Dignity of a Dane

I have a pleco that I'd like to move to a larger tank elsewhere in my house. Problem is, he's so large and with his spines, I can't use a net. How should I go about getting him out of the current tank and acclimating him to the new one? Would a plastic bucket be the best way to do this, or does anybody know of any tricks?

Also, what sorts of other things could eat algae in the "old" tank, but won't be bothered by the Jack Dempsey in it? (This pleco was added when he was already ~7 inches, much larger than the cichlid was).

I have a 100 gallon tank with 6 tiger barbs, 6 rosy barbs, 6 black skirt tetras, and 6 panda cory cats. It's got filtration for a 120 gallon tank (so there's a mild-moderate current in the tank) and is sparsely decorated with fake plants. I'm looking to introduce some live plants, but am unsure what to get. The tank lighting itself is low, but it does get a decent amount of light on one half of the tank via a window.

What sort of plants would be good? I'm sort of a novice when it comes to live plants- I've only ever dealt with java fern, elodea, and aponogeton.

Now, I've had my pretty little veiltail female for almost 5 years now. She's spent half of her life in a heated, peaceful community tank and the most recent two years in a 5 gallon tank of her own. It's heated to 80 degrees, has a filter w/ baffle to weaken current, live plants, and a couple small snails. She's fed 2-3 Betta pellets per day, occasionally substituted with bloodworms or brine shrimp. Her water quality is checked daily with partial water changes once per week. She's been very happy.

However, I fear that maybe she's coming to the end of her life. Now, I don't know how long you can get a betta fish to live, but considering the average owner can only get a couple years, I suppose 5 might be pushing it for her. Anyway, lately, she's been having difficulty swimming and swimming in one direction. She seems to keep listing off to her right when she swims. She also spends a lot of time just hanging on the bottom of her tank, not on the leaf of her favorite plant like she used to. Nothing significant has changed with her tank recently and she's not showing any other odd symptoms. Her appetite is normal.

So, is she old or am I dealing with a swim bladder problem? What should I do?

I've been given a go-ahead to work on researching and putting together a raw diet for my 3 Great Danes. Two are fully grown, and the other is about 9 months old. They're on Canidae kibble right now, except for Newman (adult) whose diet is supplemented with a quality wet food (Dave's 95% Premium Meats).

I've started some preliminary research, but it all just looks so complicated. I know I should feed 2-3% of their ideal weight per day, adjusting as needed for the individual dog. I don't know what to feed them, how to balance any of it out, what "rules of thumb" are good, etc.

So my question: What kind of raw diet do you feed? What kind would you recommend for a raw-novice and what would you recommend for giant breeds? What are some pointers? And finally, is it *REALLY* as complicated as it looks? Or have you managed to get into a pattern, rather than an exact science?

Good links or book recommendations would be nice, too. :)

I've been riding for a little more than a year and a half now, taking lessons. My instructor was very happy with the way I was progressing, so she started me on jumping about a month and a half ago. My biggest problem with jumping is that I roach my back. EVERY time. I can never get myself to not do it. My instructor says I go towards the jump in a good position, but as soon as the horse starts his jump, I curl up. We've been working on this problem since day one of jumping, but I still can't get it right and I'm starting to feel pretty hopeless, like I may as well quit. I also feel bad for making my horse go through the jumps over and over again while I screw it all up.

So, as my last resort here, anybody have any tips to try or any little thing to keep in mind or think about so I won't roach my back? I don't think it's because I'm afraid of the jump... It just happens, like instinct.

Newman is a very picky eater. He refuses to eat. He eats maybe a cup of food each day, of the 5 cups I give him that he *should* be eating. And don't start with the "a healthy dog won't starve" crap. I know that, but he seems hell bent on eating just enough to survive. Anyway, he should weigh about 150 lbs or so, but he currently weighs 122 lbs. His ribs are sticking out and he looks starved. He doesn't have worms and doesn't have food allergies. He'll be 3 in September, if that matters. He's always been this picky, and he's always been thin, so I doubt it's related to heat.

He's currently eating Canidae dry kibble. I've tried him on a raw diet, a diet of rice and chicken, adding cottage cheese and eggs, different kibbles (some varieties of grain free, all high quality), and various animal parts (duck gizzards, chicken legs, beef shanks, etc). He barely nibbled at these things. Yesterday, I tried offering him a wet food in addition to his kibble. It was Dave's 95% Premium Beef, a good food. I mixed it with whole eggs and cottage cheese to entice him to eat it. He did. He ate the whole lot. I gave him the same thing again today, and he wasn't interested at all. I'm frustrated.

Now I'm out of ideas. There has to be something left to try. Any ideas? Because I'm out of 'em.

I posted a question on this a while ago, but didn't get much help.

I have a 10 gallon Betta tank with a male fish and a couple small snails. It's heated. There's been an issue of blue green algae growth for awhile. I've been doing 10-15% water changes every day, and cleaning the sponge filter daily in a bucket of the tank water. The tank does not get direct sunlight- just the light from the hood light. I clean off the decorations every day. I've cut back a little on their feedings, down to every other day instead of daily to try and reduce waste. I've also added air stones to increase oxygen levels and surface agitation (though it's still not too much for the Betta). I've also put in a couple apontogen bulbs to compete with the blue-green algae for nutrients.

I've been doing this for a few weeks now, and I'm seeing NO improvement. I want to do everything I can before I stoop to adding chemicals to my tank. Any more ideas?

I have a male Betta fish in a 10 gallon tank that's heated to 80 degrees and filtered via a sponge filter. Awhile ago, I noticed some blue-green algae. I started doing a handful of things to try and control it without adding chemicals to the water.

I clean the filter every day in a bucket of the tank water. I do a 10% water change every day, and a 30% for the Saturday water change. I added an air stone to get more oxygen into the tank. I clean the cyanobacteria off of all the decorations every other day or so. I've cut back on feedings to every 2nd or 3rd day, to cut back on excess waste in the water. I added a couple apontogen bulbs to compete with the bacteria for nutrients in the water.

Problem is, the problem isn't getting any better. There's no improvement, and it's been about 2 weeks since I started fighting this. Any other suggestions? I'm at a loss.

June of last year, I had ALL 4 of my wisdom teeth removed. I did get dry sockets in the two bottoms. Anyway, the past week or two, I've started to feel a sore pain in my gums where my wisdom teeth used to be. It feels similarly to how it did when my wisdom teeth were coming in. The gums are slightly swollen, more on the left side than the right. Both top and bottom are affected. It's gotten progressively worse.

What should I do to ease the pain until I can call my dentist in the morning, considering tylenol and ibuprofen give me ulcers? What could be happening?

At the end of August, I'm moving into a dorm room for college. I have two Betta fish- one male, one female- in separate 5 gallon tanks. The tanks are heated, cycled, and filtered. These fish are my babies, so they're coming with me. I have checked with the school, and I am allowed these fish. The college is about a half hour away, so it's not a terribly long drive.

Does anybody have any pointers or tips for moving these guys? So far, all I can come up with is draining the tanks to just above the gravel level, putting the fish in the tiny containers they came in, and just hauling them that way. If I chose this method, I shouldn't have to really cycle, right? I'm open to any and all suggestions.

I have a 5 gallon tank with a male Betta fish in it. He has one live plant and a couple plastic ones. There's a sponge filter in the tank and it's heated to 80 degrees.

Last night, as I was feeding him, I notices a little bit of blue green algae growing on one of the plastic plants. I took it out, soaked it in near-boiling water, scrubbed it well, and set it back in the tank. That didn't help, as when I woke up this morning, the stuff was on most of the plants and on the walls of the tank.

So- what treatments do you recommend? I know about a handful of ways to treat the tank, but I want to know what you guys have found most effective.

Now, let me start this by saying, I have a vet appointment for the dog already. Tomorrow morning, in fact.

Boobs is one of my Danes. He'll be two in October. He was neutered this past spring. About a week ago, I noticed a hard, marble sized lump on his stomach. Today, it's the size of a fist. It's very solid. It's abnormally shaped and is much warmer than the rest of his body.

So, I guess I'm asking for opinions before I walk into the vet with him tomorrow. Any stories? Experiences with this kind of thing? It's got me very stressed out and anxious.

I have a pair of angelfish that are VERY bonded. They're in a 60 gallon hextank with an under gravel filter, water heated to 81 degrees, and plenty of tall plants and driftwood. They're alone in this tank, as the male is VERY aggressive. He even bites and attacks me when I put my hand into the water.

The two spawned and laid 3 batches of eggs over a 3 month period. They ate the first two batches, as I expected they would. The third batch all went bad and I had to remove them. It's been about 5 months since that last batch, and they haven't tried spawning since. I would like to get them breeding again at some point. Nothing in the tank has been changed.

Any ideas? They get tropical flakes for 4 of their 7 weekly feedings. They get freeze dried bloodworms for 2, and plankton flakes for the last.

I set up a 5 gallon tank for my female Betta fish so I can take her out of the community tank she's currently in. She's with a pair of angelfish right now, and while there isn't any fin nipping or aggression from either species, she spends much of her time hiding. So I'm moving her into her own little 5 gallon home.

I used half new gravel, half old (from the angelfish tank). One quarter old water, 3 quarters new. One new decoration, a live plant from the old tank, and a fist-sized porous rock from the old tank. The filter is new- I bought a 5gal kit. I put in 2 male guppies to cycle the tank.

A day after setting all this up, the levels of ammonia and nitrites were up and the nitrate was "negligible". Now, it's been 2 and a half weeks. I've tested the water twice and it appears to be fully cycled. Is it safe to add my Betta fish, or should I still wait for that 6-8 week mark?

Well, I'm STILL working on Newman's recall, and we've made little progress since I last asked a question about it almost a year ago. I work on this at least every other day by taking him out on a 50 foot lead, holding it at varying distances. When he responds when told, he gets a little piece of hot dog- one of the few treats he'll focus on in the show ring. Two problems I'm still having that totally ruin the recall...

1: Beyond 30 feet or so, he does not listen, and at that point he's too far on the lead to give it a correction tug. He *knows* "come". He does it flawlessly in the house, in the pet store, or at any closer distance. So, do I just reel in the rope as the mangy animal runs around with his tongue hanging out until he's close enough that I can jerk it? Or what? Any suggestions?

2: I'm not sure when to progress to NOT being on the lead during training. Obviously, We're not ready now, as he doesn't obey the command when he's a little farther out. But how/when do I go about attempting a recall outside AND offlead?

He's otherwise pretty well trained. He knows sit, stay, off, down, kennel, come (on the conditions listed above), watch it, leave it, and gentle (for taking food from hands without using teeth). But as I said, we've made VERY little progress on this in the past year even with all the work I put into it... I'm sort of losing hope.

I have 2 jack dempsey fish and a pleco in a 75 gallon long tank. The filter is designed for a 100 gallon tank and is heated to about 78 degrees. It's lightly planted, as the cichlids tend to dig up my plants during their excavation ventures. The cichlids are about 5 inches each and the pleco is 7 and a half inches.

So, I'd like to add more fish to this rather barren tank. Is it big enough and filtered enough to hold more fish? What other fish could I put in there?

I recently put a male rose tail Betta in a 5 gallon tank with a large mystery snail. It's heated to 80 degrees, is moderately planted, and has a filter. The current the filter makes in the tank is too strong for my Betta and his fancy fins. He's being blown around all over the place.

Any ideas on what to do to lessen the current? I've already tried strategically placing plants and decorations in his aquarium. Should I just invest in a sponge filter or is there another (cheaper?) alternative?

I have 4 Neons in a 10 gallon tank with one algae eater. I "rescued" these four fish from my friend's MASSIVELY overstocked tank and was preparing to add a handful more to the tank. They have a handful of silk plants. The water is filtered and heated- kept at a temperature of about 70 F. They have an air stone.

This morning, I noticed that one of the fish had been sucked up against the filter and had died. None of the other fish seem to be having any trouble swimming around the filter. Why this one? What should I change before I add the other 4-6 Neons I was planning on adding to this tank?

So, many of you know of my two Danes, Newman, 2, and Boobs, 1. The two have coexisted peacefully in the house for about a year now. They'd have their spats, but nothing bad considering both were intact. Well, this morning Boobs came home from his neutering.

When Newman saw Boobs, his hackles went up, his teeth were barred, and he lunged at Boobs' neck. We separated the two. Several hours later, we let Boobs out to drink some water and eat a little, and Newman, separated by a barrier, went nuts again. This was more than just their usual fights. I truly think Newman wants to kill Boobs and would do so if they weren't separated.

The only thing I can think of is that maybe Boobs smells different to Newman, enough so that Newman thinks he's a new adult male in his house. As I think about that more, though, it sounds less probable. I just don't know what's going on or how I should fix it. Thoughts?

Newman and Boobs have never had serious fights before. Newman is still getting along well with Otis, a 4 month old male Dane puppy. The two adults are separated.

About a week ago, I asked a question to verify if my betta had fin rot. He's a crowntail, so I couldn't tell right away that his fins were any more ragged than usual. The edges were dark/black and eventually I noticed that they were getting shorter and shorter. I followed the advice given, and now, the dark edges of the fin have become significantly reduced and he seems a bit more active. I'm noticing some small transparent areas on his fins where the fin had been eaten away. I take this to mean he's recovering. Problem, though. During the course of the infection, the poor fellow lost his entire left pectoral fin. He swims a bit awkwardly now, but seems to manage. Will this fin grow back, or is he lame for good?

Male crowntail betta. Water @ 77 degrees Fahrenheit. Filtered 7 gallon tank. He's alone in the tank with 2 mystery snails. Water is changed roughly every 10 days or so (more frequently because of the fin rot, lately). All chemical levels are in a "safe" range. Only natural plants and rocks as decorations.