alanmin4304

I got heaps from the adults I got from you originally and all down hill ever since. Hopefully this is the start of something good.

Thats not economy, thats insulation.

Provided you add fish slowly all will be well, and everthing will adjust naturally to form the equilibrium required. Eat the dead shrimps and use the NH3 to clean the glass on the outside of the tank.

Maybe the Yanks did actually land on the moon. Straight tap water next time.

My advice.---Don't feed until they are free swimming. If they are clinging to things they are not free swimming and they wont eat the food and it will polute the tank. Leave a small pilot light going at night so they feed 24/7. Feed green water for the first 2 weeks and feed it slowly but continuously. An ideal way is to chat up a nurse from the hospital and get an intravenous drip setup that has been used for saline and fill the bag with green water and let it drip slowly into the tank. Keep the air above the water warm with a lid. Feed New Zealand brine shrimp (it is smaller) as soon as they are taking it--- add just a few and you can see if they are eating it as their bellies will swell and become the same colour as the nuplii. You can feed microworm as well but I don't think the food value is as good. Now figure out what you are going to store hundreds of males in so they don't try to kill each other.

I don't stir the sand up and only siphon waste off the top if it gets too unsightly. I have never had problems with plants deteriorating through the sand going anaerobic. It would be a risk if you put potting mix or peat under it I guess.

It is a venturi that sucks the water from your tank into the kitchen sink. I spoke to a retired Health Inspector who said it would be better to siphon the water onto the garden. They fit onto a fawcet so you can blend the hot and cold to get replacement water at about the same temperature as the water that came out. That is very useful. I had one but replaced it with a connection made of metal as the fine thread connector to the tap did not last. The supplier has metal adapters now that will overcome that problem.

Yes, but do you see the sense in adding the fish slowly in order to complete the cycle. An excess of bacteria will cause a die off and extra minerals in the water (like when you kill off cyanobacteria with antibiotics). and not enough will cause an NH3 spike until the bugs catch up with the nutrient from the fish. My point is that your tank will be cycled and in balance with 3drops of NH3 or 2 dead prawns, but not the fish that you add all at once or slowly----there is no co relationship between two dead prawns and the fish you add.

Looks good to me.

I have been trying (unsuccessfully) for many weeks to get australe chocs and golds to produce a few eggs. After no luck with a number of pairs of mature well conditioned chocs I set up my mature gold female with a randy little teenager that grew up from eggs donated by Barrie. Day 1,2,3,4 bought an increasing leval of frustration and mumbling and today they produced 18 eggs. So they can hear those rude words that I was mumbling towards them. They could be on daphnia and soft lighting tonight.

Fish will give off a certain amount of urea and other nitrogen compounds that will be converted to amonia, nitrite and nitrate by a range of bacteria that will grow to balance with the food (waste) being produced. Adding ammonia or dead shrimps (which produce ammonia as they decompose) will encourage the bacteria to multiply to balance with the ammonia added or produced by rotting shrimps. This will have no relatioship to the load produced by the fish you suddenly plonk in the tank when you think it has been cycled and the tank will actually start cycling again. If you add your fish slowly the bacteria will increase proportionately to the load from the fish and the whole setup will be in sync with the aquarium you wish to establish and they can all run off and join the green party.

When someone can explain to me the direct relationship between the ammonia added and the fish added at completion of fishless cycling I will be absolutely convinced that it is less cruel than doing what grandad did before it all became a science experiment. If you add plants then fish slowly the balance will be established and maintained at the leval that it requires for the fish load that you intend. Just because it is popular in Europe does not make it the best way. I personally think it is cruel to do fishless cycling.

No, just gunge.

Black is a colour that shows in females. If you want to breed red tuxedos you breed your best male to the blackest female that has no black in the tail. If you want all blacks you breed to the female with the most black in the tail. Nothing magic about that fish. In fact I have some and I could be persuaded to sell the females to you for only $100 each if you are looking towards early retirement. Unfortunately the Auckland Harbour bridge has gone to the same outfit that got the power lines in Windytown or you could have that as well.

DEMOCRACY IS EXPENSIVE.

I think what Ira was saying was that silicon is an element, the symbol of which is Si and the oxide silica. Silicone is what is sticking the tank dividers in and is a synthetic rubber used for all sorts of stulff including fish tanks and oven door seals

I think the problem is that the owner will not give permission for the dog to be put down so they can't. I have no doubt that the bill for keeping it alive will be in the thousands by now and I'll bet there is no way the owner can or will pay it. Democracy is a great thing but it sure costs.

10W at 15000K will not be much good for plant growth.

The filter will make very little difference to the amount of O2 in the water which is what allows you to increase the stocking rate---it will just keep the water cleaner. You will need to increase the surface area to increase the exchange of CO2 and O2 to increase the stocking rate. This is normally done with heavy aeration and this will drive off the CO2 and allow the uptake of O2. This will of course defeat the purpose of adding CO2. Overstocking with fish will increase the amount of nutrient created by the fish which will lead to algae problems which is not a good idea when growing plants. It is common for importers or serious fish breeders to overstock by increasing the aeration but it is normally done in bare tanks. Overall I would suggest this is not a good idea.

The beast part with nothos is the instant fish 20 mins after you re wet from storage.

I only use sand.

To get them tested by any lab that knows what it is doing is megabucks. I was talking the other day to an importer who got one batch of fish tested and got a bill for $1400. GUPPIES AR NOTORIOUS FOR DYING OFF. Piscene TB has the fish pinch gutted and sunken where it should be rounded by the back steak area. They normally keep eating but stay skinny.

You might get away with polyurathane on the inside and oil on the outside. I am not sure if that would cause the wood to twist (like puting veneer on only one side of customwood).

They were a bit small for that.

Hygrophila polysperma?--Not easy to tell from that pic.