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I think I have seen them but my bulbs are straight. The two longest bulbs are these; a 15000K 30w and the other 10000K 30w. chris

Thanks for your comments, what is PL and FL by the way? chris

What sort of price will the Zebra's go for? Also I read on the link above water temp to 81 - I am currently running 86 for my Discus - could they handle that? chris

Here is my mix - as long as the clay mix never makes it to the top you are fine - be careful with your gravel vacume. You can sort of see the layers in this image as well. cheers chris

I will checkout the option for these other loaches and see if I can find a source in Christchurch. Since 30cm is pretty large... Cheers chris

I will look into that option - Since the aqua one 880 is a corner tank I am limited in what I can do with lighting since it is part of the lid of the tank. Here is a photo of the lights in the 880 - sorry not the best shot. The new tank has 3x36w over the 4 foot span. How are the daylight bulbs rated in watts? Do they give a non coloured light? Cheers chris

The picture on the first topic shows my substrate composition. I did not actually make it - I put the 3 levels together. chris

I have a lot of snails in my current tank (350 Litre) I try to syphon them out when I do water changes but they maintly come out after dark. I have heard that Clown Loaches are good at eating your population of Snails, but how do they do with plants? My current tank has Angels, Discus, Neons, and Zebra Danios. I have bought a new tank but do not get if for 4 weeks. Is there a problem with having Clown Loaches? how about swapping between two tanks? Cheers Chris

Great to know someone else is doing it as well. My thought is to increase the depth of the gravel or sand. On occasion I have found that my gravel cleaner has broken though into the lowest Aquotic Mix which is a clay type of material and not good to be mixed with water. Has this happened to you? Chris

My current tank is an AquaOne 880 - see http://www.aquaone.co.uk/prod_details.php?id_no=52093sv The lights are currently the original bulbs @ 15 months old. The specs are detailed at : 2x30w PL + 1x20w Flourescent I really do not know what that means. The plant that grows really well is the last photo on the left side from the following image, the rest died. Thanks for your comments chris

I created a substrate for my tank about 15 months ago and generally I am very happy with it. although most of my plants have died I am left with one that grows very easily. Does anyone have any comments on my substrate? I have just bought a new Aqua Grande 120 which is a 4 foot tank ( 285 litre ) and am thinking of using the same substrate. I do not get the tank for about another month so plently of time to decide how to proceed. Your thoughts would be appreciated... New Tank can be seen here. http://www.aquaone.co.uk/prod_details.php?id_no=52056BK Cheers Chris

The eggs have all gone - eaten no dobt by some hungry fish!! I am not sure what condition my fish has then since I thought it was Hole IN the Head. I can't get a good photo of it since he is always moving and my digital can't take good photos in water unless it has about 1/2 a second! Does anyone know of a site with lots of detailed photos of diseases? Chris

I had a problem about 3 months ago with HOLE IN THE HEAD with my Discus. I cleaned this up with a lot of doses of pills from the vet called "Trichozole 400MG" I used about 4 tablets twice a day for 5 days... This helped the Discus but now the Angles have some sort of flesh eating problem. Now one of the Angels with the worst problem has 2 holes in his body at the top near the rear fin and another at the bottom near the front forming - you can see through to the other side of the fish. I thought my tank should be good now as everything is looking good. Not overfeeding etc... I went to the vet to get some more pills to fight this infection and started to remove some water tonight. Guess what!!! The poor Angel and another are looking after a large leaf of eggs. Baby angles in the making.... What do I do? I thought that one of the angles was angry and I though that it too had the problem but it was protecting its eggs. I can't polute my tank with chemicals now!!! I only have 1 tank.. How do I proceed? Chris

Thanks - I did not think about that... I gave the first dose this morning with food as well so I hope this takes and they get better. Their poo is looking better but not complety gone... So what do I do after 5 days if it looks similar to today? Chris

You are right on...... Hex in a big way. I went to one pet shop in Christchurch and they did not know what it could be, so I went to another they also did not know. They did not know about the drug either. I went back to the shop I bought the Discus from and they knew instantly - HEX! They wanted me to go to the vet with the infected fish who would take the fish back to the pet shop for Diagnosis and then prescribe... $$$$$ I decided to phone my Vet where we take our Cats & Dogs. They were going to sell me a IV solution - 500Mg for $20 I needed a lot of those bags and they then said that they had tablets and they would be cheaper. I bought 24 pills ( 400 mg each - 400 mg per 10 gallons) for about $32. I reduced the tank to about 1/2 (still close on 140 litres) and crushed 3 tabs.... Put this in and then 8 hours later did a 25% water change and put in 4 crushed tabs (Sunday) Monday morning 25% water change and 4 crushed tabs. Monday evening 25% water change and 4 crushed tabs. Tuesday morning 25% water change and 4 crushed tabs. Back to the vet saying I want more pills since I only had 5 left. After quite a while I was offered 12 pills (1.5 days) and I managed to get them up to about 16 Pills (2 days) - this time cost about $12.00 so tonight another 25% water change and 4 crushed pills. Since I have 2 days more of the pills I can do this tomorrow (Wednesday) and Thursday. Does anyone know how many days you can safely do this? The docs I have read from http://article.dphnet.com/cat-02/spironucleus.shtml#4.%20%20Treatments said do it for 3 days. But I am still seeing bad poo from the fish. My Discus did eat some frozen blood worms last night (first time in about 10 days) so he may be better and he is out sometimes but hides quite quickly when I poke my head up close. Noisey tank at 50% water level..... I really hope this is working...... But how do I know when to stop? Note: The first tablets were called Flagyl and the second were called Trichozole but aparently they are the same so the vet nurse told me. Chris

I went to some pet shops today most did not know what I was talking about. I spoke to one who did but said that you can't buy Metronidazole it has to be prescribed by a Vet. The vet wants to see the fish, who will then take it to a pet shop to get them to idenfity the disease and then will prescribe. God knows what that will cost! Any ideas on sources for this stuff? Chris

HI Yes I did get an air pump and have it on quite slowly but continiously. I do not have a test for water hardness. Christchurch water is usually very clean and not treated - even the Pet shop says that they just use the water direct with nothing added. I have seen some quite black lines on the Discus that is not happy and I beleive that is a sign of stress but I am not sure of what. Nothing has changed other then trimming of plants in the tank. And that needed to be done otherwise there would be no room for fish to swim. Chris

Hi All I am still having problems in my tank. I lost a small Discus the other day - well it is not there anymore - no sign of any problem and then gone. One of my large Discus is now permantly out the bank of the tank hiding this has been going on for about 2 weeks - this has been going on since before the small Discus died. My two large Discus always swam together and no they never do. If I ever see the second one out the front it hides as soon as it sees me. Tank water is all perfect. Any ideas? It doesn't even come out to eat!

The Angles are pretty keen to eat and the large Discus are also keen so they sort of balance themselves out. The smaller Discus probably struggle a bit but then I also probably overfeed so they are OK at the moment. I thought of moving the exit hose from the filter to near to the top to make some more bubbles but because of the design of the tank it has to be below the water line. The tank is a corner unit and it came with its own filter unit at the back of the tank. I was unhappy with this unit as it was noisy and did not seem to do a very good job. I bought a new extenral filter and it works great. The problem is that the old filter is part of the lid of the tank so it has to be there. It also protrudes into the water which means that I can not place anything near it up so make bubbles. I would then have to buy more tubing for the external filter as it only just reaches now. The tank is great and overall is working well, the Amonia, Nitrate, and Nitrite are all 0 so the biological filter is working wonders. The plants grow really well due to the substrate I am using. I think I may have pruned a bit too much sinc I probably removed 50% of the plants but that is because they do grow so much and so fast. Chris

Thanks for the comments on the tank, I really don't know if I have a pair or what... I think the PH is too high for Discus to breed. I think I will buy a air pump tomorrow and use it for a few days and see if it impoves the situation. Chris

That does sound about right - the amount of plant material I removed could have been about 40-50% and that would reduce the amount of CO2 to Oxygen conversion. I have never had a air stone in the tank before. Chris

There are 4 Discus, 2 Large, 2 Small There are also 7 Angles, 20 Neons, 4 Zebra Danios, 2 Small Catfish and 1 Large Catfish. Chris

My conditions: Size : 300l Amonia : 0 ppm Nitrite : 0 ppm Nitrate : 0 ppm PH : 7.0 Temp : 82f I have noticed that some of my fish are staying near the top of the tank, Angles (2 of 6) and 1 small Discus. Also last night one of the large Discus did not come out to eat - he hid at the top of the tank near the bank. This does appear to be his home but normally a good eater. I did remove a lot of plants yesterday and then did a 15% water change. I live in Christchurch and our water should be great. Should I add some stress coat in case the fish are stressed by the removal of the plants. There is still a lot of plants but not really any now floating over the top of the tank. The tank is now a lot more open in the front. Chris

Some of my angle fish have long poos. These trail behind them - maybe up to 6" long. They do not seem to break off like it normally does. See Photo (sorry hard to capture) Does anyone know what it is and how to clear it up. Food : Frozen Blood Worms, Frozen Brine Shrimp, Tetra Flakes Chris