If you have very soft water, don't use salt anyway. The easiest way to raise hardness and not damage your other fish with salt is to add some crushed shells or crushed coral to the filter. The stuff is basically calcium carbonate and will increase both the water hardness and will bring the pH up a ...

I just got it delivered in the mail 2 days ago and it is next on my fish reading list after the dwarf seahorse book that I got a few days before. I thought it might make a good read for me because my main fish interest is goodeids which are almost all from Mexico originally.

Vince, don't take too much solace in living in Canada. Have you ever noticed how much Ottawa follows along with what Washington does as far as "environmental" laws? I don't think there is any real original environmental thought in either of those places. If one acts the other thinks it is a good ...

I registered to start at the promotional price and got a return by e-mail within minutes. It was a shortcut to the June issue. Since the deal is to start in July, you actually get 13 issues for a buck. I think this even beats Craig's list as a bargain.

On Edwards air base in June you will need some 99 factor just to be safe. There are never any clouds there so only the protection you bring with you will help you.

Thanks for that. I think you may be right about the Ancistrus cirrhosus. The single picture on your Ancistrus label looks very much like my little guys. A quick search using that ID showed me the "stressed coloration" and the saddle in the picture was much more pronounced than what I see. The very ...

I have kept cories for many years with good success and have had the occasional common plec in my bigger tanks but I recently got 3 juvenile bristlenose plecs at a club auction. I am at least aware enough to know that only the males get the bristly nose look to them but I don't have a clue how to ...

A simple place to start looking is the whole goodeid group. Several of them are extinct in the wild or threatened. They are delightful fish that I like to keep in my tanks and they breed readily. They are extinct or threatened mostly because they come from areas that are a bit short on water and the ...

Why can't you be at my club? I would be glad to split them with you and devote a tank to them all together. I am sure that they could be identified once they settled in. At that price I would gladly take them home and take a little time to sort them before selling whatever I didn't originally want ...

The biggest threat that I see to the hobby in the US is that the same rules about fish will apply in Alaska and American Samoa. The environments being considered are so diverse that proving a fish is safe in your own area will mean nothing. Most tropical fish and plants cannot survive the winters ...

There is a new bill in the US that you may not have heard about. It will ban almost all fish from aquariums and most other pets except cats and dogs. The pet industry has published this description http://www.pijac.org/files/public/US_HR_669.pdf
The official version that will be considered in ...

After the first day or two, carbon will not make any difference in ammonia fishless cycling. It will no longer be able to remove any ammonia by then. If you have another tank or know someone who does, try cleaning a filter in the tank before you dose your ammonia. The bacteria that you are trying to ...

Hi there Mark. Your logon looks awfully familiar to me. Welcome to the forum.

I have used the site and bought things for shipment to the US. In all cases I check the vendor's reputation / ranking to find out if it is someone I can trust. Much like E-bay vendors, a rating in the high 90s is not so hot because most people seem to be reluctant to post a negative rating. Anything ...

Those light fixtures would work fine for your situation. The bulbs need to be chosen for plants instead of the bulbs in the picture that would be better for a salt water reef tank.

I'm with all the rest of you when it comes to getting the bike out. I rode mine to work today. The high here was about at the freezing mark, 32F or 0C, and it snowed while I was driving to work. This picture was taken during much better summer weather but it is what I ride. I ride down to a few ...

Check the paleatus profile right here http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/species.php?species_id=271
It looks to me as if you got very lucky to have a cory that can go very cold without damage. According to their profile, you are just outside their acceptable temperature. I would not leave them ...

Your 40 watt bulb over a 90 gallon tank will not grow any plants. You will need to get at least a 2 tube shop light with T-8 bulbs to grow even java fern or anubias nana. More light demanding plants will of course need more light. The 03 actinic is not a very good lamp temperature for plants either ...

The best way that I have used to lower pH and hardness in my tanks is by mixing in RO water. The RO contains almost no dissolved solids so is way too soft to use alone. By mixing it with tap water you can get almost any softness that you want. You just measure the hardness of the tap and the RO and ...

I am no expert on diseases but that cory definitely has something wrong. Even when full of eggs, a cory's belly will never get that big.

If you have mounted the tongue and groove with the tongue up, it should shed water very well on its own. If you have mounted it with the groove side up, there is nothing that can be done short of a complete new covering to seal it because the groove will trap any slightest leak of moisture that ...

In a place like San Antonio, I would be quite worried about temperatures. Many of the more common Corydoras do not do well at even 80F. I suspect you often have daily average temperatures above that in your summers. If you add to that the effect of lots of sunshine, the above ground will likely go ...

Welcome to the forum Similiss. Sorry not to be able to help with the ID.

Such traits are also the raw material of the many variations we see bred into commercial strains of fish. Things like a balloon molly, various lyretail variations of fish and so forth probably happened once by an accident of genetic variation but was noticed and reinforced to give those that we see ...

The idea of a rough sand does not necessarily apply to a large grained sand. The sand in my tanks is fairly large grained but is rounded in shape if you examine the individual grains of sand. The sand to be careful not to use has sharp corners to it. Builder's sand in general is intended to be a ...

IMO a rough sand is a problem for any bottom dweller. Cories love to root around in the sand looking for food so they are easily injured by sharp sand or gravel. The habrosus move all over the tank but spend more time near the bottom than near the top. They do interpret any semi-level plant leaf as ...

That turnover rate is very high for a betta too. Of the 3, I like the habrosus for their lack of shyness. Any of them would work at 74F but that is a bit cold for a betta. Ten in a 10 gallon is a bit more than I would keep but you might be able to get away with it. As far as feeding, a nice big ...

As Panaque stated, there are many lovely fish that are the result of hybridizing programs. Almost any swordtail, molly or platy that you see in a shop is a hybrid fish. These fish are the bread and butter fish of the pet shops so I doubt you will see them signing up to refuse to carry hybrids. On ...

Nice looking fish you have there. I am no expert but to me it looks like a male from that angle but it is hard to tell without also seeing the fish from directly above. If you look at the other fish in the tank and you notice the noses seem to be higher or the belly lower compared to the one in the ...

Well abaigael04, RO/DI is an expensive way to force yourself to buy minerals to put into the water. No fish, not even extreme blackwater fish, can live in demineralized water. If you get DI you will be adding minerals back in by either using a chemical blend like RO Right or by blending with tap ...