Faran

adodge, sorry mate only answered one of your questions. I've only had the occasional plec latch onto discus but I've had to remove 5 out of 6 of the Ottos that were in this tank for harassing them. The light was imported by me from overseas.

Cheese - the tiger lotus has been moved to the back of the aquarium behind the wood. Give the aquascaping some time, this will all grow in over the next few months. Remember this tank is only a week old Evil - would have loved to do the 6x3x2 tank I was planning but sadly the wood floor would need pilings and the only door under the house is right in the way. Fox, living - chur!

Propagating sand is $12 for 20kgs from memory. Pays to call first. Cheers!

Thanks guys The plant that's floating is red rotala. It completely took over a slightly neglected propagation tank and I found these awesome floating mats which transferred easily into the new tank to give the discus some shade. It has submerged Riccia growing all through it and it's really an interesting specimen. I was planning on cutting it up and planting it as a curtain on the back wall but have decided to let it be... for now Black vinyl was obtained from a company called Computaleta which supplies vinyl to signwriters for car graphics and such. This was an offcut of 3M stuff and it's great to work with, very easy for a first timer (learned how on YouTube). Propagating sand and aquatic mix were purchased from Mitre 10 Mega. Not all locations carry it in stock but all Mitre 10 shops can order them in for you.

I recently upgraded my old 460L living room display tank to a 540L Eheim MP setup. The new aquarium is only 20cm longer but MUCH nicer and definitely worth the days of toil swapping them over. Here's a couple of pics to share. Aquarium - Eheim MP 5ft with stand and hood, black vinyl applied to rear glass for background Lighting - Hopar 4ft T5HO light fitting with 6x 54W (over 300W!) Filtration - Fluval FX5 and Fluval 204 with surface skimmer Substrate - 30L Daltons Aquatic Mix under 50L of Daltons Propogating Sand CO2 - Pressurized CO2 system with ladder reactor Ferts - Seachem Flourish twice a week after 20% water changes Plants - 2x adult Tiger Lotus (one flowering), Red Lotus, Apongeton Crispus, Crypt. Undulatus, Needle Leaf Java Fern, Bronze Sword, Marble Sword, E. Tennelus (needle leaf), floating bunches of red rotala and more. Fish - 20 Cardinal Tetras, 10 adult discus (some already pairing off and spawning), 1x Gold Nugget Pleco (L018/L085), 1x Gold Cloud Pleco (L048), 5x Clown Pleco (L104), 5x Golden Blackeyed Ancistrus (L144), 2x Butterfly Pleco/Flounder Pleco (L168), 2x Royal Pleco (L190), 2x Flash Pleco (L204), 12x Golden Leopard Corydoras, 3x Adolfo Corydoras, 2x Siamese Algae Eaters, 1x Otto (pics of my catfish here) And this was my old aquarium -

Hi Peter, was good talking to you on the phone earlier tonight and look forward to meeting you this weekend. I grabbed two books on NZ Native fish from the UHAS Library which you may borrow until the meeting on May 14th. It's not a lot but happy to help any way I can. In time you'll meet myself and caserole and eventually Billaney in Wainoui and your wife will be assured that you're not fish mad.... yet Welcome to the site, and welcome to the hobby!

Sorry bluemoon, all of mine are the larger size which are rated for 240L each with a sponge 11cm diameter and 5cm tall. $25 each mates rates.

Fishy_t from these forums owned one for more than a year and found that it was best kept in a solitary tank with a deep sand substrate. Highly predatory creatures and very fun to feed... with tongs. You may have the very last of its kind in NZ.

I still have about a dozen of the sponge filters Luke mentioned left over from setting up my fish room. I bought twice as many as I needed expecting to have to swap them out to clean them every couple of weeks but since they're so efficient I've hardly even had to squeeze them clean in over 6 months. Ask anyone that's visited my fish room, they keep the water crystal clear and everything breeds like crazy with no losses due to filtration. How many are you after?

Tapeworm is symptomatic of a distended (bulging) stomach rather than sunken. Levamisole would be my suggested treatment with the information given.

Metro is for intestinal flagellates (bacteria with tails) and won't do anything for worms. Any idea what kind of worms you have? Levamisole is the best treatment for deworming but cestodes (tapeworms) are best treated with Praziquantel.

Then where did you obtain your beauties? Father dead is the only other logical explanation.

Just talk to the breeder you got yours from...

Celestial Pearl Danios, if you can find some. I wouldn't put anything else in an aquarium that small. www.celestialpearldanio.com

Highly recommend buying a reconditioned ex-fire extinguisher as a CO2 bottle. A 3.5kg cylinder should run you about $250 with a test and cert good for 5 years. Refills are generally $7/kg ($25 for a 3.5kg bottle). Both the cylinder and refills should be easily obtained from your local cylinder service station. Prices vary from region to region but these are the Wellington prices and usually higher than Auckland. Renting a cylinder will cost you less initially but will cost you quite a bit in the long run and you have to turn the cylinder back in. Check with BOC and Rockgas about renting a cylinder. In the end let us know where you went, what it cost and how things went. Cheers!

Sweet as, we'll try and get you the plant delivered before the weekend. One less plant for me to shift and re-plant, thanks! I'll make sure you get a nice big one (as long as it can still fit in the trackpak). Now I just need to make sure TradeMe didn't auto-relist them...

Hi Zabman, I've had them on sale on Trademe for the last month (still there) but you need to move quick as tomorrow I'll be replacing the aquarium the momma plant lives in and I'm not sure what's gonna happen. If all goes well I'll still have a flowering plant with babies in their new home by the end of the weekend.

Flowers require surface leaves. Please keep in mind that once the tiger lotus reaches the surface it will turn from a cute bush to a monster "tank buster" with leaves covering just about every available square inch of surface and will block the other plants from getting light. That said, it's been an enjoyable experience and I still have another flower to enjoy before the tank gets stripped down next weekend for the UPGRADE!

http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/native ... 29120.html

Good Morning everyone Woke up to a massive tiger lotus flower and thought I would share. Approx 15cm diameter and even more fragrant than the last

Sure thing. I've already stripped out a considerable chunk of plants and some of the discus in preparation for the tank being replaced with a slightly larger and nicer one, but this is the aquarium in current condition. The Tiger Lotus has emerged from the shady spot under the wood and is taking over the front of the tank (will be located to the rear in the new aquarium) and the bushy plant to the right is Xmas Moss, while the mess of plant to the left is needle leaf java fern which has been split up to get as much light as possible. The second flower bud can be clearly seen in front of the light (the pointy thing). The first flower bud is water-level and the third flower bud is behind a leaf.

The lotus is in a 460L open topped aquarium (no lids) with a decent load of fish. I run a pressurized CO2 system with Flourish (regular, not excel) for ferts. Previous lighting was a 150W MH but the recent upgrade is a 200W T5 light. The unit actually has 300W of light but I don't use the other two bulbs as it's a bit overkill. Lights are on 13 hours a day. The main difference between the old and new setup is that the lotus was in a dark corner of the tank which wasn't quite lit up by the old light. With the t5s the light gets to every corner of the tank evenly to allow for proper growth even for the poor plants hidden deep behind the large chunk of driftwood. Flower 2 has cleared the surface and will open tonight. It's a big one! Flower 3 halfway up now and should be blooming over the weekend.

Not a snowballs chance in heck that freshwater shrimp ever get imported.

That's really cool. I truly admire his dedication and skill in making it happen. Guess it's time for me to start studying up on how to do this here in NZ!

Decap - it's even faster and easier with more protein than bbs.