SpidersWeb

Yeah she sounds awesome, I love clown loaches.

Why do you need so much of it? I just sacrified a single cotton pillow, and its given me more than enough wool to go around. When its saturated you just wash it under the tap. I use it in my externals on the final layer as a water polisher as it picks up finer bits of dirt than the foam you get in filters normally.

Most pet stores will stock Formalin 5%, will be with all the usual fish chemicals.

Oh whoops, maybe I got that mixed up

Also I find the pH will raise over a period of 12-24 hours as the chlorine etc evaporates.

haha god I hate Black Widow Tetras, I haven't had them for years but when I did they were nippers. Best to take the widows back, or setup a little tank for your Betta. You can also just leave them to it, my Betta always has nipped fins, just got to make sure he's not getting stressed out by it, or beaten up as such. We got our red fighter for our platty tank, but he got a little too vicious too quickly, so we put him in our community which has adult angel fish etc, he stands up for himself quite well though, and knows to avoid the front side of the angels. Its in a 4 foot tank though so he has lots of room. Fins are a little nipped but nothing too worrying. If you want him to have perfect finnage you'll definately need to get him his own tetraless tank!

Congrats Put me down for some! Gorgeous pair.

I've got two blue males, they have black on them though.

With regards to colour, I assume you mean colour temperature. Standard household lights are 2900K which is a bit of a yellowy colour often called 'Warm White' and not very good for fish tanks. 6500K is considered 'Daylight' its generally the best for most freshwater aquarium setups, especially if you have plants. 6500K tubes can be found at electrical wholesalers for less than $10 in most common sizes, and give off a nice bright white colour which is perfect for plants. They are also called 'Cool Daylight' 'Bright Daylight' and 'Colour 86'. I've had good success with 7000K bulbs too, and 14,000K gives off a nice bright white, but its known that 6500K is the best choice for most situations, and its also used outside of the fishy world, so 6500K tubes can be aquired from places other than your pet store at much lower costs. Metal Halide (MH) lights are a different type of lighting setup, they use a small bulb which gives off a huge amount of light. The upside to these is they give off a lot more light per watt, and the higher intensity of light can penetrate water deeply, great for deep tanks or where extreme lighting is wanted/needed. Downside is they give off a lot of heat, and need to be kept at least 20 or so cm away from the glass, most people often hang them from the ceiling. Great but they're expensive, and probably only worthwhile investigating if you're wanting to get real serious with planted aquaria, for most people 6500K daylight fluoros are the way to go I would go with two double 3ft setups for a tank that size.

I raised my 5 GBAs from 1.5cm to 10cm at 30C, they're now in my planted tank at 24C and the boys are getting their bristles Lots of people say 'pH must be this' and 'temp must be that' but they're honestly fine in most situations as long as its stable. "Best" is probably 25C ish with pH 7ish, but I know of one person who has BN breeding in pH>8 and temp of 30.

They'll know, and it will be written on your tube/bulb too Most tropical fish look great under 6500K, it's like being outside. I'm not sure which bulbs bring out colours precisely the best, but most people I talk to seem to think fish look great under 6500K. Your plant range is huge, lots of options, I'll leave that up to the aquatic experts on here as I'm terrible with plant names. Oh and with the Flourish Excel, it's not a fertiliser, just so you know, its a carbon supplement, does a similar job as injecting carbon dioxide, its a great way too boost plants without boosting algae growth. If you've got algae, you probably wont need any fertiliser stuff like standard Flourish etc Only downside with Flourish Excel is the cost, its like $30 a bottle which is just enough to stop me from using it. What fish do you have? An algae eating fish might help a lot if you dont have one.

It'll be more than enough to grow plants The black algae is common in tanks with an inbalance. If the plants grow fast enough they'll use the algae's resources first, so it wont grow, hopefully getting lights in the proper kelvin range will cure this. However if its still a problem aftwards, you'll need to come back and make another thread, as thats a whole topic on its own! Flourish Excel, CO2 injection, cleaner water, and maybe a SAE/Flying Fox fish are all helpers against it, but hopefully you wont need any of those. A 6500K light is just as bright as a 14000K light, its just the colour spectrum they put out thats different, both use the same amount of power etc Plants like daylight, algae isnt picky. Hope that helps Is your algae look like little black hairs or more of a slime?

Remove one of the bulbs and take it to your LFS, they will be able to order you in a replacement. The K rating is the colour of the light (aka temperature). 2700 kelvins is your normal household bulb (ugly yellow), daylight is 6500 or 7000 kelvins, white is 10,000 kelvins and anything higher moves in to more of a blue/white. For plants you really want 6500 or 7000 kelvin lights. When ordering from your LFS you should have more than one option of tube, try to get one as close to 6500 kelvins as you can (but no lower than about 5500). Each tube will cost around $30ish. You wont have any choices other than the temperature (K rating) to worry about. I think when you say 'Powerpack' you actually mean 'Power Compact'. Powerpacks are those black box things you plug in to the wall to recharge your cellphone or iPod etc lol (also known as an AC Adaptor) which you wont have on your tank. Power Compacts are a type of lamp often used in fish tanks though Hope this helped

They are definately SAE, not Flying Fox. Apparently it's easier for the importer to import them under the same name 'Flying Fox' rather than seperate species, downside to this is that the fish store must label them as 'Flying Fox'. I bought one today. Only ten bucks.

I get mine from LFS, any pet store, cost me about $3 for quite a few, they're just labelled as plant weights. If you're in Wellington Central then Animates Kawhawhara. I got mine from Paws n Claws in Upper Hutt but I know other pet stores have them.

It doesn't go through the impeller, its just one of those venturi setups. I find its silent unless I've shaken up the CO2 mix hehehe :oops:

I know this isn't terribly constructive in regards to the topic, however Elite make a 200L/hr filter thats very small and has an air line intake and only costs about $25, it doesn't take up much room and doesn't make too much current but when connected to CO2 it does a really good job of mixing and distributing. Using this I get my plants (swords, java fern and others) in a 200L planted tank to pearl from a single 2.25L DIY yeast mix. The filter is on a timer with the lights (5 x 4ft T8 6500K).

Translated in to English thanks to Google There you go Click that puppy

All good. Also hospital tanks dont need to be glass, a cheap plastic bin will do the job, as long as its big enough for her to swim in. Could save a few bucks. If you've got a spare air pump and old heater lying around can be setup quite cheap.

How much does an Aquis cost, I'm guessing 2200 means 2,200L/hr?

You're right, it will All good. Was just an auto-reaction question, a lot of people buy it as a fertiliser not realising its a carbon supplement. I have heaps of DIY CO2 setups, they're great, I'd love pressurised but the cost jeez! Remember to try and set them up above the tank or use a one way valve, one of mine ran out today and the syphon pressure blew a T connector off and the tank started draining :roll: :roll: wanted to just slap myself

Sorry I edited my post before you replied lol I did a google to make sure I knew what I was saying, turned out I was wrong so I deleted that part of the post :oops: :oops: Driftwood does also soften water, but only until its staurated and can't absorb anymore.

All my fish get bloodworms daily and sometimes more than once during the day, I dont have any African cichlids though. (American cichlids, tetras, danios, gouramis) I've tried Frozen Mysis Shrimp, Frozen Brine Shrimp but its the bloodworms they love, many fish will jump out of the water to grab it out of my hand. Also feed tropical flakes of course, and special diets for the big guys.

Tank looks great White gravel with african cichlids is an awesome combo.

Thanks sharn becc4 - thanks for the info, if it gets worse I'll definately give that a go. Hopefully don't need to because applying meds to fish this size isn't really my forte, was hard enough moving him in to the other tank haha