A few more questions (sorry).

[Marne]

Picked up another tank today (our 3rd tank) as wanted a tank to put guppy fry in. Is a 30ltr tank ok just to keep fry in until they go into a bigger tank or are sold? our females are still young so not producing huge amounts of fry (one had 8 babbies last week and the other 2 are about to give birth). At the moment the fry from last week are still in the breeding box/net and cant go into the small tank until it cycled. Is there anyway i can speed up the cycle? i cant realy take media from the other tanks as i did this last week (so both tanks are running on 50% cycled media and 50% new)?

Another question, i'm still having problems with white spot on one of my male guppies, i have tried several treatments but he seems to be getting worse and has now passed it on to another, theres only 4 guppies in the tank at the moment but i dont want to loose them all to white spot. Whats the best thing to treat it with?

Last question, dd1 saw a tank with marbles in the bottom (instead of gravel), are marbles and glass pebbles ok for tanks?

Marbles and glass are fine because they're inert. It'll be a bugger trying to vac between them but I used to have a tank with cobble stones in and found using an airline to syphon made it easier to get in all the little cracks. Took ages though.

Some strains of whitespot are resistant to some meds. The Waterlife treatments have got a good reputation, Protozin is the stuff that treats whitespot. Make sure you finish the whole treatment.

30 litres is pretty small for a lot of fry, could you get one of those plastic storage boxes for now? There is this stuff you can get called bactinettes that is good speeding up a cycle but not many places sell it and I wouldn't recommend it really- I've used it in an emergency (filter got switched off, thanks DH) and it helped but I still prefer a good old fashioned fishless cycle. Up to you though.

Thank you, i'm hoping we wont have too many fry (yet), we had 8 from the first fish but the other 2 are starting to look huge, if they have too many i will keep some in the adult tank (if they get eaten they get eaten). I have had to order a new filter for the new tank, although the filter does work its not great and the carbon cartridge has gone (so not much use and its a tiny, rubbish filter), i might be able to take media from one of the other tanks in a week or 2 so might be able to speed it up by a week.

I didn't think about the vacuming problem with the marbles, they are in the 30ltr fry tank so shouldn't be too bad to vacum (i hope).

Will check which white sopt treatment i have been using, will doing more water changes help too, i have a baby Molly in the tank and i dont want him getting white spot, baby Molly will have to go to a new home anyway as he's going to get lonley (the other 3 babbies got eaten or died) .

Also, how 'squared off' has a guppy got to be before birth is near? one of them is looking rather square but no sign of babbies .

Wait, have you been running carbon in the filter while using whitespot treatment? That'll be why it's not working, the carbon will have removed the meds from the water.

I know most filters say to use carbon all the time but it's not necessary- it's handy to have some spare just in case you need to remove pollutants but hardly anyone uses them all the time. It's just another way for the manufacturers to make money off people

Eau, i'm using a stingray 15 filter, it has 2 little carbon cartridges in it (i think thats what they are?) so should i remove them from the tank with the white spot in whilst treating? i have ordered another stingray for the new tank (as they seem to work well in the other 2 tanks), the small filter in the new tank just has sponge in it and no carbon so will that be ok for now? should i put the sponge out of it into the stingray when i get it (as it will already be 5-6 days into it cycle) or should i just start the cycle again with the new media?

Yes, I would ditch all the carbon from all the filters for now. Sorry, I am tired and I can't figure out your last question- it's been a long day! Can you draw me a picture or something?

Thank you (i will ditch the carbon and hope it helps clear up the white spot) .

I'm confused about the whole 'ready to give birth' thing, have googled and looked at so many pictures, i didn't notice when the first one was ready (she just spat them out, didn't even look that fat), one of the others looks quite fat and almost square but she has looked like this for a couple days, i have no idea when she will give birth. I keep checking as i dont want them all to get eaten. I'm sure after a while i will dread them producing more babbies and my house will be taken over by guppies.

If you're not sure then you could put in a couple of handfuls of java moss or an upturned mesh box with holes big enough for the babies to swim in but not the adults iyswim.

Sounds like a good plan, the last babbies were ok (though i'm not sure how many were eaten), we fished the 8 out as soon as i saw them. The tanks in dd1's room so cant watch it all day.