My Showtank, ### Options

[PERRY]

OK so here it finally is... my show tank, for the best adult looking fish. But untill my green water grow barrels become established all the fish will stay here. Dual filteration and T-5 flourcent lighting.


Here is a top view of the tank so all my top view fish can be appreciated.


A pic of my newly purchased True Black Oranda (a stallion) I hope he dosent loose his black! Hes quite large though.

[PERRY]

OK so I have concluded that two of my fish have ich due to the white spots on there anal fins. I have removed my carbon form the filter and treated the water with Coppersafe the reccomended dose and Im feeding a diet of shrimp and peas to clean them out. THe water temp is a steady 72F. Im not going to lie this really bothers me and from now on I will quarinteen all new fish. I will leave the medication in the water for 1 month I did a 50% water change today and retreated with the correct dosage. Hopefully the ich will be eradicated any helpful advice welcome.

[eros904]

Is that really T5 or regular flourescent?

[PERRY]

Well the box I bought it in said T-5 and it was kinda expensive so I sure hope it is.

[PERRY]

Well after a few weeks of treatment the ich has subsided so after the treatment period is up I will put my carbon back in the filter do a larger water change and begin putting some fish in the grow barrels about 1 month from now when it warms up a little. I will also be putting live plants in the tank so any info on plants which wont be eaten and dont require much light would be helpful. I know amazon swords are great plants that are easier to take care of. ~THANKS

[small_ranchu]

Java fern is the best IMO.

[GlassGoldfish]

Do you not like to use salt for treating ich?

[PERRY]

Actually I used a mixture of three meds. Copper Safe to kill the ich, Salt in the tank at .03% to help fight it off, and melafix to help there wounds heal from the ick. But I feel salt alone is not effective enough espically with the super strong strain of ich I had I mean literally in one day my fish went from having nothing on them to being heavly infested (competely covered).

[orandaluv]

I've heard that all fish have the Ich bacteria, it's things like drastic changes in water temp or anything super stressful will bring it out. QT is always the best bet though, you never know how many parasites a new fish is carrying. I'm treating for parasites right now, my adult was showing signs of skin flukes. Looks to be under control but since Prazi is so safe, I'm continuing the treatment for a few weeks just to be safe. Parasite Clear from Jungle Labs was a good safe parasite med too, you might want to keep some around all the time.

I'm a strong believer in salt too, great soothing qualities for stress.

I have Anubias plants in my tank. My fish eat the flowers that bloom on it occasionally, but otherwise leave it alone. They love to play peek-a-boo with the broad leaves. If looked at my video, you'll also see that I have my plants in votive dishes. Makes for easy vacuuming. My tank is half bare-bottom too, which also makes for wasy cleaning. Does the black rock in your tank affect your ph at all? Just curious...

I don't know if this will come through or not, but here's a link about truly aquatic plants that work with goldfish.

http://www.kokosgoldfish.com/Plants.html

[PERRY]

Update: Just working on the head growths of most of the fish and getting some of them ready to go in the barrels....