Faran

These things happen, sorry for your loss. May I recommend always running an air driven sponge filter in every tank. This is very valuable in the case of suddenly discovering fry and being able to turn off the powered filtration, as well as redundancy. Better luck next time, looked like it was going to be a fun bidding war!

Basic wooden box made from ply, plastic runners for the sliding glass doors, three pieces of glass, polystyrene, paint and some tile grout.

865 bulbs are decent and cheap but if you want the equivalent of pet shop bulbs for half the price get the 965 bulbs. That's the same bulb but different packaging. If your local hardware barn doesn't have them in stock check for local Lamp Specialists or similar company who will be able to help you out for very competitive prices.

About 60 hours for eggs to hatch at 28 degrees. The fry are then in a wriggler stage where they will be closely guarded by the parents for 3 days then go free swimming and feed off the flanks of the parents. This "Discus milk" will be their primary food for the first couple weeks but you should start dribbling BBS or decap down the flanks of the parents within the first week to accustom them to the food and they will soon recognize it and feed readily. While the fry are too small to actually eat the decap/BBS you should take care to remove excess food an hour after feeding. This is where decap is particularly useful as BBS swim all over the tank and are hard to get out before they die and go off. Daily water changes of at least 20% as close to the water parameters of the tank the discus are breeding in is essential. If you don't have a system to pre-heat and dechlorinate water through aging and aeration yet, get working on it. If the discus breed successfully you'll be doing daily water changes for a very very long time. Hope that helps!

One of the main reasons why we got an HRV system in the house, actually.

Thanks Karen, was just coming to post that See everyone next Wednesday, and please remember that this is the AGM and annual subs will be collected. Cheers!

When raising discus a daily water change of 20% is all you need. Any more is pointless unless you're running no filtration at all, which requires a 50% daily water change. A 404 on the aquarium will be fine but I recommend filter maintenance every 3 months (rather than the normal 6 months) to keep it clean and the flow rate high. Turn the outlet of the filter towards the glass to reduce current. That's a massive tank for 6 discus and they should be very happy. Given the right planning, you may even spawn in the aquarium but a proper breeding tank will be needed for successful breeding. DO NOT keep neons with discus. It's rather like decking out a BMW with Toyota rims. Go with Cardinal tetras instead as they handle the higher temps and live longer (and look better). I recommend 150W of lighting, whatever form you choose. CO2 injection will still be fairly easy in a tank that size with anything from a simple ceramic diffuser. Best of luck with the new aquarium!

Hard to say without pictures but the best solution would be to replace the entire panel. If you go with your idea just be sure and silicone it from the inside as a leak will not be stopped if water finds a way through the crack.

Just looked through all my pics (there's heaps) and no pic of stumpy girl. Once my heat pump is back in operation and I don't have 99% humidity in there I'll be able to take my camera back in the fish room.

I have a stumpy girl for him!

Wow, the only decent pic I ever got of them was when they were still bagged up. Nice work!

I have four types of java fern here - needle (called narrow on auction as needles scare people), narrow (Philippine), common (wide) and frilled (windelov). Can't say how many other types are out there but I've seen a couple aquariums with varieties even I don't have. And yes alan, I have a little Bolbitis (african water fern) but most has died off after the shift and I'm trying to nurse the last bits I have back to health. I also have needle leaf java fern, here's a pic from my aquarium taken just a second ago.

Yup, that's an iguana and a water dragon all right. Sad that they had to go, NZ is a bit Jurassic with reptile laws, but there's a darn good reason for it!

Common Pond Snail, very common in aquariums and likely hitched in with plants. Thick jelly egg sacs with visible white dots. Doesn't really harm plants, good for a cleanup crew.

Green Iguanas are omnivores and will happily eat meat if given the opportunity. I owned one for a very long time and he was quite fond of Carne Asada Burritos.

The method I described is for a single person building or rebuilding an aquarium without assistance as taught to me by the local professional aquarium maker with 30+ years experience with glass. If you have someone that can help, by all means bead with silicone and place the glass afterwards carefully. Same local glass maker would charge $240 for a 120 x 45 x 45 aquarium with lots of bracing. The replacement glass would probably cost $30 to 50.

You need to flip the tank upside down and use a glass cutter to make diagonal lines out from the corners like this >< and then give it some good whacks to start it breaking. Then carefully pushe the glass down and pry the pieces away from the silicone. You then need to scrape the silicone, clean off the glass with methylated spirits and then put the new glass on and use popsicle sticks to keep a gap between it and the old glass. Then go around the aquarium carefully and squeeze the silicone in the gaps. Once this is mostly hardened (about an hour) you can remove the sticks and fill the gaps with silicone. When all that hardens flip the tank over and seal from the inside. A lot easier to do than explain!!

Sorry to say that sending live animals in or out of the country is strictly regulated and you would have a very difficult time getting them to Spain. I would contact NIWA and inquire about availability of these creatures outside of New Zealand? Thanks for educating me on them, didn't know we had anything like that in the country. Time to go hunting!

The tank looks great and very well balanced. No algae problems means you have everything pretty well sorted, so my advice would be don't change things up unless you start having problems. Did you use any Aquatic Mix under your sand or are the swords getting all their nutrients from the fert tabs? Keep them a bit starved or you'll end up with tank busters which will hide your stump completely. Well planned and executed, bravo! Oh, What kind of lighting are you running?

The water in our area comes pre-loaded with phosphates and yeah, if you look at my list of fish this tank is highly stocked with catfish.

Luke - Thanks bro Did the calculations on $$ the other day and it's nice to know I have a fairly nice car parked in my dining room Simian - Appreciate it. Sorry to say that this is still an open topped aquarium but simply has a plastic frame fascia at the top. It's a bit hard to explain so I'll just post a pic. You can see the additional bracing in this pic which I added to securely hold the 4ft light fitting stands. Inthe background you can still see a white tiger lotus flower which still bloomed throughout the shift. And while I'm at it I'll take a pic of the guts that run this baby - The Fluval 204 is filled with Phosphate remover and has a surface skimmer on the inlet and a CO2 reactor on the outlet. The FX5 is the primary biological and mechanical filtration and the CO2 system is a 3.5kg bottle (will be replaced by a 5kg bottle when it runs out) with an all-in-one (regulator, solenoid, needle valve, bubble counter and check valve) setup. One of the nicest features of this aquarium is the slide-out shelf that the filters sit on which makes maintenance a breeze!

SAEs are for BBA and there's no point keeping all the fish SA if the plants are from all over the world...

Thanks Caper The pleco you are referring to is the other Butterfly/Flounder Pleco (L168). You can see the larger better coloured butterfly pleco in the same picture but the smaller one tends to use its camouflage more often. Right now it's trying to look like sand and doing a fairly good job of it!

TGWH - Nope, I got mine from a friend but was a similar price to the one on TradeMe. Probably would have bought the other one but already purchased this before the price drop which got it sold. Lovely tank and the 12mm glass with black silicone is a nice touch. Discus pairing and establishing the pecking order is always annoying but necessary so the best thing to do is get them their own tank when they pair off... I have a garage full of them now A-town - yup pretty sure they're a male and female from odontal growth and size and colouration. Either that or one is that other butterfly plec species which would make sense as it's about 3/4 the size of the other. The L204 Flash Plecs are also a pair, I had some fry but nothing survived in the massive display tank with monster filters. Again, lots of pics of my plecs a while back - click here