Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site mnetor.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcs!mnetor!clewis From: clewis@mnetor.UUCP (Chris Lewis) Newsgroups: net.pets Subject: Tropical Fish, several questions. Message-ID: <532@mnetor.UUCP> Date: Mon, 6-May-85 16:43:11 EDT Article-I.D.: mnetor.532 Posted: Mon May 6 16:43:11 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 6-May-85 18:54:43 EDT Organization: Computer X (CANADA) Ltd., Toronto, Ontario, Canada Lines: 79 My wife and I have just started a tropical fish tank with several types of fish: Neons, Mollies, Platies, and Corydoras. The books that are obtainable from most pet stores are quite small and don't have much detailed information. I would like to ask a couple of questions of fish fans: 1) The books talk about adding a small amount of sea-salt (eg: 1 tsp/gal) for the Mollies to keep them happy. It doesn't say whether this can be done in a tank with other fish - though it did say that it won't hurt plants in that quantity. Can we put a little salt into the community aquarium for the Mollies without hurting the other fish? 2) We're hoping to do some fish breeding - live-bearers at first. The books tell you to isolate the pregnant mother. However, for both the Platies and Mollies, the books tell you to avoid using breeding traps (because the mothers get claustrophobic and can hurt themselves trying to get out, or have premature births). We've had one pregnant Molly so far - we put her in a big (1 gal) goldfish bowl along with some plastic breeding grass and some fairly bushy live plants for the babies to hide in. In spite of several books saying that Mollies aren't particularly cannabalistic, she ate all but one of the babies (we were away while she was giving birth). (We had originally thought that she ate them all, so we left her in the tank for a day - after she was moved the little thing appeared just before I was about to dump all the water down the drain). Any suggestions on how to isolate pregnant mothers? Just *lots* more vegetation? 3) (related to "2") For various reasons (pregnancy, sickness etc.) we want to isolate individual fish from the main community aquarium. We have several goldfish bowls which are perfect in size for the task (we have even used well-washed and rinsed canning jars and ultra-large beer glasses). The only problem is temperature. We would like to keep the fish at 75 degrees or more (80 for the mollies) for the best results. They don't make tank heaters appropriate for anything less than about 5 gal tanks. They are too big physically, cost too much, and have too much power (temperature changes *very* fast when they turn on). Ideally we would like to use something 35mm film cannister size with only a few watts of power (say 5) - fixed setting would be okay. Does anybody know of where to find small heaters or where I could get schematics to make my own? I remember seeing construction articles years ago, but I don't have any of these magazines anymore. Preferably these should be really cheap (say < $10). We've tried to use light bulbs, but the heat regulation is very poor (10 degrees or more overnight). The best way that we have discovered so far to handle this is to put containers in the aquarium itself so that we can use the main aquarium's heat (and air). Right now, we have three fish isolation tanks - 1) Large beer glass sunken in the aquarium containing the 1 baby molly (has it's own airstone). We're waiting until she's as big as a Neon before putting her in with the other fish. 2) Home built (sewing thread and needlepoint plastic grid) top-less sieve-box attached to inside main aquarium rim containing 1 pregnant fish. There's so much foliage that she can barely move (but she still seems calm). 3) Purchased version of above containing another pregnant fish. It isn't very satisfactory. We cannot put the cover on the main aquarium. 4) Has anybody out there ever designed and made their own air-powered aquarium vacuum? I want to make one, and would appreciate anyone suggesting good "geometries" for one. I am currently thinking about something similar to an under-gravel filter pump. Eg: a fat tube containing an airstone at the bottom and an exit hose at the top running through a filter and back into the tank. -- Chris Lewis, UUCP: {allegra, linus, ihnp4}!utzoo!mnetor!clewis BELL: (416)-475-8980 ext. 321