Faran

Decorated/Clown Synos are known as "gentle giants" and don't harm a thing in the tank, even though they can grow up to 30cm-ish. I have one 17-18cm and it's definitely nocturnal though you can always see him in his cave (currently half of one of those big resin shipwrecks). Always amazing when I have to pull out the ship and actually see him swimming around. So yeah, odd behaviour for pictus cats. They're diurnal and pretty social. I used to have one that cruised the surface of the water upside down at feeding time gobbling flake. Never known them to eat other fish but if they fit in the mouth... must be some big pictus cats and small rummies tho. You sure you have Pictus Cats? - click on the link to see pics and the profile. Not an aggressive fish at all.

Sounds like you have some happy neons over there. Give them a tank in the dark with lots of java moss and see what happens!

JBL Plecochips. Also one of the only ones that have no copper in them, if that's any importance to anyone....

Thanks Caryl. Yeah, bottom tank was getting a bit spotty after the bloody tank above it kept leaking all over it these last 2 weeks :sigh: Too bad the new male decided I was trying to kill it when I was cleaning the glass and has been lurking in the shadows since... As you can see, the glass on this side is pretty streaky as he got very very irritated when I went over it the first time... I can see the paparazzi vans congregating at the bottom of my street now! I'm sure you wouldn't think that if you were a guppy! "Is it just me or is that leaf getting closer.... wait... are those eyes?..."

If they're charging you $150 for a used Jebo 819 and heater you may want to rethink that. Brand new 819s are currently $150 at Hutt Pet Centre and a brand new 300W heater can be picked up for $30-$60 depending on brand and seller. My opinion is to NEVER trust a used heater after one cooked a tank of baby fish last month. There's a place not too far from me that a 300W stainless steel heater can be purchased for $55 or $65 (little fuzzy on the exact price, been a while) but Hutt Pets has good prices on heaters too.

With many discus like pigeon bloods or marlboro reds white is preferred as it decreases the amount of "peppering" that the fish displays. Not sure what strains you have, but it's not a bad choice for discus at all. I don't think the BGK will care much either way I had a discus tank with white gravel and it was pretty stunning. Only ripped it out as I made the tank a grow out/breeding tank instead of a display. Bullet tanks are the bomb. Not sure why Aqua One stopped making them. Some people say that people prefer the in-hood filters but I think they're horrible and these bullet tanks with an external canister filter are the way to go. I'm running a Jebo 819 on mine, what are you planning for yours?

Sup CatBrat, was hoping you'd contribute here. There's still one or two big catfish collections up in Auckland that haven't popped up yet. Ah, to work in a pet shop and get wholesale prices on fish.... :lol: Was good meeting you the other day, next time I'll try and catch ya when you're not so busy

Thanks for the PMs and hints and tips. I was right about the sexes (male and female) and will hopefully get them in a tank of their own to spawn some day soon!

Thanks for the PMs and hints and tips. I was right about the sexes (male and female) and will hopefully get them in a tank of their own to spawn some day soon!

Just a quick update. Almost a year after losing Billy-Bob #1 we've been lucky enough to track down an adult male and female. These two aren't nearly as reclusive as the original (okay the boy's still a bit shy, but give him time) and they actually seem to tolerate each other. Perhaps we'll have babies some day Sorry about the dirty glass and the "blue-eye" from the flash but after I turned up the lights and cleaned the glass the buy was hiding for the rest of the day. Here's a nice pic of "Angelina" who has been aptly renamed after realizing she's a she and for the curvaceous body

Wow, we have some good collections of cats! Oh, tru. Mine are Gold Line Royals as well. The colour difference between golds and normals is a bit vague but the golds definitely have more contrast. Sorry to break it to y'all but loaches may be bottom feeders but definitely aren't catfish. Great fish tho! I have 11 good sized clowns that I'm parting with soon - they're on TradeMe at the mo. evil - thanks bud, catfish seem to be my latest passion as they go so well with discus.

Yup, Melafix unless you see an actual infection.

I recently found out that importers are planning on bringing in a lot of new strains soon, so keep an eye out at your LFS. Most will be imported to breed rather than immediate sale and second generations will be available through your LFS probably within the next 6 months. Excited? I sure am!

Hey Sheelly, You'll notice that internals slow down quite a bit once they've been running for a little while and have a good layer of gunk but you'll be back to square one every time you give it a clean. My advice is to pack in a few extra sponges or wool - whatever filter media you usually put in there. An internal filter with wool wrapped around the outside looks a bit silly. I did an experiment where I controlled the intake flow by wrapping an internal with plastic with holes cut but I don't really recommend that. Give the extra padding a go and see how it works.

Bristlenose are my recommendation, and get young ones - as they get a wee bit lazy with cleaning glass as they get older. You should also invest in a magnetic glass cleaner so they aren't overburdened. Don't expect then to be able to handle the job by themselves if the tank is getting direct sunlight!

So here's my cats. I'll include links to planetcatfish on mine so if you want to do the same just "quote" my post and you'll have a cut and paste template to do the same. I use common names as the planetcatfish link will give you Scientific names for clarification if needed. Suckermouth Catfish Common Bristlenose Catfish (L???) - Heaps Albino Bristlenose Catfish (L???) - couple that I think are too young to sex Gold Cloud Pleco (L048) - 1x 6cm juvenile Snowball Pleco (L102) - 1x 15cm adult Clown Pleco (L104) - 4x 6cm juveniles Blue Phantom Pleco (L128) - 1x 7cm juvenile Golden Blackeyed Ancistrus (L144) - keeping and breeding - quite a few Starlight Bristlenose (L182) - breeding pair VERY close to spawning Royal Pleco (L190) - keeping with dreams of breeding someday. 1x 16cm and 1x 11cm. Flash Pleco (L204) - 3x 10cm youg adults Spotted Medusa Pleco (L255) - 1x male, more on the way.... Queen Arabesque Pleco (L260) - 1x adult male Gold Marbled Bristlenose (LDA08) - 2x 6cm adult females Synodontus Catfish Decorated/Clown Syno - 1x 17cm Polka Dot Syno - 1x 10cm Network Syno - 1x 12cm Corydoras Golden Leopard Corys - Heaps - keeping and breeding Adolfo's Cory - 3 - keeping Panda Corys - 10 - keeping and soon to breed Skunk Corys - Just the one Bronze Corys - half a dozen Whiptails Banded or Common Whiptails - Breeding Pair

Just wanted to know what everyone has lurking in their tanks these days. Quite often catfish are overlooked or unseen when visitors see tanks as they're often shy creatures that are best seen only during feeding times. Due to this, it's even hard for even us to remember what we have sometimes. Heck, I'm even starting to lose track so if you wanna just use this thread as an inventory checklist, it's in a section that you can come back and edit and update as you wish (I know I will).

Wow, huge improvement! Your use of the java fern and moss on the wood will really add a natural feel to the trunk effect once it's matured and "grown on" I have some internals over here that you can buy borrow rent - whatever mate, as long as it helps you out. If you give me some notice I can even start running one on a mature tank (snail and pest free) to help speed up your cycle.

Not too fussed. The tank guy will be called in soon to have another stab at fixing it as I don't think it matters how much silicone I throw on any more. Thanks for the offer but his glass prices are good enough to pay for the service alone. On a side note, you really need to come by and take a look at the new fish I have lurking in my tanks. Nothing huge and scarey but some nice rare critters. So back to the topic - filters. Do you think an internal, HOB or surface skimmer would be best for you? Have you thought of just scrubbing the @$#D(%R out of the wood with a steel brush until all the loose bits come off? Finding a wood with a harder density would be a good idea. I have a new piece of wood - pretty much a tree trunk - in the big tank (you haven't seen it yet) that came out of a river and since it's good hard wood and spent plenty of time in the water there's none of those issues involved.

Tank remodeling - yeah, about that.... */me kicks tank out window* I either get to strip it down and rebuild it or wad on about 10 more layers of silicone after a cracked base incident. It's already not very pretty and still leaking so I'm at an impasse on what I'm going to do with it in the end. My skimmer came with a filter and based on most Eheim products I can safely say it would cost more than $50. Just sitting in the garage unused at present but yeah, you can borrow it to figure out if it does what you need it to do. Feel free to buy one or make your own later down the line.

Sup Jono! I have one of those surface skimmers that I've been trying to figure out a way to put on my big discus tank. You're welcome to borrow it to clear up floaties or what not. I want it to clear up surface film from feeding frozen bloodworms. Will get to it eventually as it means an additional canister filter since it won't fir on the FX5. I'm pretty sure it's one of the Eheim jobs. Have you had a chat with a LFS about ordering them in?

Wow, that's harsh. Not gonna name anything specific but was it one of those all in one pre-manufactured kits? Probably a ladder diffuser? I have access to better versions of the same diffuser (see pic below) but I'm not sure if they'd help you at all as they're virtually the same device. Difference is that it attaches to the glass on the side (would be hard for a fish to get stuck in that limited amount of space) and it has covers over the ladder to keep it clean.

Hi Gannet, I think most people that get an AR-980 have the same problem. We had ours in the living room and it drove us nutty. To tell you the truth once they've matured the amount of water slows down and soon it has much less noise. For now, try putting some plastic straws in the downpipe to break the flow of water and reduce the noise. The other option is filter wool in te downpipe but that can get clogged, cause a backup and a flood so definitely try the straws and let us know how you got along. The other option is to fill the intake basket (the one at the bottom of the tube attached to the powerhead) with filter wool. This will 1) slow the flow and noise. 2) provide pre-filtration and lessen your filter maintenance. 3) save small/baby fish from getting sucked up. I'm trying the intake filter wool on my AR980 today

I think the only NZ allowed big cat is the Syno Decorus aka Clown Syno that ilah mentioned above. They're cool cats but a bit reclusive as they're nocturnal. I found them in just about every fish shop that I visited up there, but usually 10cm (max) specimens. As with most cats these (usually) increase in price with size. If you have a BIG tank you can sometimes come across people looking to rehome a 30cm specimen. They're known as a "gently giant" as they are actually community fish, which is rare for something this size!

LL - The look on your face when she jumped out of the water and took the food out of your hand was priceless You gotta admit, they're one ugly fish! Amazing predatory skills though. Keri - Dan would love that! Obviously he has a thing for predatory fish so mebbe someday you can set up a big tank with jurassic fish for him? I just brought home a marbled or ornate birchir for a friend and that's one COOL fish!