antwan

That looks great Mark. Nice job! Do you know the species of your chain sword?

Can't help you with the driftwood as I'm not from that area. Try rivermouths as lots get washed down. You won't be able to buy plants off ebay but you can use http://www.trademe.co.nz it's basically New Zealand's version of ebay. They have a separate section for aquatic plants. Or, you could put up a 'wanted to buy' ad on this site. Lots of people here have plants for sale/free.

Attached some of the xmas moss I got to my favourite driftwood and put it on the left-hand side. Only got one pic as we had people over tonight. Everything is growing so fast and well! I haven't had any algae issues yet which is great. I put it down to only having the lights on for 5 hours a day. I'm very happy with this tank so far. May invest in a set of lily pipes too

Awesome! Barclaya is the business

Very nice. I would love to make a big pond like that.

Looks like sand, probably from being stirred up by the big change around.

Sweet as. I can give you a little Barclaya if you want as they are kind of swordy. Asian though.

Thanks! Disaster struck this afternoon. I set up the new tank and chucked the canister on it and everything (used already cycled media) and chucked all the livebearers in, but I forgot the strainer on the intake :facepalm: Had two little guys in the canister that survived but I lost my second biggest platy female. she was only stuck for about 15 minutes but she didn't survive. So I thought I'd cut her open as she was pretty fat. Don't look if you don't like looking at things cut open It's amazing how much fits into this little package At least the neons had a good feed.

Plenty more driftwood here if you want it

Thanks Mike! I got about 2L of xmas moss in the mail today so I'm gonna tie that to a solid piece of wood and have it on the left, should look good. And nah she still hasn't! A bit slack really. It doesn't seem like much after having the 650L spill it's guts so many times over the carpet. In other news I got another 4 footer yesterday, should make a nice home to a leaf fish and some catfish :thup:

oooh that last photo is beautiful! You have a really great tank

just sorting out who's boss

I think the rule with discus is get a good group 4-5+ or have a pair. I've never tried them by themselves before but I wouldn't recommend it. They certainly are great fish, just make sure you get good quality, and don't buy them as youngsters if they're going straight into a planted tank.

I have festivums in my planted tank and they are mainly mid-top dwellers. They have an "uppy" mouth so should stick up high. They do nibble on my plants a little but they don't do much harm.

I grow blackworms and whiteworms. I keep the whiteworms in a large poly box filled with moist soil. I feed them on the cheap luncheon meat from the supermarket. When it goes mouldy or it all gets eaten I replace/add a new piece. With the blackworms I just keep them in an unheated tank with a thin layer of gravel and feed them kitten biscuits. Works a treat. You can keep them in heated water too, I guess that would speed them up and get a larger population faster.

I got mine at a rivermouth just north of Greymouth. There's tonnes of it along the west coast, it's awesome. I used to live in tga and didn't really have much success finding driftwood around there, but you could try the rivers up the kaimais? If no driftwood there's glosso galore (or at least used to be) growing up there.

17.5 million views on youtube in 4 days

Thanks everyone. I bought two little male endler's guppies yesterday with the coolest colours. I saw a festivum chasing one yesterday and now they've disappeared overnight. Bit of a shame, but hopefully they did their job on the females and they can live on in a month or so. I agree with Liam, go for it Neon. When you do make sure to chuck some photo's up here, your tanks were awesome when we were up!

Thank you. You are very close, they are festivum cichlids. Cool little fish, I think I'll get a couple more

This tank has been set up for a few weeks now so thought I would post some photo's of the progress so far. I'm pretty happy with it and can't wait for it to fill in. Tank: 250L, std. 4' Light: 150W metal halide (of course), 6700K bulb Filter: Aqua One cf1200 CO2: Pressurised 5kg bottle with inline diffuser. I got this stand made by R32GOTMLK and it's beasty, very well built Lots of photo's cos photo's are fun. Lovely West Coast driftwood to choose from Beginning of initial scape Then I scored a massive piece of needle leaf java fern and a bunch of neons and anubias And tonight (Hemianthus micranthemoides, woot) This girl's about ready to pop, I can see all the individual eyes of her fry inside her Last but certainly not least

I think he's talking about the difference between third party and full.

Yep I'm with Josh on the bristlenose

oooh that sounds good! I used to be in charge of the kitchen in a cafe, it was awesome just making whatever came to mind. Ate so many eggs bene it was ridiculous, but soooo tasty! Speaking of berries, I'm making a blackberry and rhubarb pie tonight, looking forward to it!

9 hours is kinda long for a new tank. Lower it to about 5-6 hours until things get established then raise it up by an hour or so after about 3-4 weeks.

I've seen them at Organism, but they aren't colourful yet and are always hiding. Definitely the long, slender shape so something new even if not pertensis. Would be great to grab a small group but risky with how much they cost :-?