Faran

Most people keep Synodontis catfish with Malawis. There are a LOT of beautiful syno catfish out there and they are well armoured and can fend for themselves in cichlid tanks.

Soz, was just having fun. http://malawicichlids.com/index.htm will tell you every fish from Malawi there is, including cichlids. The ones common here in NZ are - Kenyi, Giraffe Haps, Tangerine, Zebras, Electric Blue, Red Shoulder Haps, and many others. It's a long list and you really just need to shop around to see what's available around you. From then on it's a matter of collecting different ones. Enjoy your new tank, we're here to help!

ROFL Ira :lol: Love it. Malawis look all the same to me. South American and Tangs, on the other hand... 8)

That last paragraph of DiverJohns was a little confusing so let me clarify. You should be doing frequent water changes (not just regular - daily) until the levels are zeroed. Regular (weekly or bi-weekly) water changes don't waste the Flourish.

I've seen similar units at the local grow shop. Asked about them but the guy behind the counter didn't know enough for me to get overly interested. Honestly forgot until now...

Interesting design, I've never seen one like that before. Yup, that'll work. Just toss it in your big tank for 3 days to get a mature colony then transfer it over to the little tank.

Best thing to do is to get a small air-powered sponge filter and let it run in your existing tank for a few (3) days. This will grow a decent bacteria colony and also provide fry-safe filtration for the new tank. I recommend you keep the breeding tank bare-bottom but feel free to take a container of gravel over to help the bacteria colony get started. You should be able to safely move a male into the new tank now with water from the old tank to settle while the filter gets a colony. Do you have any riccia? Highly recommend it or duckweed for bubble nest builders.

Oh, and avoid common plecos (plecostomus hypostomus) or any of the red-spot, gold-spot or other colour variants. I've had common plecs attack discus ruthlessly tearing off flesh and scales and it's really not something that I'd wish on any discus.

Visit planetcatfish and look up specific catfish that you're thinking about. Panaques of all kinds are good tank mates as they live in the higher temperature range but prefer chewing on wood to sucking on glass. Other than that, here's a few recommendations with common names - Snowball Pleco Gold Nugget Pleco Goldie/Sunshine Pleco Chocolate Zebra Pleco Bristlenose catfish Royal Panaques (sometimes called Royal Plecos) Clown Pleco The list goes on and on and on. The main thing is to make sure that you're not putting a cooler climate catfish in with high temperature discus or it will shorten their life span.

My setup was a VERY heavily planted 225L tank (100cm x 50cm x 45cm). Breeding happened in upside down flower pots on each end of the tank. Colony consisted of two males - one smaller than the other - and some females. Filtration was via external canister filter with a sponge over the intake strainer.

fishboi - when ancistrus breed there's usually one dominant male that all the ladies go to and the other males get no play. smcoleman - congrats, bud. I recently lost my breeding colony so I'll be hitting you up for some in the future.

What did the vet give you? Vets usually don't know a lot about fish diseases so I'm surprised to hear that. Hole in the Head (HitH) in discus is usually caused by stress or poor conditions. Check out the following site and read up on the flagellates that cause it and the proper courses of treatment with Metronidazole. Lastly I should mention that discus have many tiny holes over their head which are sensors and nostrils. I did read a previous post where you though your discus had white spot so I assume that the cysts have fallen away leaving holes? This is symptomatic of hexamatia (HitH) and it sounds like you've identified it properly and should be able to treat it accordingly. Aside from one or two breeders that aren't on these forums I'm probably the closest thing to a local discus expert that you can find. Upper Hutt is just a short drive from you, come out and I'll give you some pointers. http://article.dphnet.com/cat-02/spironucleus.shtml Oh, and keeping Angels and discus can be a bad idea. Angels carry worms and parasites that can be harmless to them but harmful to discus. Is the angel in the same tank with the discus? HitH is passed via ingestion of fecal matter so there is a possibility that you angel has contracted HitH as well if your discus are infected.

Best to do preventive maintenance with new plants by giving them a soak in Potassium Permaganate before introducing them to the tank. Sorry your Riccia died, come on out for a visit and pick some more up.

White Spot Cure - have never known it to harm anything except White Spot

Wow, I never gave my double dosing results. Well, I've been using the stuff for 3 months now and... it works!!! Yes, double the initial dose (which is 8x the standard dose in total) with a double standard dose 2 days later and leave the tank for a week with no water changes. Keeping in mind the warning at the beginning of this post - watch your fish and do a 50% water change if things are looking crook - there's nothing more effective for knocking out algae. Yes, it also kills off Twisted Val and Riccia, so if you value these plants remove them to another tank during treatment as the huge carbon dose WILL knock them out and they'll melt slowly and surely before your eyes.

Yup, could have been on the order on the way right now but didn't think of it. I was going to get some in before but went for the in-line CO2 reactors instead. I'll drop them an e-mail to confirm covers and price and get back to you through PMs.

Hey Rogan, My CO2 distributor has a CO2 ladder like what you're after. To the best of my knowledge it's exactly as you described. The problem with the Nutrafin ladders is the lack of cover glass to prevent stuff from blocking it and making it useless. I'll have to double check but I'm pretty sure this one has the covers.

Sup Ranjith, u ever gonna put up some pics? Lookin 4ward to seeing some.

Hey echo, good to see you getting involved and into the scene as well as the hobby. This is a great place to get lots of info and help with any of the little problems that you might face in the coming months. The good news is, you already have a handle on compatible species and all

I have a 60cm tall tank with an open top for the MH lighting. The Marble swords grow out of the tank a good 20cm and the floral stalks are at least 120cm long. In this setup it looks amazing, but in smaller tanks it wouldn't be so great. You can keep the leaves from growing out by keeping the floral stalks from reaching the surface of the water. My swords generally grew only 30cm tall until I let the stalks emerge. Great plants and the discus love spawning on the leaves.

I hatch the shrimp in a typical upside-down 2L bottle with airline through cap. Hatcher is sitting on a light hood which is always on, so keeps the water warm and provides light for the shrimp to hatch faster. When shrimp have hatched I move hatcher to a dark location and cover it. I return 10 minutes later and siphon - through the air line already installed - through a BBS strainer. Once BBS are rinsed I distribute them in frozen brine shrimp containers and pop them in the freezer. This creates little BBS blocks which the fish eat as readily as they would live BBS - and freezing it seems to sterilize it from any nasties that I used to get when feeding live ones. Mind you, when introducing fry to BBS I first feed live shrimp before moving on to frozen. As you may imagine, I do a decent sized batch of BBS once or twice a week instead of it being a daily chore. Ice cubes can be chopped up to desired amount of BBS per tank. I recommend 4mm in-line irrigation valves for use on the air lines.

LMAO. Sup Cesaar. Didn't realize it was you. You finally got me to list my swords! Keep up the sneakiness and catch me on cold meds again and you might get that list of Crypts off me, too! Welcome to the forums, bud. When you gonna come out for a five-cent tour?

K, who can point me to a site where I can check to see what's ALLOWED and known in NZ? I've been collecting plants for about 6 months now and I want to make sure MAF don't come busting down my door telling me that I have some funky crypt or sword that's not registered or whatever. The FNZAS plant survey may be a start but that's just a drop in the bucket of plants available to aquaria in the rest of the world. Is that it? I've chatted with a few people that have been checked and I wouldn't have seen a problem with any of the plants they had even if I had them (which I don't) and alans ludwigia that they took looks a lot like a plant I saw in pictures of a NZ tank from about 7 years ago (tank and plant no longer exist). I've even checked online and most of these plants can't even exist in NZ water temps... then again, neither can many of the fish that aren't allowed as they aren't registered. I'm not questioning anyones judgment, just want to know what's allowed and not. So if I have fish that are a one-of-a-kind (and obviously something not registered) in NZ can MAF come and take that too? Even if it was purchased at a LFS?

You know of those or you have those? I have the marbles and two types of Rose swords - can assume one is Osiris and the other the 'rose' hybrid mentioned above. I have two leopard swords - one doing very well and the other getting overgrown by "dwarf sag" that has undergone a major growth spurt since the intro of MH lighting. I traded mine with a local who had plantlets. I also have pygmy (tennelus) and regular (quadricostatus var. ''magdalenensis") chain sword.

You can use a mans handkerchief or get a proper BBS strainer.