SpidersWeb

I like my tanks around 7.5, means you've got a good carbonate hardness which means pH swings are unlikely. A stable pH is better than the perfect pH. I *prefer* a pH of 7 if I can, but most my tanks are 7.2-7.5, I have one thats close to 8 thanks to gravel with shells, and when I move fish in or out they dont mind.

Yeah I'd leave it alone. Its easy to increase KH/pH, but its too much effort to lower it unless you absolutely have to. Also agree pH up and down are temporary and a waste of money. You'd either need to use peat or reverse osmosis to lower the kH effictively. Best to just get the fish used to your tap water, 7.8 is fine, also test your tap water 24 hours after you've taken it from the tap, often you'll find the pH changes as various gases evaporate.

Sweet

Ok, sweet as Just give us a yell if you do.

We have a spare bedroom with king bed if you need somewhere to stop-over before heading up the rest of the way.

He'll be too busy breeding them to do pictures :lol: I'll have to come over and check these guys out at some stage.

My neons do fine at higher temps, it just shortens their life span, but unless you've had those neons for at least a year, then I'd say your angels ate them. Once angels learn they can fit neons in their mouth, they disappear very quickly. If this is the case, any more you add will be food.

The Arcadia Controller you're referring to is a fancy tool to control light output, you really dont need that, just a standard ballast setup is all thats needed. Just get an off-the-shelf Aquarium light, preferably dual. You can get them up to 4' from SwitchedOnGardner ( www.sog.co.nz ) quite cheap (certainly cheaper than your LFS). They're about 30-50mm tall. They're your only option without going custom or $500+, and certainly the lowest profile. Common brands are 'Big Boy' and 'Aqua One'. Or if you want second hand just go to trademe or ask in the private trade and exchange on this forum. Here is just a random example I found on tardeme in about 2 minutes: http://www.trademe.co.nz/Home-living/Pe ... 543114.htm thats a dual 3 foot (with 3ft tubes too) When the bulbs die you can buy new 6500K Daylight tubes in any common length up to 4' for less than $10 from any electrical wholesaler.

I wont be able to make it, but I'd die for some of those wild mollies!!!! Perhaps I could help with trip funding maybe?

There are mixups of terminology there. A Dual Output Ballast, is basically two ballasts in one as far as the name suggests, each output will run a bulb independantly. I could confirm this if you tell me how many inputs and outputs your ballasts have and what they're labelled as. There is another technique used by electricians that lets you use two lights on a single ballast, where you can run (for example) 2x20W bulbs off a 40W ballast. In this situation they are run in series, and if one blows then the other must shut off. This may be referred to as a 'Double Ballast'. I imagine this is where the electricians are being confused. Make sure you know what you're doing as you are playing with 230 volts.

Yeah Paradise fish are quite content in cold water. When I was a kid I always had them in cold. Put one out in my mothers pond once, netted it out a year later when they were re-doing the pond and it was absolutely huge. Danios will live for a long time in cold-water, but they lose their colour and look kinda washed out, only takes them 5 minutes in warm water to recolour though. And yeah coldwater guppies aren't 'real' as such but I hope you'd find that they were semi-engineered using darwinism, e.g. female guppy drops 30 babies in cold water, 2 survive, 1 of those becomes a female, the other a male, breed those two and we get 50+% guppies strong enough to withstand the cold, do it again... and so on. If that is not the case, then whoever labeled them as cold water guppies first deserves a poke in the eye.

Wow! Mine was a bit simpler, the tank weights a lot, I'd say around 150kg and at some stage it appears a tiny stone got under it during transport, which made a chip on the base, when it had about 250L or so in it that little weak spot gave way and its a snowball effect after that, the cracks go right to the edge in all directions and the water drains quicker than you can bucket the water out. So be careful not to get stuff under it, or at least make sure its always on poly, even when empty.

Sounds like it might be that stuff that absorbs Ammonia. Best not to use it as you'll just starve your bactera, then when it stops working, no bacteria to back you up. One of those emergency only tools.

Our kitchen floor has had a total of over 400 litres spilled on the floor, carpet over cork tile. First time my 200L planted tank back-drained down a CO2 hose, *just* got to it in time at about 3AM, was like 'wtf why are my feet wet?' when I went to get a snack. Second time I was over half way filling our 450L when the base cracked. And I always spill water on everything. I turned the hose on once and heard helen screaming, apparently I hadn't secured it in the tank very well and the hose went loose and sprayed most of our living room.

Yeah go for it.

hmm my SAE is useless with algae, and my young clown loaches have destroyed my pond snail population hah Silly fish.

What lighting are you running? If I run my planted tank (has very heavy lighting) without CO2 the thread algae literally takes over within days. I'm told the idea is you want your plants to eat the nutrients in the water before the algae does. If the plants can't, then the algae will go crazy. Some basic ways of doing this are: - reduce nutrient (increase water changes) - reduce lighting (less CO2 required for growth, balances things better) - increase CO2 (either inject and/or reduce surface disturbance e.g. no air pumps, and only a little vibration on the water surface) - increase predators - (SAE etc that eat it) - add more plants - (more plants means more plant growth!) - use AlgaeFix (I really dont like it but am giving it a second chance at the moment due to forum advice) I got a young SAE to help my problem but he's useless, maybe when he gets bigger. Hopefully the more informed planted guys can add to what I've said or correct me because I'm still learning all this too.

Yeah I have noticed that myself actually. I just don't trust MDF I guess. Worth a shot dude, just make sure to test it first, get heaps of people to stand on it so you have a similar weight, and see how it stands up.

L018/L085

The plants will suck up your nitrate, they are very much part of the cycle, and will not slow the development of your nitrification bacteria. Your bacteria converts Ammonia -> Nitrite -> Nitrate then the plants eat it Nitrate is kind of the end product of the cycle, and is harmless to fish (altho some species it slows growth). Your nitrite being 0.3 indicates your tank is still cycling. I'd expect your tank to be able to handle quite a bio-load when you're finished! I've always cycled with fish, and the test kits barely had ammonia or nitrite readings, so you've certainly done a good job breeding those bacteria They're going to be cranking.

Definately. And you dont have the stress of worrying about your poor fishies while you're on a road trip! You can just stick some instructions on the bag, like a letter to your friend of instructions Using a poly-box is the best way, you can often get these for free at pet stores as all their stock arrives in them.

Yeah I'm the Breeding Co-Ordinator for the UHAS. We've only really just pulled the club back out of recess, and I dont want to be too much of a pain in the bottom lol Its a really heavy tank and really awkward. Have been recommend the usual guy (good ol' Pete), so will see what he says, if there is some crazy cost then yeah I'll bribe some people with some beers for sure.

Add it whenever you like If your driftwood is small enough, I recommend boiling it to get any tannins out, fresh wood can be a bit of a tea-bag underwater sometimes. The sooner you get the plants in the better, they 'eat' nitrate so they'll be happy as

IMO - In my opinnion IMHO - In my honest opinnion or humble opinion AFAIK - as far as I know

By 'jack' he means 'jack all' as in 'not very many' Your good bacteria is mostly housed in the filters and gravel, so changing a large percentage of the water doesn't undo the work, but what others are saying is that big pH and temp swings could harm the bacteria in your filter gravel etc etc etc But you've decided what you are going to do Which is excellent, go with that! I'd syphon off any rotting rubbish on the bottom, but you dont need to clean your gravel as you haven't had any fish to poop-it-up. The bacteria will stick to the gravel, dont worry about sucking it up. If you setup more tanks in the future you can use gravel from your old tank to seed the new one, so you dont have the same cycling dramas