Shilo

Not a problem.

Leave it to thaw out (should only take an hour or so). Then cut it up into daily portions & put back into the freezer, keeping one portion in the fridge. When you grab a portion out of the fridge to feed, pop another one into the fridge from the freezer for the following day. When I make up a large batch I pour it into small disposable aluminium "xmas tart" trays so there is one days worth of food in each tray. Once set these get put into a plastic bag and thrown in the freezer so I can take out a tray for the next days feeding. It will last 3-4 days nicely in a fridge if covered to avoid it drying out.

I think the main problem would be gluing the material to the glass. Acrylic doesn't silicon well and you of course can't weld the acrylic to glass. Epoxy sealed plywood may work but there is not much seam along the edge of the glass to silicon the ply to. I would glue 2 layers of thick ply together with the inside ply cut so it fits the inside of the glass and the back ply cut a bit bigger to fit along the outside of edge of the glass. This will double up the amount of seam. Coat the ply with a couple of coats of coloured epoxy to seal. If the back of the tank is only cracked and not completely smashed then you could get some glass cut to cover 2" either side of the crack and silicon it in place, an internal background will hide the fix..

Furan 2 contains 2 forms of antibiotics - forgotten what ones but they won't effect the plants. If I remember correctly the verdict was out whether the antibiotics in Furan 2 will effect the bacteria in the filter but if you use it to treat the tank just up the water changes for a couple of weeks after treatment. The amount of water changed each time depends on your particular tank (size, stocking, amount feed, messy fish. effectiveness of filter etc). Little and often is better for the fish then one big one now and again. Best way to tell is to keep testing your Nitrate levels - create a chart of the measurements and if the level is increasing before each change then more water changes are needed. The chart will tell you when you have it right when the Nitrate levels plateau at a low & safe level.

The lfs should stock Acriflaine in a higher concentration. If the fish are hard to catch then Furan 2 may be your best bet & will have the advantage of catching any infection on other fish that doesn't yet show up. Have forgotten the dosage rates but I think 1 packet should be enough to treat your sized tank. To make sure it is Columnaris and not just a fungal infection, you might try treating with much cheaper methylene blue before forking out for Furan 2. If it effects the fluffy growth then its a fungas if not then its Columnaris. I don't like unnecessary treatments but it could save money in the long run.

The fungus on the wood is not the same as what is attacking the fish so it wouldn't have introduced the fish fungus into the tank. Most newly introduced wood will develop a fungus growth for a few weeks then naturally disappear. This wood fungus is harmless to fish. The "fish fungus" will only develop if the fish has an existing wound or infection or they are stressed and the slime coating has been removed for some reason. A worse alternative and unfortunately what sounds like your tank may be suffering from is Columnaris. This looks a lot like a fungus but is actually a bacteria. Acriflavine, Malachite green & Furan 2 are effective treatments for columnaris. Instead of dosing the whole tank which in the case of Acriflavine would stain your equipment or be expensive like Furan 2 I would personally use the dip method for the effected fish. To prevent re-occurrence, up your water changes and make sure your fish are otherwise healthy and active.

They don't need a deep tank but do need room for 30-40cm fish to swim around comfortably so suggest sacrificing height for length and width. Most off the shelf tanks are the opposite to have a smaller footprint (height equal or greater then the width) so you may have to get one custom made to keep it within 350ltr.

"Poret Filter Foam" is what you are after. Not the cheapest option but made especially for the purpose and will out last other alternatives. I got some for a sump from: http://fish2water.co.nz/hamburg-matten-filter.php

If pure RO water (reverse osmosis) in an ultra clean & bare tank was used then yes it would lack essential minerals. But remember that even RO water will quickly uptake minerals, organics and chemicals from left over fish food / waste, substrate, decorations, plants etc. Harmful minerals and chemicals from clean air rainwater would only come from brand new galv roofs which haven't had a chance to oxide or old fashioned lead based paints (modern roof paints are not a problem) etc. If you can drink the water coming from the roof then the fish will happily swim in it. In fact rain water has a major advantage - no need to worry about treating the water for chlorine & I wish I was still on tank water!

Redo your research - tank water is great and not a problem for most fish especially gold fish. There are some fish that require hard water like some Africian Cichlids but the majority of cold and tropical fish are happy in neutral or soft-ish water. If you want to keep a hard water fish then epsom salts can act as a buffer. For most fish problems arrive with sudden changes in PH & Hardness (which are linked) not the level they are kept in. A lot of advise against using rain water comes from overseas in areas of high pollution (think China at the moment), rural NZ is not a problem.

UV etc will work in clearing the algae in the water and specialised media will improve clarity but it is better to solve the cause then the symptom. Algae needs food and light to grow so better filtration will defiantly help in reducing its food (ammonia, nitrites) as will reducing the amount the fish are feed and upping water changes to get rid of nitrates, phosphates etc. This will also improve clarity. If there is still a problem then reduce the amount of light or / and light period to slow down the algae. Finding what works just takes trial and error until the combination is right for your tank.

Welcome to the hobby. We all make mistakes when starting out - its how we learn! For your future plans I would suggest when buying a tank to get one bigger then you originally think you will need. The hobby is addictive and your fish will breed thus need more room. Also instead of an oxygen pump put that money into a filter upgrade. The vast majority of oxygen in an unplanted tank comes from the surface area of the tank (thus why bowls are not the best - smaller surface area). An airstone and oxy pump is mainly to circulate the water between the bottom of the tank and the surface, very little O2 is absorbed from the bubbles. If the filter is strong enough to pump 5x the tank volume per hour then there is more then enough circulation in the tank for O2 absorption.

Have you checked the basics like water parameters etc? This is in case something else could have gone wrong but the timing just coincided with the neons. Also how are they acting before they die could give you a clue, for example are they all swimming normally?

Wouldn't worry about it. For example if your tank is running at 25C and the tap water is 20C then a 50% water change would only lower the tank by a maximum of 2.5C. If its during the winter and there is a very large difference in temperature between tank and tap then you could just do smaller water changes more often - say 25%. You could also just add some water from the hot water tap but wouldn't worry about it at this time of year.

Anything! Mine seems to get most of its food by shifting through the sand at night. This would include any left over fish food so I don't deliberately feed it protein based food since I reckon it finds all it needs. Because its the only omnivore in the tank I do supplement it with veges but for convince I give it some Repashy Veggie Burger that I have on hand to feed my Blue Tongue skink. Likewise I mix a sprinkling of of reptile calcium powder in it for the BTS when I make it up so the Koura gets a dose as well. After it moults keep the old exo-skeleton in the tank for a few nights. I have seen mine feeding off it so figure once its new shell hardens enough for it to come out of hiding it eats some of its old shell to reclaim some calcium.

Prime does detoxify ammonia but it doesn't remove it. It binds ammonia so its in an "inert" (harmless) state which hopefully will give the bacteria in the system a chance of removing it. BUT because the ammonia is still present your test kits will still read the same level in your water which is why you still read 0.25ppm. Problem is that after 24hrs give or take it will "unbind" and the ammonia becomes toxic again. Unless a water change is made within this time the fish will still be effected by the ammonia. Prime is best used to de-chlorinate water or to detoxify ammonia when freighting fish. Livingart's suggestion is a much better way of lowering ammonia levels then using a chemical like Prime. It is also much cheaper

Brackish just means more diluted then sea water (upper estuarys etc) so Seachem Brackish is most likely just sea salt (sodium chloride plus minor trace minerals) and is fine to use. Salt is salt (sodium chloride) no matter what marketing is attached to it, so instead of paying a premium on "Aquarium salt" save your money and just use salt from the supermarket (non-iodine is preferred but won't hurt). Firstly identify what it is since fungus and columnaris look very similar but require different treatments. If in doubt treat for fungus first as this is most likely. If its fungus then use Methnylene Blue in either a quarantine tank or the dip method - Furan-2 won't touch it.. If its Columnaris its a bacteria instead and fungus treatments won't have any effect.. The Furan-2 is effective for this although not the cheapest option & I would only use it if a treatment using Acriflavine doesn't work. Warning Acriflavine will stain everything in your tank greenish yellow so use in a quarantine tank or dip.

Be aware that as Adrienne pointed out above, covering the tank is only a short term solution. It will come back in a few days unless you solve the light problem. Lower wattage bulbs, shorter period when the lights are on or if it looks like it might be a window then a curtain pulled shut or window tints. What you do will depend on the source of extra light and what plants if any you have in the tank. If its green water then a UV filter ($$$$) can be a solution but that is treating the symptom and not the cause.

Choose hard wood. Avoid pine or any soft, partially rotten, or sappy green wood. Some of our hard natives make for excellent aquarium wood, so looking on a beach where rivers drain native bush are great when searching for the right piece. Cut off any surplus branches etc remove any bark if any and scrub the wood well (I use a water blaster). Some people recommend boiling the wood but if it is too big then try soaking it in freshwater for as long as possible - at least a few weeks & preferably a few months with water changes every few days. This will remove any salt and residue tannin's but more importantly helps the wood to sink. A rock on top should keep it down while soaking. Despite soaking it may still not sink as one piece I have in the tank has been in there for over a year and still floats. In these cases you have the options of gluing it to the bottom of the tank with silicon and covering up the base with gravel or arrange rocks to jam it in or silicon to a heavy tile and cover the tile with gravel. Hope this helps!

Inanga prefer to be in schools especially in the whitebait stage, thus if you only have one it might not do to well. I really believe they learn from each other, a couple of weeks ago I added 16 juveniles in a tank that has 4 existing adults. When I feed them the next day the adults of course started to gorge them selves while the juveniles schooled around them. Then one juvenile grabbed a bit of food (tubifex this time) & one by one the rest followed. Following day they all got stuck straight in when I feed them and this was a completely different food (Repashy Grub Pie). Also feed white worms, ground up prawn and for the bigger fish earth worms. An Inanga school of a dozen or so would look great in the tank as well - active mid water life.

Not sure on manufactured hooded tanks, but the warning would be about the heat output of the light. Too strong a light could produce enough heat to melt the plastic around it. If you want to increase lumens (strength) without the heat then look for LED alternatives to the current bulb. Also if possible choose a light with the spectrums that the plants can use, these normally have the words "full spectrum" or "grow light" or "Sunlite" etc on them. Or if they have a graph on the package choose one which is high in the red & blue sides of the graph but low in the middle green area (graph line will normally be U shaped). Plant leaves are green for a reason - they use the other colours & reflect the green back.

Recommend you read this: http://aquariumworld.nz/plants/articles/optimising-plant-growth-and-minimising-algae-r6/ and do as much research before starting because if you get things wrong then it can go very wrong. Carbon: It's main use is to get rid of dissolved solids and some chemicals from the water so if you add fertilizer then it will remove that fertilizer. It is only needed / used when there is a problem like removing excess medication, if its not needed (when the aquarium is running well) then its just a waste of money and doing nothing. It will also only last a couple of weeks so remove it or leave it in there but don't bother with replacing it. You don't find piles of activated carbon in natural streams or lakes..... For plants: More light means more fertilizer (like Flourish) and carbon (like Excel or C02) is needed and likewise more fertilizer & carbon more light is needed. Too little of any of these 3 things means the plants will die off (how much depends on plant type). And too much will mean the plants won't be able to consume it all (again depends on plant type) and algae will take over the tank. An easy way of thinking of it is that light supplies the plants energy and the fertilizers / carbon their food. They can't consume food without energy and can't use the energy without the right amount of food. BUT algae can happily use one or the other. Plants will out compete algae if everything is just right but algae will out compete plants if there are too much of one thing or another (especially light). Its all a matter of balance, finding that balance is specific to your particular tank and what plants you have in it. So you need to do some research before you start and once running slowly experiment to find the right balance that suits your tank.

Just picked up a small blender today so made some food up for my natives. Being carnivores no veges of course: 4 Prawns, 5 fat earthworms, tubifex, Repashy Grub Pie powder & a small amount of gelatin to hold it together. They went wild over it. Wouldn't mind getting some insect meal or whole insects to replace the grub pie & tubifex eventually. Surprisingly when it came out of the blender it wasn't as a disgusting mess as I thought it was going to be - wouldn't personally eat it though......

If you have a sump then an inline system connected to the return. More chance of the CO2 dissolving in the water and the gas that is dissolved spreading to all the plants in the tank. I used to have a diy system where water in the sump flowed through a container 1/2 filled with CO2 and the surface area inside the container dissolved the gas - worked well but that was only for a 125ltr tank. The surface area needed would be too great for a 900ltr. I'm dubious about any bubble or in tank system on any tank above 100ltr. The more contact with the water more CO2 will dissolve, thus any system which lets the bubbles reach the surface is wasting gas. The inline system means the gas is in contact with the water the length of the return plus the water flow cycling around the tank until it reaches the surface.

If its Columnaris & Meth Blue won't touch it (which it probably won't) then try acriflavine. Both can either be swabbed on the infected areas or as a daily concentrated dip with salt added until cleared up. Furan if you can get hold of it is even better but either the whole tank will have to be treated or the infected fish put into a smaller hospital tank & its not cheap. Netting and either dipping or swabbing fish can be very stressful for them (which makes matters worse) so if you go this way make sure everything is set up ready to go and you do things as efficiently and smoothly as possible. The salt dip probably didn't kill your 1st fish because of the time between the dip and it dying but the stress from the procedure may have. Example for swabbing I have a wet towel laid out by the tank, and a cotton bud loaded with the medicine in a cup ready beside it. Wet your hands first in case you touch the fish, then net the fish (2 nets makes things quick & easy), leaving the fish in the net put it straight onto the towel. Carefully swab the area ( I just use straight acriflavine) then immediately release back into the tank. Dipping is the same, straight from the tank into the dip container (large enough for the fish to swim comfortably) on a wet towel in case it jumps. Watch for the whole soak in the dip then quick net and back into the tank again. If salt is in the dip as soon as the fish looks like it's starting to lose balance (slow rocking) put it back into the tank. Warning, acriflavine will stain everything it touches yellow. I have never had much luck with Meth Blue for Columnaris so personally if it gets worse I would go directly to acriflavine or Furan treatments. It will persist in the tank even after the fish has cleared up so following Adrienne's advice for a few weeks after is a must to avoid reinfection and let any sores heal.