ryanjury

Working out the power comsumption of lights and filters etc is easy.. Just read the wattage of it for fluoro's add up the wattage of each tube to find the total.. Once you have a total times that by the number of hours the light is on.. Say you have a 30W bulb and its on for 10 hours a day it will consume 300W of power in a day. 1 unit of power is 1kW (1000W) running for an hour and costs around 20-30cents (read your power bill). One or 2 lights running wont make much difference it should only cost a few $ a month, however once you get a few going it can add up. If your trying to do this with heaters remember they're not on all the time so you will get a stupidly high cost for them unless you assume they're on half the time or something like that.

The only fish that hated cold water changes were the discus And they still got them they got over it a day later all the others don't seem to care, even the jullies with egg/newly hatched babies don't mind, however I only do 20% a week so think the temp drop would be low.

Haven't seen either of you 2 posting for a while WB.. I would have gone to Ad would have been awesome!

Fair enough He or a mix of his parents is from malawi judging by his size so base the rest of the tank around that, you will find however that having a random will annoy you in the long run as you add more pure fish and they all start cross breeding or the mutt beats them up..

I'm sorry to say man that if you brought it as a random thats what it should stay as, even it it shows up looking like something pure you could breed from it and find out its a throw back or a random, with africans its best to buy from breeders to get descent stock..

hmm I have no idea really what that is.. Maybe rainbow melo? Most likely some sort of hybrid they are very common in the zebra's/melo's im sorry to say, how big is it?

Did you try the pumps you tried pumping water or just plug them in and listen? As they will be alot quieter when pumping water.. As everyone else has said if you don't want to pump that much water you can get a powerhead cheaply.. Check trademe pond pumps on there are cheap..

Live ones live in mine and probably everyones daphnia culture if you not happy feeding the bloodworms then you shouldn't be happy feeding the daphina from your culture.

They should be in there stir up the sluge at the bottom and see whats in that.. There is usually not enough to bother culturing them..

She asked if you could get live bloodworms in NZ which is what I was telling her

Can you buy live bloodworms from petshops?

Yep setup a daphnia culture or a bucket and chuck some grass clippings in there it will go all manky and bloodworms will grow in it

Myself or my wife maybe through in the next few weeks will be in touch if we are... Otherwise ill put a culture out for you to steal some from as im going to be out of the country for a few weeks from Monday.

We had them in town growing up it was a small rural town and we lived on a huge section.. They can make some noise, even the hen's make some noise in the mornings, don't get roosters! Also check your bylaw's I have no idea if its the type of thing thats in them but maybe call the council? As for keeping them my dad made a hutch for them similair to a bird aviery with a small laying box on the side that you could open and get the eggs out of, we also had a run with fencing around 4-5ft high and clipped the chickens wings so they couldn't flutter out. They were out from around 10 in the morning and put back inside each night otherwise they hid their egg's and you couldn't find them HTH good luck!

If you want microworms and you're calling through say hi and grab some

That is true alot of my africans are kept in whatever comes out of the tank and some surviving ones that were supposed to be discus food actually grew very fast in my discus tank.. They wouldn't do well in very soft acidic water and the addition of anything to make it harder or more alkaline would make them happier. I had a tank full of africans when I first started and chucked a piece of drift wood in there, the fish were all fine happy and swimming around until 2 days after the drift wood after that they just sulked and sat around under the rocks hardly eating etc took me a week to figure out the ph was around 6 and the driftwood had dropped it, I removed the driftwood and chucked some coral in and the fish picked up again... Maybe they would have got used to it and cheered up but they weren't happy. I have heard that fish absorb the calcium and that out of the harder water to grow and develop, if a fish comes from an area where in the wild there is lots of calcium it wont do so well without it in its tank, and vice versa with softwater fish.. Unsure if this is true but it sounded interesting to me. With fronts I would say its more having a tank that is big enough for them.

If he's not eating I would be worried.. As above the female holds my female is holding at the moment so its all good im happy should be stripping her soon... If you have other zebra's in the tank you will need to have these guys in their own tank to breed or else you risk someone else getting in on the act, I bred mine in a divided 2ft tank and waited until the female was ready to breed and filled it to the top with rocks removed the divider then removed the male after they were done.. It took a few goes to get it right as the male smashed the female to within an inch of her life within about 10 mins of getting let out I have found them highly aggressive.

Regardless of the rules this person did the right thing, frontosa are very big fish with speciffic conditions and they would die or not do well in the wrong conditions.. I went and brought some fish from a guy who had some for sale and he said he had someone wanting to buy them and put 27 in a 300L tank.. These guys should be in 6ft minimum as adults or even from around 10-15cm's so luckily he didn't pass them on.

Yep the box is very strong and the bags don't move in there..I'll put some news paper in now and then put the heat pads in:) Thanks:)

Ok..so hubby is away with work and I have to ship some fish..2 discus and a black ghost knife fish..I have bagged them and they look great but Can I put them in a huggies nappy box and send them in that?..I will put an extra heat-pad in and stuff..And I thought with the hot weather it would be sweet in a box? TIA Steph:)

Glad to see you both on here and posting

To be honest I don't like my 404 at all! It doesn't seem to actually pull much crap out of the water, yes it seems to be well built and flows alot of water, but I would go for a cf1200 or jebo 819 anyday taking into account price vs performance.. I do like my FX5 though Out of all my externals (404 eheim 2213, several aqua ones and a jebo 819) I would say the best bang for your buck is the 819. If your tank is only 85L why not use a hang on the back, internal or sponge filter? I only use externals on my larger 3ft's 150L+ or 4ft's etc..

Click on the sticky on top of this section called where to start it will start you off Ask any questions as you go..

Hi and welcome! There are a few down there on here If you only have a 65L tank I wouldn't recommend goldfish as they will outgrow it relatively fast and they're not actually that much easier to look after than tropicals.. If you did want to stay unheated you could do guppies or white cloud mountain minnows or leapard fish.. It stays relative warm down there except for overnight I guess so if your house is heated overnight you could do guppies in an unheated tank too. Good luck and make sure you ask questions on here before you make any moves as there are considerations like cycling etc to take into account when starting your first tank

Just make do with the 3ft you'll be fine Maybe plant mainly the centre or one end and do some rocks/wood/low light plants where its dull..