Faran

As I mentioned, I have a Rose Amazon Sword and it looks like it's sending up a runner as of this morning. I also have a really rare Red Melon Sword that I'm bringing back to health and trying to get going well after a bad shift...

Hiya Tammy, Got a ton of regular run-of-the-mill amazon swords, hun Trying to get some of the more exotic ones. If you want a marble sword check out my auction on TradeMe and I'll hook you up with a great price and will ship with the cichlids in a few weeks

Runner is about 2 weeks old. My tank is full of the darn things. Was about to pull out some of the marble swords to put in taller swords in the back when they all started stalking after I started hitting the tank with Flourish Excel. Now I'm trying to find new homes for all of them and get some variety of swords in my tank. Oh, found pics/info on the Leopard Sword. http://www.aquahobby.com/garden/e_ozelot.php Nice plant, Jude. I'll buy some or swap for some other kinds of swords or plants if you have more than one "spare".

Woke up this morning to a nice surprise.... an underwater flower from one of my marble swords! This runner has never been anywhere close to the surface and is probably the closest to the substrate I've ever positioned so it's a mystery to me... pretty little flower though, Kim thought it was rather sweet Sadly enough it looks like it will have a very short life under the water. Petals are already going transparent... Jude - what's a leopard sword?

Thanks for that insight Alan (and the rest of y'all). I was figuring it was a big burner with heat blasting out the front. I suppose it'll be alright, after all!

Hey Mooloo! Just measured it up. Minimum space would be 60cm tall and 40cm wide. I'd give it an extra 5 or 10 cm height for disconnecting the quick release valves and hooking up drainage hose and 20cm width - need room to access the purge valve, and the pump unit sticks out an extra 15cm so you don't want to be cramped in case you need to fit that certain direction. Sounds like you're gonna have one heck of a tank! 8ftx2ftx2ft? The output has completely adjustable two-directional nozzles so you'll have a good amount of water flow. What are you planning on putting in this monster tank, anyways? Oh, small piece of advice. This filter only comes with the outer sponges. Be sure and purchase media for the middle parts of the three baskets. I found it a great place to chuck the media from one of the filters I was replacing, seeding it at the same time. If you do this, just be sure and use tank water when priming it so you don't kill the bacteria!

Sure thing, I'll trade you or buy some off you. You still after some more crypts? Your pup plants should be ready in about a month if you keep the stalk under water.... Looking forward to my Rose propogating. It reproduced via rhyzome recently and the offspring is now the centrepiece in my friends AMAZING 500L planted tank.

I wouldn't do it, that's for sure. :-? A meter away from any heat source is bound to create problems. The main issue you'll have is that one side of the tank will get almost direct radiant heat while the rest of the tank will be warming with room temperature. Best to keep tanks as far away from heat sources as possible. Then again, I have no idea what a "kent fire" is. Scuze my ignorance, I may be completely misguided but Lyndyloo seems to know what they are and they seem to generate tremendous amounts of heat...

No worries, just did a quick check of the FNZAS Plant Survey and think I found your sword. Check it out - Echinodorus osiris Common Name: ROSE AMAZON SWORD http://www.fnzas.org.nz/plant_survey/aq ... d098544e42 It's definitely mine, that's for sure. Do young leaves have a reddish tinge on your plant? If not, you're probably right about it being a Echinodorus martii (major) Common Name: WAVY (Ruffled) SWORD http://www.fnzas.org.nz/plant_survey/aq ... d8de5e1c2c They're both wavy, the only diff is size and red leaves.

Congrats, you have a pup stalk! MRSkz already directed you to the link where I explained this already but here's a summary. If you keep the stalk under the water you'll get pup plants and no flowers. If you let the stalk emerge you'll get flowers and pup plants with no roots. You'll have to then try and submerge the pup plants to grow roots but they'll prolly lose the leaves and grow new ones. It's a gorgeous Echinodorus you have there. I havea similar one with the "rose" colour variant (red leaves at the beginning which go green as they age). Want to post some better pics?

ROFL! You know it's gonna be a big one when you have trouble fitting the box in your car... then again, our little wanna-be-sports-car doesn't exacry have trunk space. Had to chuck it in the back seat!

This thing practically IS a sump. I estimate a 30-40L capacity and the "SmartPump Technology" is cracker. It starts for 2 minutes, stops for 2 minutes to let any trapped air release.... then stops for 2 minutes once every 24 hours to release any trapped air and prevent air lock. If air lock occurs it stops automatically to fix itself. Very nifty. It also has a purge valve on the bottom for releasing crud once a month and comes with an extra quick-release valve so you can attach a hose and pump out your water at 2500lph for a quick water change. MUCH faster than siphoning and VERY pleased with the water change taking me only half an hour (and some change) instead of over an hour like usual. With discus and water changes 2 or 3 times a week this will pay for itself very soon. Let's see... what else to report... massive amounts of space for filter media. I added ceramic noodles, pumice and Bio-Zorb and still have room to add a Phosphate remover and other specialized media later on. I wish I'd taken lots and lots of pictures during the setup but I spent so much time figuring how to rig it on my tank with the 12cm frame around the edges and narrow margins of space for hosing (this thing has some HUGE hoses) that I just couldn't be fussed. I also managed to install it so it hides very nicely among the plants - even with the HUGE intake strainer - so you won't see much from photos of it set up aside from the "tank" under the aquarium. Here's the one and only pic I took during setup.... the "tiles" on the floor under it are 14cmx14cm, just so you get an idea of relative size.

Not much diff in shape at this stage. Best to let them grow out a bit and start removing the males as you spot them or they start getting agro. Congrats, they're little gems!

Told ya Looks like she's holding a mouthful of food, right? You can put her in her own tank or "strip" the eggs or fry from her if you're very intent on raising them straight away. Here's a how-to on stripping. You basically hold the mouth open with the round end of a paper clip and shake her in the water until she spits out the eggs/fry. http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/stripping-vt9857.html I think the best choice is to wait 2 weeks until the fry are free swimming. All up to you, though. I'm pleasantly surprised she held them all way down to you!

The best way to catch wary BNs is to set two nets at 90 degree angles to each other and 45 degree angles to the glass to form a right triangle with a gap between the nets. Then drop the bait (I use plecochips) between the nets and wait with dim lights on in the tank and complete darkness in the room. After a while the wary BNs will find their way between the nets and start munching down. You then close the gap and SLOWLY bring the nets towards the glass being careful not to create any gaps. If spooked, the BN will most likely scoot across the gravel into a net rather than out of the trap. I do this quite often and it works a charm. Ask my BNs... they still don't know how they got caught

Bolivian Butterfly Rams grow to a decent size (8cm) so your AR380 is much too small for one let alone two.

Live food. If you're serious about saving your fry you need to grab them and put them in a "grow-out" tank until they're big enough to not fit in anyones mouth. As for likely assassin - All of them Good luck with your breeding. Oh, the platy and swordtails can/will interbreed. They'e just cousins without a tail. You don't want this happening and should remove even the last platy.

sharn, since you're a neighbour do you have BNs to swap him with? You seem to share the opinion...

I had some trouble convincing my GBAs to breed but got past it by removing the males and feeding the females up (we call this conditioning) then returning the males after a week. If they DID have a problem breeding with siblings, it's over now! Good luck getting them to breed. Not usually a problem with BNs as long as you have some nice driftwood that they're able to make a nice cave under...

Hi Fingol and welcome to the forums. The local fish club is awesome and we have a lot of very active members on the forums. Too bad you already bought some BNs, there's quite a few of us around here that breed them and sell them to local club members for gold-coin donations each. I currently breed a mixed sort and snakeskins and metallic king cobras. Not blue in the tails but rather stunning with metallic blue, green and purple bodies. Always good to have yet another experienced fish keeper pop up and get active. See you in a few weeks at the meet!

I know it's a bit of a drive (about an hour each way) but the Paraparaumu fish shop has both experience and stock in Marine fish. Welcome to the forums, hope you enjoy your time here! Be sure and check out the saltwater section if you're thinking about going Marine. Those guys are crazy but really keep some beautiful fish and tanks!

All the proper cermaic/pumice media should last for ages until you can see it physically deteriorating. The one and only "media" that I can think of that NEEDS replacing is carbon/charcoal. Make sure that stuff doesn't stay in your filter/tank longer than 6 months or it releases all the nasties that it has pulled out of the water. Not something I'd ever want to happen in my tanks. As for the rest of the stuff, including sponges, if it ain't broke don't fix it. Be sure and give all your filter media a rinse in tank water once a month but don't gravel vac at the same time. Enjoy the new filter!

Aw, and I thought I was gonna be the "first kid on the block" with one :lol: Filter should be here today or tomorrow. HOPEFULLY today. Will take pictures and post a review. I have a tank with a 10-12cm bracing on all sides so it'll be interesting getting it to fit properly....

If we're gonna do a plug for Tim's awesome cichlids I may as well mention that he'll soon have "orange" and "lombardoi" available as well. I'll be visiting him later today and if we have some spare time I'll help him tear down his big tank and get the young fishies in the smaller tanks for sale. Soon available - approx numbers and 6 of each already reserved by Tammy Metriachromia estherae - 5x babies Lombardoi - 10-20x babies Shipping anywhere in the north island can be arranged through me. South island... well, we have a few bugs to work out with shipping costs through the couriers before trying that again

de-worming discus is easiest done by crushing up a quarter of a dog "drontal" de-worming pill in a cube or two of discus tucker and feeding them making sure they all get a good share. The scratching/itching/rubbing behaviour you describe is usually due to internal parasites, white spot or poor water quality. The worms you've foind in your filter are tubified worms and once again signal poor water quality. Just about every establised tank has some of them, but if they've invaded your internal filter you might want to spend some time looking at your tank and figureing out if there's an accumulation of debris somewhere. They're GREAT when growing out fry, though! I have a fry tank with plenty of them in the dingy gravel and the fry always have nice full bellies from eating them.