I had a gibby in a 3 foot tank for years. It stayed at 10" regardless of food and water changes. Even at 10" it was a bit cramped in the 3' tank. A 4 foot' wider tank sorted that out (although it didn't grow anymore).

g.

mostly night, but they learn that food tastes good during the day too! it's easy enough to coax them out, but they don't really get busy with the lights on. Of course there will always be exceptions though....

g.

You could also try feeding your pleco vegetables. A lump of courgette tied to a stone with a rubber band will give it something to chow down on. The goldfish won't be interested in it.

When you're getting the base built up from the ground, cement a plastic membrane over the top blocks. Joists usually rest on wall plates (bits of wood on the edges of the wall or on the blocks raised above ground level). There's usually a plastic membrane between the blocks and the wall plates. It ...

I assume you're on a ground floor or at least on a floor with a poured concrete base?

There have been numerous postings about feeding these guys! They tend to just suck up as much as is put in front of them. Approximately the same volume comes out the other end though. If your sailfin is thriving on its current diet, then you're probably doing fine. When the lights are off it ...

I find they go pale and blotchy in bright conditions. If you check it out while its feeding with the tank lights off and the room lights low, it should lose the pale patches.

g.

Someone should introduce electric eels to the noodler's waterways. The electric shock therapy might be good for them.

Thanks HH! I treated them before with Sterazin produced by Waterlife (http://www.waterlife.co.uk). It claims it treats intestinal worms at well as gill and body parasites. Any suggestions as to a better alternative? I'm also abandoning my fish tank for 2 weeks on Saturday so this could not have ...

Hi, My adult Gibbiceps hasn't eaten in over a week and is producing long stringy mucousy strands of faeces. Nothing was changed in the tank. I've done continuous water changes. All parameters seem to be fine. All the other fish seem OK too. I've treated the tank with an anti-parasitic before and ...

Waterlife have a product called Sterazin for deworming and de-fluking. It's about 5 of your earth pounds and certainly works for skin flukes. It claims to target most parsasites. The only drawback is it's a course that requires treatments on Day 1, 3, 5, 8 and 10 (or something like that). Doesn't ...

You shouldn't get fleas in Peat unless the place you stack it to dry is used by other beasties sheltering from the elements (cats, dogs, foxes, etc). What you might get are ticks from deer or sheep. These can live for quite some time on the vegetation on peat waiting for some nice warm blooded host ...

Hi I kept a gibbiceps in a 200l for 15 years. It was about 10-11 inches when I got it and never grew any more. If you arrange your tank well, it should have no problems getting around in comfort! I always leave a nice long runway clear. They spit their tablets out underneath themselves when they eat ...

What filtration do you use? How frequently do you do water changes and how much water do you change? What is the water temperature? What size is the tank? how many fish, etc, etc.

http://www.fishdoc.co.uk/disease/whitespot.htm

This will give you a good idea. The warmer your tank, the faster the white spots will go and the sooner the lifecycle will be complete. Don't mix your treatments. Use one and stick to it!

Guy

Malachite green and formalin are what Waterlife's Protozin contain! That should do the trick. Don't use it if you have any rays or momyrids in your tank. You'll need to treat again tomorrow, the next day and then again in about 4 or 5 days.

Fingers crossed....

Guy

Hi again Socom, I know Waterlife make a product called Protozin for Ich treatment. I've used it several times with my pl*cos and they've been fine. It recommends using a half dose for scaleless species though. Another word of caution, if you're using an undergravel filter, the treatment will impair ...

Hey Socom, Go to the "search" icon at the top of this screen and search for 'ich' and 'ick'. The general rule is to raise the temperature to 30C+, increase aeration, use a standard white spot treatment (sometimes you need to adjust dosage to half for scaleless fish). Make sure you don't have carbon ...

Thanks for the replies everyone! I'm still quite baffled as to what happened. I appreciate that the bacterial action of the undergravel filter would be compromised by the whitespot treatment, but I tested the cloudy water and everything (Ammonia, Nitrites, Nitrates, PH and temp) were all perfectly ...

the treatment I used was "bacteria friendly" and shouldn't have effected my under gravel filter. I've used similar treatments many times before in the past without a single fatality. The 90% water change seemed to work. Within half an hour, fish that were upside down on the top were darting around ...

Hi All. I had a visit by the piscine Grim Reaper over the weekend. I noticed a zebra danio had white spot over a week ago so commenced treatment. A few days after the last treatment I gave the tank a 50% water change. I added Stress Coat to the new water. Next morning, the water was slightly cloudy ...

By the way, zucchini is courgette in this part of the world! I think this causes confusion sometimes! The zucchini wins hands down with my pl*co. There was a thread about feeding pl*cos a while back:

http://forum.planetcatfish.com/viewtopic.php?t=744

Guy

Hi Jason, Getting all metric, 1 cubic metre of water weighs 1 ton (1 litre = 1 kg). What Edward said about older houses having springy floors is quite true (mine is late 1940s). Without getting too technical, the wall plates where the joists sit on the supporting walls are generally made of wood. On ...

Hi Westy! I don't think the Koi pond is a good idea. A cold snap in winter would leave the warmest part of your pond at a meagre 4* C and that's assuming it's quite deep. Even in the summer months your pond will only attain a temperature of approximately 18 to 20 degrees at most and even this will ...

I used to have a big sailfin in with my central American c*****ds. They lived together amicably until any of the c*****ds decided to start breeding, then the poor old sailfin would have his fins munched to tatters. The c*****ds just had to go

Guy

Hi Gail, I think PayPal have revised their security. The same happened to me a couple of days ago. You have to change your internet settings. If you're in Internet Explorer, select 'Tools', then go down to 'Internet Options'. Select the 'Privacy' tab, then move the slider down so the setting is at ...

Hi again!

I think my new Gibbiceps is settling in at last. I don't think it had ever eaten tablets before. It seems to be getting the hang of sucking them now! So it would seem you can teach an old cat new tricks!

Thanks!

Guy

Hi! I'm new to the group, but seeing as everyone is making a contribution... I used to feed an old Gibbiceps Koi pond floating sticks. It would choose them over anything else. The only drawback was it had to swim on it's back at the surface to hoover them up because they float. It became quite adept ...

Thanks for the reply and the welcome! The Gibby is about 11 inches. I've never seen a bigger one (although I understand they can grow bigger) and my last one must've been about 20 years old before it died (and that wasn't of old age - it got stuck in a Teapot in the tank when I was away on my ...

Hi! I kept a Gibbiceps for 15 years without a single problem. Its only perculiarity was it would rub its nose raw after the tank was cleaned out, but this only lasted a couple of days. I purchased a 'new' fully grown Gibby last week to replace the one that died a couple of years ago. The tank has ...