sharn

i have four baskets (jeabo 304), in the bottom i put a coarse sponge to trap the big particles, second tray gets filter floss to trap the smaller stuff, third tray gets ceramic noodle things and fourth tray already had a pad in it but i put shell grit in there (to harden my water). that way i should very rarely have to disturb the media holding alot of my bacteria (noodles) and just have to rinse the two sponges. im not sure if thats the 'best' way to do it but it seems the most logical to me.

because i keep oscars and discus (only ones i will make food for specifically, the other fish will eat this too though) i tend to find it harder to keep alot of different foods so i mix them all up. heres the base recipe for my oscars beefheart- http://www.theoscarspot.com/smf/index.p ... 062.0.html i sort of followed it :lol: this batch has beefheart, a small amount of liver, shrimps, cichlid pellets, shelled frozen peas (a fair amount cause oscars are prone to constipation ), spinach, geletine to bind, garlic and possibly some other stuff i found lying around that frank would eat. chuck it all in a food processor and bam! yummy dinner :lol: heres a discus recipe- http://www.simplydiscus.com/forum/showt ... hp?t=24193 its quite alot more indepth, note the baby food and womens vitamins they add lol. its not hard to chuck something together, do some research on what are common favs of your fish and whats good for them and mix it up, its really cheap too! garlic is a great thing to put in too, it helps with the fishies immune system and apparently its really tasty for them, alot of people will soak foods in garlic to try get fussy fish to eat apparently. i crush my own cloves up

normally around a month or so is a good average for quarentine.

spot on caper (no pun intended lol) the cysts fall off the fish and onto the gravel where they break open and release babies which then go and find a host (this is what i have always been told). the salt or meds will kill the parasite then and thats why you have to keep up treatment as they might be a few unhatched cysts lying around or babies that havent found a host yet.

tis true bout MH being the king, but i dont think your going to get on well with a MH on a 30L tank, it'll be boiling in no time :lol: you only need around 30W, your standard 3 and four foot tubes are 36W each, not sure if you can get them in shorter versions or not though. whetu reccomends making up your own lighting using normal daylight bulbs (screw in ones for your ceiling). you want the Kelvin to be around 6500 or something like that, i have no idea what kelvins are but to me they are the colour of the bulb (i think it was bill who put a real good thing about K a while back with the ratings of candle light etc).

also got it today, had a tiny peak and looks well set out. cant wait to sit down and read it on the 13th of august :lol:

cichlids probably wouldnt really work IMO. its not really long enough for any to have territories, perhaps a gold ram, possibly two.. you want something that doesnt get over 5-8cm max size i would think. if i was in your shoes i would be getting some good lights on there (wouldnt be costly cause the tank isnt too large), planting it out real well and putting a school of cardinals, rummies, neons etc in there. possibly setting up diy co2 but you probably wouldnt need it. the heavily planted tank with a few colourful fish swimming together looks quite neat IMO. 30L is pretty small and would be hard to maintain water quality, im not sure a salt tank would do well, or be able to be set up for under 100 but im no expert on that one :lol: good luck and have fun deciding what to do with your tank :bounce:

my gallons to litre conversion sucks lol but i think you are aiming for around one watt per litre, so might need a fair bit more :-? cause you have the hood you wont be able to go for MH unless you take the hood off. MH is expensive but is alot easier, comes in higher wattage units. is there anyway you can add more tubes into the hood?

not to worry now aye? a whole forum full of total fish nuts :lol: i was thinking that too alan- like how alot of people treat discus for flukes etc prior to breeding. a nitrate reading of 10-20 is ok, i try not to let my tanks get over 20 but im a bit of a nitrate freak now :oops: (i have two tanks i have to keep below 10). up to 40ppm is acceptable, 40ppm is pretty high though. keeping the water nice and clean while your goldies are having probs will help them heal alot better so extra water changes wont hurt if you have the time. high nitrates often make fish erratic, scratching and flashing etc, probably a few other symtoms too. i would still treat for worms, it cant hurt at all and if they havent been treated in a while its a good idea. im not sure if iloveoranda worms their fish or not? perhaps it would be good to ask? i think a few people live in J'Ville, perhaps one of them might be kind enough to pop around to see if they can help. good luck!

i would think if your fish are smaller (not baby size obviously) they would snack on them all? but yeah, copper would probably work as long as you treat in a tank without your shrimp and cray (it hurts snails so i think it would hurt them too?)

depends on what fish your keeping really. the beefheart recipe is really good for discus, oscars etc while you could probably make up a real tasty vegie mix if you had vegie fish etc. i love homemade foods, theyre cheap, easy to make and are frozen so they last quite a while and you know exactly what is going into your fishies tummies. prawns are totally ok to feed, obviously shell them first :lol: my O goes nuts over them but most of my other fish are too small to dig in (i cant really be bothered cutting them up, im mean lol)

i dont know much about hole in the head but it is normally near the head and generally starts off on the sensory pits and also along the lateral lines? im not sure if its HITH in your case, but it does look scary :-? is it on the actual body or on the fins/base of fins? good luck with everything and dont stress too much about losing your eggs, they will most likely lay again

woooohoooo! that looks so freakin awesome! well done dude :bounce:

ill bet ill love the book but i cant place feedback till august, its a birthday prezzie :lol: cant wait for it to arrive, ill try not to peek :oops:

ive got some stargrass growing well so might chuck some of that in and see how it goes, i really dont have the lighting to get most of the plants growing normally never mind, i can give it a go and see if it works, if it doesnt ill just stick to the java fern tied to the driftwood. i read alot about plants not doing so great with tanks that get large water changes, mine will be getting a 50% w/c every day (or two if i get a bit lazy), spose this is to do with me taking out all the nutrients. another learning experience for me i guess

i would think they would be easy to sex. males are normally brightly coloured, sometimes with fin extensions and females are just very bland, often grey or yellowish, however i dont know much about the MacM species so not totally sure. a google never hurt :lol: i would personally ditch the kribs out of the group, they get alot bigger and can pack a bit more punch if they get into a moody lol. you will probably have enough probs if the two male apistos meet at territory boundaries, or the females get into a tiff :lol: just make sure you have alot of caves and natural dividers to make it harder for them to run into each other. if you have the the MacM and the Cockatoo male with their own harems each and their terrtories your ram might also have a problem, it probably wont fare too well if it bumps into a male defending his girlfriends and territories. not being a downer, just letting you know of a few scenarios that may happen. good luck and i hope old ant can sort out the sexes and species for ya :bounce:

im not sure about that, while salt added to a tank can help with the whole osmotic stuff salt baths are normally only used for external parasites (as far as i know), the epsom salts will be a laxative. not disagreeing, just asking as i might be able to learn some more

the terracotta pot sounds good blue, am i able to say put a large stone in the bottom then gravel with perhaps a fertiliser ball and then the plant and top up with gravel? will it still need to be in rockwool then? alan- what are some other plants that dont feed through their roots that would still look nice?

it could possibly be slime coat? often fish will shed or over produce it if they are stressed or the water isnt right/has some irritants in it. i dont know much about velvet sorry. i am unsure what to do other than a large water change and perhaps adding some melafix/salt but wait for more confirmation on that. good luck, and if hes been eaten by a cat im sure he can live thru this

so im getting a new discus tank, its going to be a BB but i would like a potted something :lol: its going to have the driftwood with java fern and possibly anubias on it but i would like a bigish 'feature' plant. what are your suggestions? its only going to have two tubes on a 200L tank thats 2 foot tall. i know i might be out of luck :lol: i already have some existing plants and would prefer to move one of these over if possible. amazon sword, osiris sword, marbled sword, crypts of some sort, star grass, corkscrew and straight vallis, thats pretty much it for tall plants. i think my best bet might be the anubis? its real small right now but i have seen them quite large. now if i can manage to pot something how do i go about doing it? thanks guys

i would probably ditch the sponges, not sure about any bio media- perhaps you could just bake/boil it for a bit? do ya have any other filters you can steal a bit of media from to chuck in the new filter? that will kick start everything growing. when i wanted to swap my filters over (from internal to new canister) i let the canister run in on the tank for 3 weeks or so and then took out the old one. worked fine and didnt have any probs. good luck with starting it :bounce:

good point MCT perhaps dosing the tank they are in with 1 tablespoon per 20L (unless you have BN or scaleless fish in there) of epsom salts or feeding shelled peas would help?

hey smcoleman- dont despair! IMO jags are one of the best fish around (im a big fish nut) and are pretty to match. you will fall more in love with them and they will become like a pet dog, they are really cool fish. i mean, who can resist that 45cm monster sitting in the back corner watching over his domain? its a bonus for you that you have managed to get a breeding pair that can tolerate each other in every day life. keri- we have two pet shops i like here, one has a small selection that doesnt really cater for my needs but has a knowledgable owner and the other has a faily knowledgable person and alot of selection. if only there were more around that werent in it for the money. i feel sad the fish industry gets ignored- pretty much every other animal gets laws protecting it but not our hobby

theyre always good to have if you can afford them all. i have a problem with hardness so i had to buy a kit and often use it. i also often use the ph kit and nitrate kit. i use the nitrate kit to tell me when to do water changes, if it gets over 10 on certain tanks (the discus and 'amazon themed' tank) i will do my water changes, but now i have sort of worked out the 'how often' i dont use it as much, but its certanly handy

didnt make too much sence (cause i dont understand scientific stuff too well lol) but i got the jist of things and have added it to the collection. thanks bill