Forum for non US citizens

[Vanessa K]

Hi,

I just love aquarium co-op, Cory is a guru to me. My problem is that I don't live in the US, I live in Sweden (Nobel prize?). Sweden is a desert when it comes to fish keeping. Sure, there is a society for cichlid enthusiasts but that's about it. I used to keep cichlids but now I'm into puffers and that's almost unheard of. Pea puffers, yes, but the rest (as schoutedeni in my case) is a big "Que?!" I live in a small town, one hour from the capital, and I can't even find live food - not to mention snails. I've had to import the fish (from Germany). It took me a while to find them at all, the same for snails and live food like blood worms. Frozen, they rather starve. They're captive bred so one would think that they'd been used to frozen food, but nope. I'd like to have a thread for us non US citizens. Where to get yadayada. I live in the EU, and we have totally different brands. Sure, there is Germany, but the problem with Germans is that they speak German. I can cope, my German is okay, but I prefer to use English. Us Europeans, let's help each other! 

[Fish Folk]

I hope that you get some helpful connections. Unfortunately, there are not very many Europeans on this Forum. @mountaintoppufferkeeper may be able to suggest some feeding tips. He breeds interesting Puffers. 

[Lennie]

Maybe @TheSwissAquarist might help regarding your questions since they  are also from the Europe

Other than that, yes, I understand what you mean. You go watch a video on how to treat ich, and then you dont have ich-x in your country. You watch how to treat X disease/parasite but you end up being very limited with options or cant find it at all. However, since I started checking the ingredients of a product, I noticed I can actually find some other brands’ products  with very similar or same ingredients locally. So I would highly encourage to read ingredients overall.  

As dewormers like prazi and levamisole, I get mine from my vet. There is no storebought product available for me too. Maybe you can ask your vet if you can find any. But you will need to work to dose them correctly and safely.

If you ask me, I am not surprised that they are on live food diet. In fact, most live food cultures are sustainable (so more economic than constantly buying frozen food. Why would you freeze yours if it isnt something that goes bad or loses nutrition right? ) and more interesting to fish, and great to raise fry and trigger fish to spawn. Especially for fish like murder beans, it is the main diet.  If possible, having your own sterile food cultures could be a better idea, this way, you will be less concerned about finding food I believe. But can be a lil challenging to find cultures, and when you do, having a sterile one sometimes.

@Colu is from the UK and he is quite good with the diseases and medicine. Always helpful and caring. Maybe you guys would have access to similar products

 

 

Edited November 16, 2023 by Lennie

[beastie]

Sadly I cant help as much, because other than the ban of medicine like all dewormers thanks to the EU, Czech Republic is a big hub of fishkeeping, we have everything (except medicine but hey, we just dont use it).

For pea puffers you can always culture snail jars, tbh some of the snails live in outside ponds, but that is more of a question of your summer, to catch them and breed them in a jar for feeding. Some keepers here culture bloodworms and earthworms as way to feed their fish, also grindal worms. I am not sure if puffers like microworms, I doubt it.

In spring or when the airline ticket prices are good, I am planning to visit my friends in Stockholm, and I could bring you something, if I can board it on a plane. Otherwise you have to look for fishkeeping stores in the bigger cities that trade with glasser, or some local importers of food that ship them from US. I was able to buy repashy from one resseler, fluval bug bites from a german shop and some other smaller things to supplement.

[TheSwissAquarist]

On 11/15/2023 at 10:37 PM, Vanessa K said:

Hi,

I just love aquarium co-op, Cory is a guru to me. My problem is that I don't live in the US, I live in Sweden (Nobel prize?). Sweden is a desert when it comes to fish keeping. Sure, there is a society for cichlid enthusiasts but that's about it. I used to keep cichlids but now I'm into puffers and that's almost unheard of. Pea puffers, yes, but the rest (as schoutedeni in my case) is a big "Que?!" I live in a small town, one hour from the capital, and I can't even find live food - not to mention snails. I've had to import the fish (from Germany). It took me a while to find them at all, the same for snails and live food like blood worms. Frozen, they rather starve. They're captive bred so one would think that they'd been used to frozen food, but nope. I'd like to have a thread for us non US citizens. Where to get yadayada. I live in the EU, and we have totally different brands. Sure, there is Germany, but the problem with Germans is that they speak German. I can cope, my German is okay, but I prefer to use English. Us Europeans, let's help each other! 

Switzerland isn’t part of the EU, but we do have the same species & med regulations. However, I can get some in when my relatives come to visit from the UK. Otherwise my go-to med is garlic, or salt depending on the need. 
Do you want bladder or ramshorn snails? I can send them for free if you cover shipping. 
Sounds like Swedens even worse off than my LFS. 🫠

Thanks for the mention @Lennie!

[Colu]

Esha product are readily available in Europe esha exit that will treat white spot active ingredient are malachite green and methylene blue esha ndx active ingredient levamisole esha gdex active ingredient is praziquantel will treat most commonly encountered parasites  Sera Baktopur direct tables active ingredient is nifurpirinol a broad spectrum antibiotic is effective at treating gram negative bacterial disease  and aquarium salt will treat fungal infections and some external bacterial infections depending on the level used 

[TheSwissAquarist]

On 11/15/2023 at 10:37 PM, Vanessa K said:

Us Europeans, let's help each other! 

Tada!

[beastie]

On 11/16/2023 at 12:11 PM, Colu said:

Esha product are readily available in Europe esha exit that will treat white spot active ingredient are malachite green and methylene blue esha ndx active ingredient levamisole esha gdex active ingredient is praziquantel will treat most commonly encountered parasites  Sera Baktopur direct tables active ingredient is nifurpirinol a broad spectrum antibiotic is effective at treating gram negative bacterial disease  and aquarium salt will treat fungal infections and some external bacterial infections depending on the level used 

Hello

ndx and gdex are not sold for the past two years due to regulations and sera baktopur is also no longer sold. Just Exit and 2000 is available from esha now

[mountaintoppufferkeeper]

On 11/15/2023 at 10:39 PM, Fish Folk said:

I hope that you get some helpful connections. Unfortunately, there are not very many Europeans on this Forum. @mountaintoppufferkeeper may be able to suggest some feeding tips. He breeds interesting Puffers. 

@Fish Folk thanks for the mention..... not euorpean but am in the mountains. The closest I can come is the significant amount of scottish in the ancestry and the red beard to match it

My standard is a few  garlic extract (garlic guard) and a vitamin (vitachem) on foods.

Disclaimer: I havent yet needed to try this on the spotted congos. But if i have to try and treat without commercial  meds my homemade option (could potentially be risky) is a salt dip using tank water in a bucket/container to match the temp and ph of the tank at a 16 ppm salt concentration. I have not done the math on that ppm i use a tds meter to measure it. 

I observe the fish and remove them back to the fresh main tank water if they react poorly but will leave them in for a bit to make sure anything not puffer has a really bad day if they look tolerate it. 

On foods ive been having success with frozen raw tilapia cut into strips and soaked in vitachem and garlic extract drops even for spotted congos. 

Worms have been excellent. If you could do snails occasionally im sure it would be ok for their teeth. I have not seen a big issue with overgrowth here ....yet 

The F1 fry do have a bit of a snail shell collection going but they mostly jist eat those whiteworms which i culture on scrubber pads (soil-less) and kibble

[Fish Folk]

On 11/16/2023 at 8:04 AM, mountaintoppufferkeeper said:

The closest I can come is the significant amount of scottish in the ancestry

Scots Wha Hae!

On 11/16/2023 at 8:04 AM, mountaintoppufferkeeper said:

those whiteworms which i culture on scrubber pads (soil-less) and kibble

Please say more about this…

[Colu]

On 11/16/2023 at 11:30 AM, beastie said:

Hello

ndx and gdex are not sold for the past two years due to regulations and sera baktopur is also no longer sold. Just Exit and 2000 is available from esha now

In UK I still have access to these medication Esha 2000 is better at treating fungal infections it's only effective at treating minor bacterial issues I wouldn't use it to treat more serious bacterial infections  salt going to be best option for external bacterial infections and fungal if used in conjunction with esha 2000 will provide a more effective treatment salt and esha exit are effective at treating ich flubendazole or fenbendazole are found in over the counter dog dewormers and are effective at treating flukes nematode worms hook worms round worms 

[mountaintoppufferkeeper]

Thats a great song 🙂

@Fish Folk Not too elaborate just using plastic food containers with a vent for a little airflow. The standard green scrubber pads are stacked up 5 high or so. The top layer has a "trench" cut out to hold the kibble in it. I keep 1/4 " of water in it and flood/rinse  with water ever 5 days or so or when the worms finish the kibble. Its more copying the grindal worm method out there than anything the key has been keep them with a pool of water in the bottom. Its not as productive as other methods but no soil is nice. This setup is enough to feed out a tablespoon of worms every day if i keep the kibble full

[kammaroon]

On 11/16/2023 at 11:30 AM, beastie said:

ndx and gdex are not sold for the past two years due to regulations

I’ve seen them on a few EU (France and NL) websites still. 

Edited November 17, 2023 by kammaroon

[TheSwissAquarist]

On 11/16/2023 at 2:04 PM, mountaintoppufferkeeper said:

The closest I can come is the significant amount of scottish in the ancestry and the red beard to match it

Och aye laddie! 

[riioKen]

As Italian I have same problems with medical products. 

 

I solved with eBay and stocking all the meds that could be needed in future. 

Bought kanaplex, metroplex, prazipro, another for anchor worms and both api (something)Fix. 

Except kanaplex, never used the others. Almost 1 month for delivery 

[TheSwissAquarist]

I have found it pretty useful to use American EBay and pay extra for shipping. Not cheap but I was able to get my hands on a half-decent HOB that way.