alanmin4304

Try luncheon sausage and only give enough that gets eaten in 2 days.

FOREVER. How will the fishless tank cycle?

I don't think there is any relationship between filtration rate and algae as algae is generally not filtered out and the microbes in the filter contribute to the soluble materials that promote the growth of algae

Smidey, if you think either of those tanks is overplanted you should take a look at mine.

Thomas Peeping.

I used to dab a mixture onto the wound. Hold it out of the water as long as it can take and when you put it back the meds will stay in the tank and help. Use methylene blue 1%, malachite green 1 or 2% and acraflavine. The first two treat the fungus and the 2nd 2 the bacteria that probably started it.

It is a sword. Echinodorus cordifolius (used to be called E. radicans)

I breed them in soft acid water and the difference encourages them to get romantic.

I have a 1200mm tank, heavily planted and filled with untreated tap water and they (four varieties of males) are happy as with their tank mates (clown loaches,cories and siamese algae eaters).

Have to agree.

Having plants with plant eating fish is like putting guppies with oscars. I like my plants too much to give them to silver dollars. I have turtles and I feed them plants (pulled out of the river). Some combinations are not compatable.

Iron in the water supply is usually caused by the water being acid with dissolved CO2. Generally this is from groundwater being drawn from areas of peat or old swamp country. The iron is in solution in the ferrous state which is soluble. The easiest way to get rid of it is to aerate the water which drives off the CO2 and changes the iron to the ferric state which is virtually insoluble and if left standing will settle out. Iron is not toxic in water it just makes the water taste bloody awful and leaves brown stains on your bath and WC. Chlorinating the water does the same thing--oxidises the iron to ferric.

Tell wilson to take his sleeping bag with him. Look foreward to meeting you all. Alan

I have never (in over 30 years) had a problem with cycling a new tank with fish or used a cycling product. I set up the tank and plant it out with as much plant as I can get and wait a couple of weeks for the plant to get established then add a few fish, feed lightly and add fish slowly. It helps if you can add a seeded filter but not required. It is called cycling because it is about completing the nitrogen cycle ( urea-ammonia-nitrite-nitrate) Many people forget that it is actually a cycle and that it works further and as the plants that have used the nitrate die and rot the cycle is continued back to ammonia by other microbes. If you think of the system as an equation you can move what happens. If the plants are established and using nitrate the equation will move that way to establish more nitrate and if you remove the dead or dieing leaves you will remove a further cause of ammonia production. Like most things in an aquarium it is a living system and you are trying to establish a stable balance. If you are consistant with feeding and water changes it will reach a stable balance and be "cycled". In my view there is nothing cruel about cycling with fish if you do it properly and don't cause the fish stress. That is what works for me and I guess you have to do what works for you.

Those two veiltail black zebra lace males would have some nice looking offspring crossed to black, silver or gold.

Thanks for that link--- makes things a bit clearer

Thanks--- I hope it wasn't too cerebral

I will have some plants available but it will be first in first served as I had about 20 people from Timaru through on Sunday.

In NZ we add chlorine until all the chloramines are formed and pushed to trichloramine which leaves free available chlorine and trichloramines until the chlorine disapates and the equation moves back towards monochloramine. In the USA they add mono chloramine to avoid the other compounds formed when chlorine reacts with contaminants to form nasties, so they have no chlorine.

I understand that chlorine and chloramines damage the gills of fish. The treatment is usually sodium thiosulphate I think. Perhaps you have been lucky.

Chlorine gas either injected or by adding HTH solution reacts with the water and forms hypochlorous acid and will dissipate with aeration and also with UV light (swimming pools). I don't think chloramines dissapate that way but will react with other things (chemicals, bacteria etc) to form complexes and will therefore get changed to a different form.

Why I suggested you ring your Regional Council is that they are able to put additional restrictions on some plants in their particular location if they they think they are a local problem. In other words they could be restricted only in that area rather than nationally.

It is only starting to change at the moment but there are some good picks on plantgeek.

Sorry to be cerabral. I was actually trying to be factual. Perhaps I should re explain with words of one syllable. 1. All chlorinated water supplies contain chloramines 2. Chloramines are disinfectants. 3 free available chlorine is a disinfectant 4 Chlorine will disapate and chloramines will not. 5 Chlorine and chloramines are toxic to fish 6 Christchurch water comes from the second or third (of 4) artesian layers and contains no chlorine or chloramines and therefore requires no pretreatment. I think people sometimes become confused because they think Mrs Google is God's Mother in Law and they find info about using chloramines to disinfect water supplies. . Particularly in the USA chloramines are used to disinfect water supplies because many of the water supplies contain chemical contaminants that react with chlorine (a strong oxidising agent) to form a number of rather nasty compounds as well as chloramines and so they use chloramines rather than chlorine. In NZ we use chlorine which is actually a better disinfectant. What you smell in the shower or the swimming pool is chloramines not chlorine and the more the chlorine disapates, the more you will smell it. The way to get rid of the smell is to add more chlorine. It is the monochloramine that irritates your eyes.

Chlorine reacts with the amines in the water to form monochloramine, then with more chlorine to form dichloramine, then with more chlorine to form trichloramine. The monochloramine is what irritates your eyes in a swimming pool and the solution is to add more chlorine. All proteins are a string of phosphates with amino acids (amines) hanging off them and amines are generally available in the watersupply so it will have chloramines if it is chlorinated. As the chlorine disapates the equilibrium moves back towards the monocloramines. Christchurch water has no chlorine so no water treatment is required. It has more dissolved gasses than in your aqarium because it is under pressure in the mains and it pays to add water at a similar temperatur to what you have removed.