SpidersWeb

Good work guys and good on you too for posting a thank you

If the fish get on the fish get on. You can tell by the state of the angels in the photo that aggression isn't a problem in his setup. If it was those angels would be shredded. It's certainly not something I'd recommend, but you can see it's worked for them. I didn't notice those cichlid species though, that is a bit odd, I'd hope the convicts are single sex as things could get nasty later on. Still it's big enough for the other fish to move out of breeding sites. Mixing GBA and BN isn't good though you're right there. Seeing more and more GBAs with black patches in stores and I'm not impressed. I've got crosses myself but it was by accident and wont happen again, and the crosses are kept seperate from my pure strains. EDIT: Yeah if the cichlids are only babies he'd better inform the new owners of the problems that may occur later. It's a progression though, IME I've found you can tell a problem is coming up before it becomes a true problem and remove the aggressive tank mates.

Fish look fine to me, and water is crystal clear. Don't see the problem. With large tanks you can mix unusual species like that.

I've got two acrylic tanks, no problems. Only small though.

:lol: no wonder I love them so much

Yes, he would go fantastic, buy mine for $40!!! haha na joking, he'd rip your plants to shreads. They have teeth too, so big leaves wont save them. Great fish but: plants + GG = no plants. Might even go the Bala Shark as well. Until they're mature they can be a wee bit aggressive.

I'm still going to wager the bristlenose. Especially if they're older. They eat wood and what you put in, in my 40L tank I use to raise babies in, dad + around 20 young ones need the bare bottom cleaned daily.

I put my finger on the glass, and my GG tries to eat it, then when he's not looking I put it in the water, and he races over to try and eat it. Love corgette, doesn't mind cichlid pellets (they're sooooo out of fashion now apparently), but my finger must look like chocolate cake to him because boy does he move! When my ex had oscars, once a week we'd rearrange the tank. They would move to one side, we'd do it, then they'd spend the next few hours looping through any new tunnels, digging anything that annoyed them, and trying to move rocks they didn't like (as in rocks 3 times their size, was funny as to watch). Danios also LOVE water changes with the cold hose, in a 4ft tank my angels go away from it, danios and black neons race towards it and for an 20 minutes after I've done it, all be playing in the small area where the hose was.

Perhaps I'm being overparanoid about ammonia/nitrite. I can't do daily water changes (dont have time), but still good to know!

Edit: wait no, its definately a whale shark. They talking fibs.

Like I said, RCDs and drip loops are recommended advice, and certainly essential to those with a heart condition or any kind of medical condition that could be affected by electric current. You should take in to consideration others around you as well. But I personally haven't had problems with electric shocks, I've had them direct by wire and through water. The only danger I've had is cracked heater in a 200L tank, which pulsed my arm in the water, however I was still able to control it and pull it out. After thinking about worse case scenarios it I agree its certainly not good advice as you've suggested above, but off the forum a lot of fish keeping is more casual than the in theory recommendations. In my sitation nobody goes near the power circuits except me, if you had children or family members around I wouldn't take the risk. As for the RCD, just make sure to get one that auto turns back on when the power is cut. If you can get a powerpoint with this feature I'd definately get it installed if you're replacing them anyway.

Best thing about high petrol prices, much less traffic AND school holidays SUPER COMBO! My 60 minute trip to work and back each day is now 30 minutes. It's AWESOME.

Is it available for purchase in NZ?

Yeah I wouldn't worry about the quality of the sine wave. Any device that needs quality power will have filtering anyway. Fish tanks and pumps certainly don't need a perfect sine. I've run tanks off petrol gens before, worked perfectly fine. Petrol can sit for a while, just not forever. If you have a petrol lawnmower just keep two cans, and alternate which one gets used. If you have a battery, sitting for ages (I do in the garage), just put a charger on them, set it to low charge and leave it. Keeps the battery topped up, and will turn off if it reaches full charge.

LM35Z temp sensors turned up. 1 deg accuracy apparently, and can be calibrated. Going to HAVE to change from the 08M to 18X chip. Not only because I'm out of pins but I'm going to run out of memory faster than you can say bananacow. Want to learn the AVR chips, but assembly scares me. Learning PICAXE basic is like a child learning their first few words. Learning Assembly is like a child learning to write their first novel in latin. On the temperature topic, the recent cold snap of frosts have killed all my baby angels (around 80 that were a few days free swimming). Insulation is my enemy at the moment and will endevor to get that sorted ASAP!

If the filter is established and from a disease free tank it wont be a problem. It would be if your Q tank was always setup, e.g. fish coming and going a lot. On those filterless tanks alanmin, how often are you changing the water? and what %? Are they fed live food or usual flake?

Nope Its not the penis fish is it?

If the fish are going in to the same tank, then using the same bag is perfectly fine. You can also say 'NO NO NO different bag please' when they're serving you (I do this if I think the bag is overloaded or I want them in seperate tanks when I get home). When sending, or giving away or selling fish I don't put stress zyme in either, and neither does our local store. Animates often does but not always. I'd rather avoid having another chemical in my tank to be honest. They should've blown up the bag with air, and sealed it off so that it was a bit like a baloon. If it was floppy then thats unacceptable, but they shouldn't be adding any oxygen type product to the bag. An hour trip is fine, fish are usually sent by overnight courier in those bags. I do get a bit paranoid when doing 8 hour trips, but so far I haven't had a loss from long delivery in a bag. Have had losses with buckets though :oops:

If you get an RCD make SURE it turns back on after a power cut. Most do NOT do this but some do. For lighting this might be fine but for heaters/filters definately not ok to be off, specifically if you have a power cut mid-holiday. To be honest I have had the odd water + plug + my hand incident a few times, but it certainly wasn't life threatening for me. If you have a heart condition or similar then I'd say essential, but for someone like me who's had a fair share of 220V mains current, I'm not really that worried. The recommended advice however is RCD and drip loops.

Well you need some kind of filter unless you change the water regularly. Otherwise your new fish could die of ammonia/nitrite poisoning. I'd only clean it after a sick fish has been in there. Although an alternative that I have used on occasion and specifically with fry, is to have a sterilised filter loaded with Ammonia and Nitrite removers. Java Moss doesn't hurt too. I usually have a mature sponge filter lying around in one of my good tanks, and can move it in to a new fresh setup Q tank if its needed. If a disease was present, I'd sterilise it and wash in hot water before putting it back in the good tank though.

lol

Which is one up from broken glass A lot of people drop their lids etc, plastic would be handy sometimes. I sometimes put mine in a safe place, only to find it wasn't that safe a place at all. Although replacements are cheap.

lol glad you're enjoying it They're called 'Wrigglers', kind of like the wiggles only more R and less crystal meth.

Well time for an update. Next week I'll be ordering a lot more kit, including the gear to make my own PCBs. What happened last week is my LCD blew, internal short, not sure how or IF I did that but need another one anyway. Because of my teeth being worked on, i r poor. Payday on Tuesday, so will kick some ass then. Until then I've rigged the system up to LEDs. So we've got: 08M Microcontroller Pin 1 -> Data In on Serial Register 08M Microcontroller Pin 2 -> Clock on Serial Register Serial D1 to D6 -> what would be 4 data input pins for the LCD Serial D0 -> what would be RS on the LCD (sets instruction or write mode) Serial D7 -> crazy circuit using a 1N914 diode that lets me trigger E on the LCD (I'll explain if interested but too technical to describe for this post I think) Then the 8 outputs each going to an LED, so I can see the binary code output. This lets me write some algorythms etc to familiarise myself with passing binary codes. Now each pulse I need to send a clock and data signal (1 or 0) to the shift register. So I need to read the code bit by bit, and this little algorythm saved my life here: - take the binary code, divide it by 128, (so say 0011101 / 01000000) and store the result somewhere else - value of pin = result (always a 0 or 1 bit) - multiply the binary code by two - repeat process So the result is I can make my LEDs flash parallel patterns by setting a byte in the program. e.g. if I send 10101010 out, every 2nd LED would turn off, and the others on. This setup lets me send 4 bit parallel data to the LCD. The downside to this is I have to use 4 bit mode on the LCD, which will double the time it takes to send instructions. By using more pins on the controller I could get past this BUT 08M $7 18X is something like $20. So unless its horrible to use, I wont be converting to a 3 or 4 wire interface design because I don't have the pin room! I've only got two pins left, so not sure I'll be able to even do it with this chip. Since I need 1 input for setting the temp, and 1 input for the temp sensor, then 1 output for a relay...... ugh 18X it is. I'll add that to my buy list for Tuesday. There is lots more I learned here too, but don't want to bore you with even more details.

Wow! I want some!