alanmin4304

John's plants are usually grown emersed but will be ok with strong light if you pick the right plants and are prepared to wait while they convert to submersed growth.

I think the heating may cause the media to get too hot for the plants, but I thought I would try the idea to see how it went. You are right about the depth of sand, it is only a thin layer and even. My community tank is landscaped and is of various depths and I think there could be big problems there. I will try to measure the temperature out of interest and if it is too hot I will wind the temperature back and add a heater to see how that goes. I still have doubts as to the usefullness of undergravel heaters for plant. It is a great idea on the tank above which is in six compartments and contains killies (no media, only java fern)

Most potted plants have been grown emersed and will take some work to convert to submersed. Plants grown in an aquarium normally do better if the roots are not restricted by a pot.

If the reason people are heating the substrate is to create water circulation then that is what you should get and the heat should be transfered to the water. I agree you would not want to have too great a depth of media as it would act as an insulator. I still querry the advantage to plant growth as these plants do not have heated substrate in nature and so have developed to live well without that. I simply did it that way out of convenience, and although it works OK I do not think it has any advantage to plant growth, but then that is only one factor in many. I have other similar tanks not heated this way and with a far greater depth of similar media and the plants are doing better even in one case with less light.

I had mine built at Argus in Christchurch and controlled by an electronic thermastat that also displays the temperature (it would be cheaper to use a bimetalic thermastat if you can get one).

I have a heatpad only, with 50mm of sand and JBL micronutrient ---no probs.

My tank that is heated with a heat pad has no other heating---what would be the point?

I have 3 tanks for plant all of similar size. One has 2x3ft lights and the others have 2x4ft lights. One with the 4ft lghts has heating pads under the tank and the other two are heated with emersed heaters. After about 9 months I can see very little difference. They all have CO2 diffusers because they all have fish, and they all grow plant well. There are no undergravel heaters in the Amazon. Keep it simple and enjoy. The reason I used heating pads was because that stand also contains a tank divided into six sections and it saved me buying six heaters.

The other way is to make a much larger trap that the females can be put into at the early stages. At the moment I have 3 female guppies permanently in a trap which is large enough for them to be comfortable in

The sae black stripe goes right through the tail and the flying fox has a gold stripe above the black stripe.

She a ho

It sounds like it is the bacteria used in cycling. Since bacteria double every 20 minutes and you can fit over a million on a pin head it doesn't take long to get the numbers required naturally if your conditions are right. If your conditions are not right the bugs will die off anyway. The pet shops will love it as much as the chemicals sold in Christchurch to remove the chlorine from the non chlorinated water supply. About as usefull as a fridge in Alaska.

If it is stripping nitrate how will the tank cycle properly and how will your plants get the nitrate they require?

I would think it is a very good product for the pet shops as it looks like you also need three other products and a Cl2 test kit. It would be a real money spinner. I am sure my tanks will get by without it.

They used to be in every pet shop and most people fed them. I used to use them almost entirely and used to raise 50,000 tropical fish a year without any disease problems. They feed on protein and used to be in large quantities down stream from outfalls from freezing works with a lot of blood in the effluent. We had one shop in Christchurch that used to take 45 pounds twice a week. It all went away when the outfalls were cleaned up by the Regional Council. Some people have tried to culture it but without succes I think. You flush it out in clean running water for a few days before you use it. I used to send it to the North Island and it was worth more than steak.

Tubifex will survive OK in a relatively clean tank if there is a bit of food. I know this from the good old days when we used to supply most of the shops with tubifex and it was all but copulsory for eveyone to feed them. They need a lot of food to multiply to the extent that you can harvest them though. It would be unlikely to be tubifex if they have not been introduced with live food or plant from the river. Mine no doubt came in on plant from the river fed to the turtles.

I suspect that the gba is a recessive gene in which case you will get from breeding to each other: 25% gba, 50% normal split to gba and 25% normal. The problem is that you probably can't tell which is normal and which is normal looking but split to gba. This can be usefull to strengthen the gene pool in a recessive fish like an albino but the other than albino fish are often destroyed. If you bred these to a gba you would get 50% gba and 50% normal split to gba.

Could also be tubifex worms. I have them in my turtle tank, but they need a fair bit of gunge as food and are in this case introduced on weed from the river.

Amazonian has it covered. I feed a lot of them to fish and fry. They are cheap and easy but are not as good for food value as brine shrimp. Handy to have and feed out so that the fish or fry are used to it if you get a problem with the brine shrimp

They need quite a bit of light when grown submersed so do best if planted in small loose bunches and kept short so they get plenty of light and you get to see lots of the growing tips.

You cannot get rid of algae, you can only provide conditions which will encourage plants and discourage algae.

Bogwood puts the same sort of chemicals into the water as peat and the fisf probably like it as much.

Green water is a bacteria sized algae and will go through a filter unless it is fine enough to filter bacteria (about one micron) The only thing I know of that would do that is a diatom filter with the fine media. There is a chemical available from the petshop but it may give some of your fish a hard time. Cut down the light and do water changes to strip the nutrient, and have a good xmas.

RTV (silocon) does not stick very well to pvc. Yoy may be able to use the glue used by plumbers for pvc pipes and fittings as it is pvc disolved in a solvent and is suitable for water supplies when dry.

I have a 1200mm community tank which is heavily planted and contains three large rocks of Takaka marble (also calcium carbonate) where I have created a cave in each one. The tank gets a 50% water change every one or two weeks if it is lucky. The plants seem to like it as it contains E.martii, red special and ozelot all with runners and the fish, including discus are quite happy. You will reduce the hardness created by removing it with water changes and reducing the creation of acid condition by the type and amount of food given.