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Hello from Australia


Josh W
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Well, an American by way of Australia. Before I was interested in keeping fish I lived 30 minutes away from the Aquarium Co-op store, and now that I'm into it I live on the other side of the world...

So far I've had a rough start to the hobby. Bought a bunch of guppies (and a pleco) from a sketchy local shop and watched them all get picked off one by one as I desperately tried to find the right medication to save them. After quite a few losses (and trying to translate medications from the US for here) I think the tank has become stable. Quite a demoralizing beginning. But now I'm setting up a quarantine tank so I'll be better prepared for the next arrivals.

If there are any Aussies on here I'd love to chat about how to find supplies down here.

Edited by Josh W
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Hey Josh! I live in Australia too. It sucks that you had to go through that! I also made many mistakes as a beginner, one time I let my tank get too hot during a heatwave here in Adelaide....unfortunately my first betta didn't survive 😞 I was so bummed. But I've learned a lot since then and am feeling way more confident now. It's just part of the hobby!

I get most of my supplies (such as tanks, heaters, filters) from a really good local shop here (Seaview aquariums), mostly because it's usually cheaper than buying online. Although sometimes I get some stuff from ebay/amazon, such as the Nicrew plant light which is a great budget LED that is brighter than the Aqua One lights which are sold in stores here. There's also some no-name brand LEDs on ebay that are super cheap, but not sure if I trust them yet haha.

I also like to buy my plants online because there's a bigger selection, my favourite website right now is z-aquatics.com.au - always happy with their quality and speed of delivery (although the latter might be dependent on how close you live to Melbourne, which is where they're based)

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Thanks for the info, peanut! I haven't had my tank through a summer here, so I'm gearing up to see how that turns out for me.

I'll check out the plant supplier you mentioned. I've found a good supplier near me for fish (located in Melbourne and does same-day delivery) but haven't tried the plants yet. I love all the videos on here, but it's often a challenge to translate the suggestions into products you can find, especially medications!

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Hi mate another Melbournian here.for plants I like z aquatics or Liverpool Creek aquariums with the lca all in one fertiliser being the best I have found.for fish and general goods you can't go past nature aquariums in mont Albert coburg aquarium in you guessed coburg or aquatico near highpoint. I'm in the north so also like uni hill aquarium in bundoora  as well but they tend toward salt more than fresh and new life in greensborough are pretty good to.

Edited by Fishoutawater
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Awesome, thanks for that!

I bought 8 guppies and a pleco from Nature Aquariums and I've only got three left alive (unknown disease), so I've switched over to Coburg now. Might go back to Nature for plants and aquascaping though.

Thanks especially for the fertilizer tip, I'll give that a look.

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Yes I love the LCA ferts too! they're way better than Seachem, more concentrated.

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I love all the videos on here, but it's often a challenge to translate the suggestions into products you can find, especially medications!

I know your pain, generally I find the meds from Blue Planet are a good replacement (and they're the cheapest I found so far in Oz) I guess the most important advice I can give is avoid "meds" that end in -fix, eg. Pimafix, Melafix etc. They're essentially snake oil. 

You mentioned your guppies suffered from a mystery illness, I don't know the details of their symptoms but if you have really soft water, that could be partially the cause - from what I've learned from Cory, they thrive far better in hard water. Also worth mentioning that a lot of guppy illnesses can be successfully treated with salt.

Edited by peanut
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Yep, Blue Planet has been what I've settled on as well. Nice that it's readily available, too.

I definitely have soft water here and have been using Equilibrium to slowly raise it up to acceptable limits, but I'm not sure that's what took out the guppies. They would get a white fluff (or white stringy poo) and then slowly stop moving their tails and lie down in different parts of the tank until they died. I took that to be bacterial and dosed the tank with tri-sulfa and now  I'm in the middle of an internal parasite regiment. So far everyone has been happy and healthy, but I'm giving it a few weeks before I think about getting more fish!

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Stringy white poop sounds like they definitely had some sort of internal parasites, as well as possibly a fungal/bacterial infection. Most likely they were already sick in the store, but the stress of moving to a new aquarium with different water parameters has taken a hit on their immune system, thus causing these symptoms to surface. Either way, I'm glad you're in control now 🙂

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I think it was columnaris too, which is why I dosed the whole tank with tri-sulfa. Then I followed that with internal parasite meds and things seem stable now.

Thanks for the link to the YouTube video--definitely useful to have not only the info but to have it translated into local meds!

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