sharn

dont put them in the microwave, they blow up :oops:

GG will easily get to 60cm and theyre quite tall,thick fish. they need tanks the same width as aros, pacu etc so are pretty hard to house- need tanks over 2.5 feet wide. they are totally awesome fish though, i remember seeing one on TV way back and she went nuts over strawberries and bananas :lol: they seem to have heaps of character, i hope to own one one day

im not sure, i have reds and they are pretty easy to squish but i think i had some browns (no idea what happened to them) and they were just as easy for me.

i am gonna get one of those people thermometers (the ones with the red stuff in them, alcohol?) from the chemist and that way i can test the tanks and work out how far off my digital thermoms are (the aqua one ones with probes, not those bad stick on ones). the people ones should be pretty close to correct right?

ramshorns are good breeders and they stay out (in plants, on glass etc) during the day so theyre easy to harvest?

thats what i do. its quite satisfying to get all the gunk out of filters (yeah i am wierd) :lol:

you will need to find plants which wont die in the higher heat too. also buy the largest discus you can afford, growing them out in planted tanks is hard work

i can totally understand that Joze! i myself have been given cuttings or baby plants from a few people and have often heard 'why dont you sell them instead', my answer is 'why should i, i got them for free so why not help someone else out'. just yesterday i gave a baby marbled sword to a friend to help plant his tank, i paid for the plant but its not like the plant is costing me anything to grow and it grows like a weed :lol: i also have a baby lotus coming up and that will be given to someone when the time comes. i remember back when i was a newbie and i was so thankful when people helped me out and i wana pass that on. penguin- you are one lucky fella :lol: are you sure they know they c02 isnt coming with it?

i put most of my heaters near the bottom if possible (probes or the glass ones) because thats where the coldest water is going to be, i have found with good water movement i dont get much of a difference. i love putting my face against a 30C tank in winter when its 0C outside :lol:

would the temp change from the tap water hurt bacteria colonies?

perhaps im just reading it wrong but it sounds like hes just got co2 running on his tank and ranson is just asking what type of unit it is? if he does have the jbl unit with that then its worth at least 100 and i should get bidding :lol:

its a shame we are the bottom of the chain, i think asia, europe and the states get top picks then it goes down the list to us? you are right about small orders, not many people are going to be buying in excess of 500 at a time. IME getting discus to breed is easy, my discus try to breed more readily than my cories or bristlenose- its raising the babies thats the hard part and thats where you can pick out the men from the boys :lol: raising babies is extremely hard work and only the most commited breeders will put in the effort i personally wouldnt be able to hack it :lol: also crossing is a problem, your average hobbiest isnt going to care if two different strains pair up and they dont have the room to set up specific tanks of one strain. i think the discus quality is improving in our country thanks to a few wonderful breeders and we will all be better off in the long run because they have put in the hard yards

no it doesnt, he just uses one on his tank. that is extremely expensive for a handful of riccia im sure someone on here has some spare they could give you, it doesnt take long to get it to grow into a big clump

kind of funny wasnt that evil- i remember is both telling him it was too thin and to be extra careful with it. luckily it didnt totally empty itself

it is expensive to bring in fish but not as expensive as some are going for. i wont be paying 30-40 for a 3cm fish thats shaped like a rugby ball just cause its come from over seas when i can buy local and get great quality, healthy, hormone free fish that are normally alot bigger too. LFS are a shocker for it- their suppliers put on their markup which is fine and then the shop puts on their markup (thats fine too cause they have to make money) but the fact they are discus drives the price up even higher. i have seen fish selling at 150 each that many breeders would have culled (dodgy fins, poor body shape etc), i am wondering why they arent selling good quality discus for that price :-? i personally would rather pay a little extra for good quality discus than skimping on the cash and getting a new football collection :lol: reef- if your user name is anything to go by welcome to the dark side :lol: discus are neat fish and they have some pretty neat personalities once you get to know them. my lot are known as the 'overgrown cd's' in my house :lol:

i dont cycle tanks anymore cause i have other tanks to scab filters etc off :lol: when i last cycled a tank with a medium fish load (for a cycling tank, it would be considered small for an established tank) i did 30% every 2-3 days i think, it was quite a while ago now. i would probably take a good bit of media out of a healthy tank and put that in the 'sick' tanks filter, perhaps add a little substrate too if theyre the same types then slowly add fish, a few a week. your exisiting healthy tank shouldnt spike because it has all the established bacteria in the substrate aswell to keep it in line but do watch it just incase. neons and the gouramis will take it the worst, the swords, platties or kribs will probably be your best bet. if you do it slowly and feed sparingly you may not find you get a spike at all best of luck!

chin- do alot of those fish get judged on colour, pattern etc rather than shape? i think the germany champ would do wonderfully in my tank :lol:

no doubt they will continue to try until they get the hang of it (which may be never if theyre girls/infertile but that wont stop em trying LOL) :lol: if you did get fry you would want quite a few grow out tanks and a massive stock of food- you know how much these guys eat :lol:

im not defending what henry did but to be quite honest i think you should not buy something you know nothing about. i will never buy fish or plants if i cant ID it- not only because i want to be able to care for it properly but because i wouldnt want to end up in such a mess because of my own ignorance. i wouldnt buy from someone if they had even one suspect fish/plant in any of their tanks! steve- im wondering why you are off to kill plants that are legal :-?

agree with caryl, most of the time the bends are due to genetics (weakened genes due to inbreeding etc). do you know how old she is (juvie, adult etc) and did she develop this in your care or was she like that before? fish with TB often get bent spines but i would highly doubt that that is the cause, its pretty rare in NZ thankfully. not much you can do, you can euthanaise her if you think it is causing her pain or she is unable to live a normal life but if she seems fine then treat her like any other normal fishy

timtam- if you are going to use fish to cycle the tank dont use the ones that were in there, they will be weakened already due to the spikes that occured from pollution and will have an even smaller chance of living thru it. do you have any other hardy fish that you would be able to use?

looking and sounding good 8) keep in mind you will need to up the temp when you add the discus to at least 28, preferably 29-30C- they like it warm :lol: before you add the rams on saturday check if the nitrite reading has gone down to 0. rams are pretty picky about their water quality and the ones sold in your average LFS are super touchy due to a range of things (genetics etc).

what lovely babies you have there! 8) i agree with alan, normally fertile eggs are pinky but it is only their first go and they are doing well to do a spawn that size if the eggs continue to be infertile you may have to girls on your hands

:lol: @ ira- but it is true, even though its good to inspect your fish closely. sometimes when you look too close you can find things that dont seem right even if the fish is fine. i would say there is nothing to worry about with the guppies eyes at all as long as they arent cloudy, popping out etc. with fight marks you will normally see a break in the skin which has a definate outline (the edges of the wound). its kind of hard to explain without pictures :lol: snails- well once theyre in there theyre pretty hard to get rid of 100% but its pretty easy to keep them at manageable levels. removing them at night time, investing in some fish that eat snails etc. using products which kill snails can be harmful to the tank because they cause spikes from all the dead snails so if you were to use that be careful. they can be pretty useful too depending on the type you have

shame they decided to be a bit slack on the customer services front- i wonder if they know theyre dealing with an organisation that has hundreds of members and thousands of readers :lol: