alanmin4304

I used to breed them way back in the dim dark ages when they were called ampullaria. The little kids used to watch them working on the front glass for hours

I agree that euro bracing would be no good with hanging filters but if you leave a gap between the back and end braces you can easily fit air hoses,wires etc. I think the braces should not be connected anyway so they act independently.

They have been around for many years and work but not as well as a heated, lit, aerated system. They are probably good if you only need a little bit and you dont mind wasting eggs.

The bloom is caused by another factor which neds to be remedied or it will return. It is usually overfeeding and the uneaten (by the fish) food is providing food for the bacteria who have said thanks and done the multiplying thing. Water changes will remove the excess food and less feeding should cure the problem.

What you suggest is obviously very good for you and the way you do things. However I have kept fish and plant for over 40 years and do not own any testing kits. I used to breed 50,000 tropical fish a year and never owned one (even though I have designed and built hardness & pH testing kits along with water softening kits. What I try to do now is do things in such a way that I don't get an excess of ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, phosphate or calcium rather than becoming expert at measuring the results of what I have done wrong. There is more than one right way to do things and the best way is the one that works best for you.

You can drink water with a pH of 4.6 (coka cola) I agree with what you are saying but I still think we get too carried away with science when nature has been doing it successfully since before we thought of science

It is a matter of personal preference but I think water is a living thing and boiling it or using fancy filters is not a good idea unless the water is pretty gungy. If the water is potable it should be OK for fish. I think many fish breed better in water that contains some life as they expect the fry to feed on something.

I am not familiar with that plant. I don't grow E. cordifolius (radicans) because it has a mad desire to grow like mad and go into the emersed state such that all you see in your tank are the stalks reaching for the sky. I understand this plant is even bigger and also has the same propensity for emersed growth. It is probable that the plant has been grown emersed and is a little unhappy at the moment for being dunked when the leaves are not used to being submersed. Your plant may well be drowning but new growth should be ok submersed. A problem with all Echinodorus species is that they don't like being moved and they usually grow a whole new root system, so when transplanted they go through a stage where the energy is going into establishing a root system and they are not feeding with the original roots very well, so it is probably struggling a bit.

When I was making tanks I had a number of people ask me to repair broken ones and they were invariably tanks with only a brace across the middle and they break just beside the brace on the front or back. A brace euro style and another from front to back between the top braces would be belt and braces and avoids the point stresses that come with only a middle brace. Go Euro.

If I were to go into breeding discus I would look seriously at using a heat exchanger to transfer the heat from the water going out to that coming in. It is a matter of scale and convenience realy, what is going to work for you. I still think the best way to save money is to insulate the hell out of it and use the sun to grow plants wherever possible. Many people start off with a bang, get a nice set up then die when the first power bill comes in.

Rainwater should not contain nitrate or phosphate unless your roof has been arial topdressed with fertilizer. These are found in groundwater and from leachate and surface water from runoff. A well planted tank with established plant will normally strip the nutrient and discourage algae growth. Try a plant like Shinersia (mexican oakleaf) that grows very fast and is a good alternative to hornwort (that is only grown by thase that are naughty bad and wicked.) I have a turtle tank that is always green but is a very good source of green water for culturing daphnia.

I would use strap bracing right around the top and no centre strap. I don't believe straps on the ends do much

They lay their egs above the water and they drop into the water as they hatch.

Distilled water is dead and will contain any contaminants that have come over with the water, namely volatiles which have a lower boiling point than water. This is unless very elaborate fractional distillation is used. My question would be: Why would you want to used distilled water? RO is a process that allows the water to pass through a membrane that will filter out any molecules bigger than water but will also contain molecules smaller than water. Not much is pure but then not much needs to be.

During the consultation over the present quarantine regulations the Maf wanted those gloves to be one of the requirements for quarantine but I am not sure if that was included in the Regs in the end.

You definately need more tanks for woks choks

I know you can get antibiotics but I am not so sure about antibuytanks. Eventually the other half will cure you.

Tb is a pretty resistent bug (as indicated by the treatment) and is generally picked up during the six weeks quarantine period.

You could save energy by using solar to preheat water for water changes. I have a friend who many years ago used wind to drive an alternater which heated an oil storage heater (not sure how effective that was) I found when heating a purpose built fish house that if you insulate the hell out of it your heating costs are minimal particularly if you are using lights to grow plants. I used to heat 40-50 tanks with a one bar heater going only for short times

You may be right, I know theytrap air in the shell as they have no way to "breath" underwater

They trap air in the shell, it is how they "breath". They also lay their eggs out of the water.

There are compounds available to cure it but they are hard on some fish

The gram positive or negative relates to a reaction to a stain by the bacteria. If the bug reacts (becomes stained) it is gram positive. With humans gram negatives tend to be in the gut and positives on the skin. Antibiotics and disinfectants tend to work on one or the other better. This is an aside as I know little about blue green algae except that it is not an algae and can also be red. I understand it is also a nitrogen fixer. Have a good day.

Rain water is distilled water with the polution it picks up on the way down added. I would be tempted to let it sit in the atmosphere for a while to allow for the natural absorption of gasses that are driven off in the distilation process

I found live newly hatched brineshrimp the best first food followed by microworm. They do best in a shallow bare tank so they are close to the food and instinctively snap at anything alive that will fit in their mouth. When a little bigger fine seived daphnia is good. Lots of live food and lots of water changes worked for me.