ok, opened it up tonite and two of my tanks had underfed and sick fish - about to die and the were all perfectly heathy when i closed them down last night. with these two tanks it was the way i went into them to start them up that i believe was different. I closed down all five as per your instructions and got dh to watch in case i did it wrong. When i went into each one this evening if I changed player then went into options before pressing play and changed the time (to 2xfaster speed) I got sick and dying/dead fish. for those where i pressed play first, get the 'Times Stopped' message and then went into options, were fine.

I shall try it again next time to see if this is the key.

hope this helps.

cleeby