James & TBone -- thank you for the tips about changing the substrate with fish present : ) Shane, If I remove the fish -- will they really be all right crammed together in a 10 or 20 gallon tank? Will catching them all & keeping them there stress them out to the point of illness? I have 2 smaller ...

I want to change the substrate in my tank to either sand or a sand/gravel mix. But I only have one tank & don't have anywhere the fish can be while new substrate settles. Can fish handle substrate changes? I can only imagine how cloudy & awful it gets when pulling out all the old substrate, let ...

Mats, I really hope you know WE weren't going to flush the Pictus - our neighbor was going to... The same neighbor who leaves her poor dog outside in the middle of blizzards :evil: I am pretty sure we all the cherry barbs accounted for -- we'll keep track of them more carefully from now on. Is there ...

Thank you so much for your replies! Mats: I actually just purchased a new testing kit - the drops kind - since the strips can be a gigantic waste of time. I don't think it's off (unless it started that way?) since it's only a few weeks old. Richard: I think you may have a point... I don't think he's ...

We took in a pictus cat from a neighbor where it had outgrown her tank. He is about 4" & was doing fine for about 6 months - swimming around a lot, staking out his favorite cave, going nuts at feeding time, no matter what was fed - flake, shrimp pellets, blood worms, brine shrimp, etc. He would hog ...

Thanks for your reply Mats! I am fairly sure that these guys are actually the Pucallpas -- they're from a breeder in Ohio (http://brianstropicals.com/ohio_tropical_fish.html). He only sells offspring born in his aquariums, so they may be a few generations removed from Peru, but I think that is the ...

Hi, I've had a pair of Bushy Nose Plecos (Ancistrus sp. Pucallpa) in my 55g community tank for about 6 months now. They are great algae eaters, peaceful & very happy... Now my question is, how could I breed them? I keep reading how easy it is to get them to breed, but I was hoping to get some really ...

The poor guy's eyes definitely look sunken to me too : ( When my BN first arrived, they weren't interested in eating for almost a week. They finally did eat some blanched sweet potato, zuccini (wasn't blanched -- just in tank soaking for about 24h). I am always surprised to see them sucking in ...

Stu, Thanks for the reply! Perhaps ragged was the wrong way to describe it. I know a picture would be MUCH more helpful, but my Royal suddenly gets shy every time the camera appears... There's just a clear section (about 1/2" circle) in the middle of his tail. I can see lines running through it, but ...

I have had a Royal Panaque for about 1 1/2 years and his tail has always looked a bit ragged -- in the middle there are just the thick lines that 'support' it. I thought he was just in poor shape, though everyone else in the tank seems healthy & has beautiful, full fins. Then I looked through the ...

Hi, My male bushy nose pleco has developed strange white dots on the tips of each of his interopercular spines. It is definitely not ich & doesn't appear to be a cotton-like fungus either. It seems to be irritating him somewhat, as he is flaring & retracting the spines frequently today while he ...