They arrived this morning and are settling in atm, no probs so far and the packaging was excellent. I ended up paying £29 inc delivery for 6 and they're 2.5-4" fish, piccies to follow as soon as they've got used to the tank .

good stuff. i hope they settle in well.

would be interested to know what kind of tank and set up u r going to keep them in and to see pics, ofcourse.

edited note: i guess u r adding them to ur current 36" tank, doh, but would still be interested in the setup and pics

It's been a week now...
How are they going?
How did they go sorting out accommodation between themselves?
What foods have you tried out?

"Where are the pics?"

I just discovered another Juvenile this evening in the Main Tank. Another escapee from when I transferred the fry to the breeding tank, earlier in the year. That's about 10 weeks eluding detection (must have been trained by the SAS, hey Fishy?).

The BNs have settled in pretty well, the angels took a big interest in them for first day or so then got back to their normal knocking hell out of each other pair fighting behaviour of late. The BNs themselves are eating anything I've put in the tank for them, so far thats been a few bits of potato, a cucumber and some spinach plus tetra plecomin where the angels didn't find it. I'd like to think they get some frozen food but after 4 blocks the angels still got everything so I doubt it :/.

The other thing they like doing is digging in the sand substrate - to the point where about a third of the floor is just glass right now and they've moved a load to one side of the tank. Other than that you get to see 3-4 of them at any given time and the rest are hiding in the plantpots or bogwood. Theres also a load of holes in the sand around the plant pots and bogwood where they are trying to dig tunnels and a few of the bigger females are looking gravid I think - nice very round bellies, but I don't think the 2 males are old enough to do anything about it just yet.

I'll sort some piccies out after todays water change and move around, need to do some major work as I just had a cynobacter bloom hit the tank and half the plastic plants are covered in it and look bloody awful, hoping that a nice big water change and some phosphate remover will help kill it off this time.

good to hear all is well with ur new BNs. mine dig holes occasionaly. funny when u see sand n gravel start to fly about all over the place.

i thought i'd make a comment on the cynobacter. up here in Glasgow from talking to other fish keepers, i get the feeling that the water contains a certain amount of phosphates and seems to be worse in the winter too. i need to do a bit more to confirm this, i'll let u know if i find out for certain. if it is, i imagine it may be the same with u if ur water company is treating the water the same as they do here.

to keep it at bay i tend to do plenty of water changes to keep the nitrates down but ofcourse this could be a waste of time if the water is high in phosphates. the other thing i do is to black the tank out for a few days about once every month or two. i cover the tank with towels and leave the lights out for 3-4 days. when the lights are put back on all the visible cynobacter should be gone. i do 50% water change at this point to help remove any cynobacter that may be floating around unseen in the water. unfortunately with me it can and usualy does come back, but the black out every month or two keeps it at bay and stops the plants dying. the black out doesnt affect the plants either thankfully.

good luck with ur tank and fish.

Aye we get a bit of phosphate in the tapwater round here as well, it was the curse of my first marine tank where it spawned loads of the purple/pink version of cynobacter.

Also looks like I spoke too soon on everything going fine as well, the heater must have packed in over night cos the tank temp was at 15c this morning after 2hrs of central heating. So far the biggest female has died - she just had a fit then sank, and checking when I took her out her oviposter was down and looked blocked . A couple of the angels have some first signs of finrot where they fight but otherwise look ok and the cories don't seem to be bothered at all. Theres a new heater in raising the temp and later on I'll do the water change and put some myxaxin in to help clear the angels fins and keep an eye on how it goes.

bummer. i may be wrong but i get the feeling the temp wouldn't/shouldn't have killed the fish, not just one nights worth. i have on a couple of occasions forgot to plug my heater back in after a large water change. the worst was recently when i didnt remember for 4 days. when i noticed the tank was at 19c, god knows what the temp must have been during the night as it has been cold here recently and i dont have central heating. thankfully all my fish were ok, apart from being in the need of thermal underware and chittering a bit

its not clear from ur post, but i guess u mean it was one of ur new BN's that died. i'll cross my fngers for u and hope that this is the only casualty, which wouldnt be too bad if the others all survive ok.

a 50% water change and myaxin might be a good idea, just incase there is anything 'nasty' in the tank.

good luck

Perhaps because she was gravid, the low temperature had more effect?

You hear a lot of stories about Heaters failing. It seems everyone has an expensive bottle of 'fix-it' medicine under the tank, just in case...But no-one has a less expensive Heater, just in case.

What you really need, is a Digital Thermometer, with threshold alarms. We have them in electronics stores for Aus $20. Tank temp, Room temp, plus alarm if water goes outside of 24-28c (which is such a pain in the arse, you end up turning it off!).

Back to topic... I moved 11 Bristlenose back to the main tank on Saturday. So I've a few pics to post shortly. My count for that batch is still growing, as I discover the odd one I've missed previously. I'm now at 35 young Bristlenose.

Also have a couple of great bits of Video footage. I'll try and get that linked this week.

Oh, might be worth actually contacting your local Water Authority. They generally have their specs available.

I'm not sure it was a just one night thing and I'm kicking myself because it of it :/. I've not been to well either this weekend so they got a 30% water change and new heater while the whole family played dead as well, but nothing else has happened, all fish look great and the angels are spawning again as I type.

I'll put it down to exerience, the stress of moving and the cold tank must have been too much for her .

I just moved 11 Bristlenose into my main tank, bringing them up to 15. Here's a few of them in transit. I think they're about 14 weeks now.

The Guy's are now at 4.5 months. They've well and truely settled into the Large Tank. They hang around with 'Spot' (Dad) a lot. I'd have expected him to be chasing them off. They get hassled by the Keyhole Cichlids occasionally, but everyone's in that boat. Shortly before I took these pics, I actually saw all 15 that are in this tank, sitting together out front.