Are they white spots like specks of salt? If so it is ICH. Or is it larger white fuzzy spots, a fungus. Try this link for help with Goldfish. Just look under health or disease. Here is a link that might be useful: Goldfish Paradise Site

Nice eye hanzrobo that would have been a good title. I will probably plant the two pups from the top just because they will be cool on their own. Is it best to pry them off or cut them off, and then should I let them dry a little before placing in soil? I was thinking if I cut the bottom 18 inches or so off of the cactus I might be able to save it? the top half of the main trunk looks much healthier except for the weird blemishes.

Yeah, I garden at Terranora, close to Tweed Heads and they have not been happy despite the fact that in other gardens (neighbours) they seem to be doing quite well. I also grew them in Sydney where they flourished, but up here they've struggled. I brought up some of the (then) quite expensive yellow flowering ones but they failed completely. I put it down to the winters being too mild and the fact I had them in rather clayey soils. However, a couple of the old fashioned single flowering variety are doing well. I'd check your soil; good, friable loam, with good drainage and a touch of fertiliser should suit them.

You're not in over your head. You're in over your knowledge level. Fortunately the knowledge required is well below knee height, so it shouldn't be hard to get you back where you need to be. Watering properly is the key to lawn care. There you go. One simple element. Here's how you do it. We call it deep and infrequent. Deep mean one full inch all at one time. Measure one inch by placing cans like cat food or tuna cans, around the yard and turning on your sprinklers. Time how long it takes your system to fill the cans. That will become your new watering time. In a few weeks you will unset the sprinkler timer and reset for that time. But before you can do that we need to discuss infrequent. Infrequent means once per week when the temps get into the 90s, once every other week with temps in the 80s, once every 3 weeks with temps in the 70s, and once a month with temps below 70s. But you can't just do that. Your grass has "learned" to be watered frequently. You'll need to go gradually to infrequency required to give your grass roots time to grow down deep enough to take advantage of the deep watering. There are any number of ways to get to infrequent watering. Watering more deeply and less frequently now is the place to start. If you are watering every other day now, set it for every 3rd day and water to get 1/3 inch (from your can timer test). Do that for a week and then move to watering once every 5 days. Water the full inch and watch the grass carefully toward the end of the first 5 days. If it look stressed at 3-4 days, water again immediately, but do the full inch of water. Continue watching it like that and before you know it the grass will be going a full week (or 2) without needing a drink. One thing you will notice is the soil will dry out completely at the surface. That is expected. As long as there is water down where your new deep roots are, everything will be fine with the grass. This dry surface soil is going to prevent many weed seeds from germinating. Weed seeds need several days of continual moisture, sort of like you're doing now with your watering every other day. If you deny the seeds that continual moisture, they cannot sprout. Of course Mother Nature has Her plans for your rainfall, but you can control what you can control. If you need to reseed, NOW is the time to get hopping on that. Your window of opportunity is now through about mid September to get it done for next year. If you have Kentucky bluegrass you may not need it. Mow at your mower's highest setting unless you are reseeding. Fertilize on Memorial Day, Labor Day, and again after the grass stops growing but has not yet turned brown. Stay away from weed-n-feed products. If you need a fertilizer use a fertilizer. If you need to kill lots of weeds, spot spray with a liquid like Weed-B-Gone. The weed-n-feed products have several issues that you don't need to deal with if you just don't use them. Also if you watch TV in the early spring and see the advertising for seed and fertilizer, ignore them. Just wait to fertilize on Memorial Day to do it no matter what they guy in the newspaper or on TV says. They selling you products. If you fertilize early the grass uses up more root sugar than it would normally. Then by May the grass is exhausted of nutrients and requires an extra dose (great if they're selling you products). Once it awakens in the spring the grass is going to grow like it's on rocket fuel whether you fertilize or not, so just wait. If you want to apply a preemergent herbicide, put it down when you first see the forsythia blooming. Forsythia is an early blooming plant that seems to be a good predictor of weed seed germination. There you go. A crash course in the basics. It's relatively low hassle when you know what to do and what to avoid. Slightly less basic is to use organic fertilizers. Organics work completely differently from chemical fertilizers. The difference you'll notice first is that they don't seem to do anything for 3 weeks after you apply. All you have to do to compensate is to move your fertilizer schedule ahead of what I gave you by 3-4 weeks. A subtle difference with organics is you don't have to worry about applying too much. Organics can't hurt the grass if you overapply. Feeding organic fertilizer will improve the overall biological health of your soil. Organic gardeners never complain about their soil looking tired, dried up, worn out, depleted, or unhealthy. Hope that helps.