems to stick only to the

I saw one of these fish for the first time tonight and thought they were
interesting.  Is it possible to keep a small fish like this in with
community fish like various tetras, angels, betta?  Info I've read says they
are not territorial and are peaceful.  However I'm not sure if ...

About six weeks ago I acquired two bettas (a blue male and a really pretty
blue female, both cheapies from LFSs) and housed them in a divided 10-gallon
tank (cycled with zero ammonia, planted, gravel bottom, mini biowheel,
heated to 78F, vacuumed and 25% water changed weekly). At ...

Is anyone selling freshwater shrimp in the UK?
Can someone give me a few good companies or individuals?
Thanks.

I was asked a question about Bettas, and not knowing for sure the
answer, I thought that I would post here and ask if anyone else may know
the answer.  Does anyone know if it would be okay if a Betta splendens
was housed in a plastic container?  The containers in question, are the

In various places in my tank and sump, I have noted the accumulation
of a very slippery white film on pieces of vinyl tubing.  The film
appears everywhere the tubing is in contact with water, without regard
to light.

after neglecting my aquarium to build up algea on the glass for some
time now (i've lost my tiny magnet cleaner) i've decided to go out and
finally buy a new, large one.
i've came home happily and went to clean the aquaium ... i've been at

I'm new here and need some help with a question regarding water quality.
I am hoping to set up an aquarium using my tap water, which is well
water. The water from my well is very hard and alkaline, so I have to
use a water softener.

My male beta disappeared 2 days ago and his bones reappeared alone today!!
He hadn't been feeling well lately, so I knew he probably wasn't long in
staying. I bought him at the same time as I bought the male beta I had in
the office tank. He died a couple of days ago, too!!  What ...

I've got two new albino oscars and for the first couple of weeks everything
was peachy. I put a power head in for a bit and found that one of them
didn't like it so I removed it and it seemed to go back to being okay. The
last couple of days one of them has been acting slow and ...

I was just wondering if snails or algae eaters add much to the production of
amonia in a tank.
My excessive nirate issue seems to have been resolved, but now I have a bit
of an algae bloom happening. I've been treating the algae for a couple of

or: "Do Fish Get Viruses?"
For quite a while now I have had three loaches (misgurnus mizolepis,
very similar to the dojo) in quarantine. I've had one for a week longer
than the others and it has never had a problem. I have posted about them