sharn

red tails are notorious for not liking each other or other fish that have red/orange on their bodies :lol: i have mine in with my tiger oscar, a severum and a small pleco and hes fine, he is the smallest though and if he even thinks about annoying someone they put him in his place real quick :lol: i find they are great cleaners for larger fish like oscars who throw alot out their gills, their small mouths arent able to eat big cichlid foods so he gets the gill leftovers and novo bits, hes also too small to be eaten properly (though he could be disposed of quickly if my O decided he wanted Flip gone). Geos are really neat fish, not sure if theyd eat smaller tankmates but they love to dig so need special substrate (like larger grain sand or smooth stones i think). they do get around 30cm but are absolutly stunning

that looks awesome Shell ya breathed some new life into it, very nice indeed

i let my albino in with my four adults yesterday and managed to trigger a breeding frenzy (with my albino leading the way!) :lol: i have four males and one female (aint that just bad luck lol) and was really hoping my female would get the gist of things and pick up the little volcanoes but she didnt from what i can see im hoping that Odin will continue to drop prezzies and hopefully ill get a few albino bubbas if my female catches on to what shes supposed to do :lol: i have searched quite alot and i beleive we only have one lovely lady in the country that has axies that produce albino offspring (who my little man came from) so it would be nice to get a few more out to the country

WCMM can go outside, and leopard fish too i beleive?

seems the ribbed hosing causes cleaning problems with the fluvals from the reviews ive read so ive been looking at the eheims (not sure if id be buying at that price but a second hand one might be within reach) does anyone have a pro 2 (unsure of model no) that they could give me the inlet bend width? i spotted an 'installation set' on TM, is this to increase the width of the inlet bend so it can fit over larger braced tanks? did a google and it says it increases suction and all this other fancy stuff but it looks like it may make the inlet bend longer?

oh yay! so the old beast didnt dissapoint too much? :lol: have ya left that grating in or taken it out? cant wait to see pics of it set up

guess our fishies arent getting a pump then, i have to pay for anything done to that pond even though its not 'mine' and i dont think i can afford to pay someone to come out and set it up for me

well sadly i dont have the funds to pay for an electrician to come around and do it for me that fountain maker has a 10m cable so can i just dig a trench for the cable and run it inside? we never dig around there at all so disturbance to the cable wouldnt be a problem. i think i might get one of those little water fall makers and set it up with the fountain maker pump (look at UV later on) and then if i want i can just load the waterfall part with floss to trap some of the particles (im not too good at explaining this but its the same as a pond we used to have). that way i wont have to worry about extension cords or filters for now and if i feel the need can add a UV on it at a later stage. does this sound ok?

so buying a plain old extension cord wont go boom when it rains and the plugs get wet? being a house of females we dont dig much so no worries on that front :lol: would i be best to get that fountain maker thingamabob and get a UV-C attatchment thing like this one instead of getting a pre filter? http://www.trademe.co.nz/Home-living/Pe ... 834972.htm i suppose if the UV steriliser makes the water clean (the pond has your plain old green water from too much light) it will be easier for me to see the gunk and remove it with my siphon :lol: how many watts would it need to be and are those bulbs readily available? the pond isnt that large and that 5W is rated up to 3000L wish i could just chuck a canister on the thing! :lol:

hey guys after cleaning out my pond today (found one baby fish too!) i have decided that i must get them a filter after seeing what was in there (i am most ashamed). i have absolutley no idea what i want other than it needs to have a filter part in it to try and get the water a bit cleaner. it seems alot of these pond pumps have no filter, just the powerhead with some fancy attatchments for fountains. my pond is roughly 500L. if i got this filter part- http://www.trademe.co.nz/Home-living/Pe ... 236713.htm would i be able to hook it up to this- http://www.trademe.co.nz/Home-living/Pe ... 358220.htm i think the powercord would be too short cause its about 6m to the nearest powerpoint (just inside the door). would this be better (and can i hook it up to the prefilter above?)- http://www.trademe.co.nz/Home-living/Pe ... 138092.htm that seems to be more of a fountain maker (i dont want a fountain)? but it has the right length cord :-? so basically i have no idea what i want :lol: any suggestions and help would be most appreciated

i havent seen any slug things in my filters but if your fish are healthy i wouldnt worry about it, theyre probably just random greeblies (as caryl would say :lol: ). perhaps pull them out and see if the fish like to eat them? i have limpets in my axolotl tank, theyre white and 1-2mm long. not sure if they do anything (like eating algae etc) but they seem to mind their own business. they popped up out of the blue one day, i hadnt added anything to the tank for months

yep, turn them off at night time like us fish have body clocks and need down time, some people try to mimick outside light but i just turn them on when i get up and turn them off when i go to bed. as timtam said lighting is really just for plants or viewing pleasure, some of my tanks never have lights on but some have them 12 hours a day (planted). the only time people normally leave lights on 24/7 is if they have moonlighting or are breeding certain fish.

thats gotta suck, those tanks are not cheap do an extra water change or two each week (depending on stocking) on those tanks that have just got the extra fish put in, ya dont want to go thru a mini cycle from increased bio load. keep the filters and substrate wet from the cracked tank (put in your existing tanks) and transfer the substrate + filters into the new tank and use some of your other tanks water to partially fill then top up with new water. this will pretty much eliminate the need for a cycle at all as your filters and substrate hold alot of bacteria, the water doesnt hold much bacteria but it will keep the fish happy. feed lightly for a week or so after that and keep an eye on everything but as long as its not heavily stocked you shouldnt run into any problems re cycling

i think i may have seen pics of those L bits with the hosing in them, if i remember rightly they look like exactly what id need does anyone have any pics of the L bits with their hosing set up? i cant seem to find much on google thanks heaps SW, great job i will look at doing that if i cant find some bendy inlets (im a bit paranoid when it comes to DIY with filters). thanks guys!!

hey all, im looking at getting a canister for one of my tanks and have a problem- the bracing that runs along the back is around 75mm and i was unsure of what filters would have an inlet/outlet bend that would be able to fit over that? are there any filters that have bendy bends ( :lol: )? if not is there some way i could modify the hoses or add bits? i would just drill a hole but breaking down a 360L with big fish in it could be a fair amount of work :lol: also does anyone have the measurements of the aqua one CF1200 inlet/outlet bends? i have a rena and jebao (both which would not fit on that tank) and would like to give these ones a try and being a student i dont have 200+ to splash out on an eheim/fluval (if these have the right size bends i might just suck it up and get one though). thanks heaps guys

cute till theyre 60cm :lol: wouldnt mind seeing an adult of them! they look most intersting indeed...

i hope theyre making you another one free of charge! that has to be a fish keepers worst nightmare 10ml poly will most likely be totally fine, i think its just there to take out small imperfections.

so SW, does that mean the stainless ones have less chance of failing? if they were to fail how would they do so? i have 3 aqua one SS heaters (two in oscar tank and one in discus tank) and i cant say enough about them. calibrating two heaters to work together (i use two heaters in each tank where possible) can be hard cause you have to fiddle with them quite a bit and because the controller is external it makes it SO much easier.

think ya just might have to upgrade mat considering they can get close to 3/4 the length of your tank :lol: one of the most convincing excuses to get a new tank too- 'the fish wont be happy in this tank so i will just have to get a 12 footer ' :lol: MFK says their average length is 36" but i saw some pics of a 42"er last night those were kept in public aquariums so are able to attain their natural size easily. so guys, how do BGK get on with other BGK? ive seen them housed together before but i was just passing and wasnt able to sit and watch them for hours. whaddya reckon bout eels caryl? perhaps a geo/eel combo would look neat (plants permitting) wok- you gotta send me some of these pocket knife fish, they sound most intriguing :lol:

oscars, sevs, jack dempsys, red heads, texas etc etc... most of them dont do to well in planted tanks though :lol: what about elephant nose? they are neat- not sure how well they do in planted tanks or how big they get and if they were the only fish it would be a bit boring in the mid/top levels.

a 6x2x2 tank would be bare miniumum for a clown/royal (both get to around the same size) and even then you would have to upgrade later on as a clown/royal can hit 2 foot easy theyre nocturnalish, some people have their ones come out during the day and feed them then. they have really big mouths and can take out some big fish. i have read they can be particularly hard to get onto prepared foods if theyve had feeders before but would probably take things like shrimp/prawns etc. i beleive their natural diet is fish so if you wanted you could replicate that. im not sure why there arent many large clowns around (fishboi), i would assume they all die before they are able to reach their full potential for one reason or another :-? heres a link to a basic article on clowns- http://www.theoscarspot.com/smf/index.p ... 081.0.html ('Tracey' on these forums wrote it) i dont know about the other two, ive seen a 40cm BGK and that was awesome, they are probably less demanding than clowns and are mega cute. if ya cant choose caryl youll just have to more tanks so you can have them all :lol:

what is the brand name and ingrediants? prazi (proper stuff) is soooooo expensive and ive heard good things about certain brands of fluke tabs

i remember one year during out first pond clean i decided to hop in in my gummies, needless to say i landed on my rear extremely fast and it was quite painful too. mum thought it was hilarious much to my disgust so now i bribe the little sister to do it :lol:

have a browse through www.simplydiscus.com, great site with everything you need to set yourself up a successful discus tank

taken from Monster Fish Keepers. so obviously need very very large tanks. they average around 2 foot in most tanks though due to insufficient housing i would assume, seems not many people on MFK report of clowns over 30" though- http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forum ... 819&page=2 not too up on africans but ive seen a 40cm BGK. sorry to hijack thread, i just love big fish :lol: