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Hutt Pets on Petoria St Lower Hutt have a good selection of the larger guys (although god damn those new oscars are hideous, Gavin tried to eat me through the glass last weekend haha), and last visit I'm pertty sure there were flying foxes. They've got in a whole bunch of baby gold severums (so cute). Any fish store at all will order in for ya, so if you see something you like, best to go in and talk to them I've only been to wet pets once, they had at least 5 types of pleco when I visited, locally I only ever see common plecs or redspot plecs. Hutt pets has some borneo suckers though. The store in Paraparaumu was great. Its nothing compared to wet pets, displays are 'meh' and dirty but the prices are good and they were the first store I managed to find Gold Severums in (got a male and female too!) so they got my thumbs up haha. Animates is a good quality store, but you wont find anything in there that you dont find at every other pet store in the country, and the prices often leave a lot to be desired. Very clean, friendly, and they quarantene their fish. Hutt Pets is a controversial topic. They're not known for quality but the prices are great and they take fish from non-suppliers so you get suprises every once and a while too. I purchase from them on a very regular basis. I'd say its certainly worth a visit, if not to buy fish, at least visit Gavin He's a 22 (?) year old Giant Gourami. They also stock the Jebo 819 for $150ish which is a good buy IMHO.

I'm no professionial, but since you said urgent I'll put in my 2 cents. I wouldn't expect that to be a problem at all. Also being made of 10mm glass makes that tank very strong for its capacity, I've seen 6x3x3 made of that thickness, and I'd imagine larger.

Yeah those two are actually Helen's fish (puddles on here). She had a good chat to sharn. We researched the oscar and red devils a while ago. Oscar will be getting a 280L 5ft tank to himself which is more than the min recommended 200L. Red devil will stay in the 4ft 210L tank. But if size becomes an issue we can always change plans. Thanks for warning me about the pleco, have got a beautiful redspot with huge finnage and a lyre tail, would hate to lose him, so definately make sure he gets moved to the oscar tank :lol:

The spray bar location isn't terribly important, and you dont even need one. Its just that it diffuses the power of the water coming out, so fish dont get hit by a super fast stream of water pouring out. All the filter needs is an IN and OUT pipe how you arrange these is up to you. If you have a spray bar in your existing hood, you can use that, just need to plumb it up somehow. I'd recommend plumbing direct to the spray bar and not using the filter section of the hood itself, as this will just put extra strain on the cannister filter and if it was to clog up it could make a bit of a mess. and following on from what evil said, I've heard thats not a good idea. Apparently the angels carry worms etc that the discus can't handle. Also discus like the temp more in the 30 deg C range. But whatever you decide, good luck to ya I want a Discus tank at some stage too.

Well they're best buddies at the moment. But yeah, didn't realise we'd probably need to seperate the red devil as they grew to full size until we got home. No problem though, oscar will need a larger tank soon enough, and the red devil can just keep the 210L they're in. Red devil is about 6 inches, Oscar is about 8 inches. Still young'ins.

Locally I make a trip to Hutt Pets in Lower Hutt every weekend. The reason being that they take those unwanted fish, which means unexpected suprises like to pop up now and again, and some are quite large Also seem to have the most reasonable prices. We got a red devil cichlid from them last weekend, and an oscar the week before that. Also grabbed a badly beaten Firemouth a few months back for about $15, quite a big guy, and he's happily king of the tank in our lounge now his fins have almost 100% grown back. Was taken in to them because every other fish in the tank was beating him up, was totally worth the $15 to see him recover, and if it wasnt for their policy on fish, I would have missed out. I've stopped visiting Animates, Paws and Claws** etc for fish because the stock is always the same. Paraparaumu store was good, FINALLY found a pair of gold severums when I visited :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: but its a bit of a journey for regular trips, WetPets was great too but once again distance was a problem and prices were just silly in some cases, I didnt even bring home a single fish that day Definately a place I'd visit if I was in Palmy, but doubt I'd go there again just to see the store. *ramble over* On another note I've run out of room for tanks downstairs ** although being local sometimes I wander in and come out with bags

Flourish Excel is an 'organic source of carbon' (as above) but isnt liquid carbon dioxide, it contains trace elements tho, still good, like $30 a bottle tho

Flourish and CO2 aren't the same thing Flourish is a fertiliser, carbon dioxide is what it 'breathes'. Enjoy

Speaking of 300W heaters. The Masterpet 300W heaters glow red, which is kind of creepy, but mine are working perfectly so far, no moisutre build up, and even the temp adjustment was accurate, I set it to 27C and the tank went to 27C!! Whereas my Jebo's appear to have been calibrated by a blind man.

When the water surface is aggitated the CO2 dissipates in to the atmosphere, at the same time O2 gets dissolved in to the water. Its important to note that the CO2 doesn't become O2, they're independant of each other, its just that one floats away and another dissolves. The impellar churning underwater will dissolve the CO2 in to the water, which is exactly what we want 8) What we dont want is to dissolve it in to the atmosphere (air) 8) So good idea to keep the outlet away from the surface, and only aggetate the surface just enough to prevent stale areas and to let the fish breathe. While I doubt a DIY CO2 setup would kill a filter, I still stayed on the safe side and got diffuser. You can buy a JBL or Nutrafin diffuser for $20-30, but they wont work as good as using a filter to munch the CO2 up. I have my filter outlet pushing water directly at my diffuser which helps, but I still see bubbles overflowing and going to the top Also buying a cheap $20 filter to do the task is another good idea. If it dies, then its no big deal

18 * 5 * 7 = 630 630 litres Looks awesome

Saying 'not submersible' is just their way of getting out of replacing heaters due to moisture build up, leaks, etc and not being held responsable if somebody gets a bit of a tank zap. I have, and know others who run Masterpet heaters which in the fine print say 'not fully submersable' but still use them submerssed. In their installation diagrams, I didnt see the top part out of the water. If electrocution is a real worry, just turn off the heaters before putting hands in tank, although even a cracked Jager can do this to you. I've heard of Jebo's catching fire (under water, so no house burn etc), and not sealing properly, however the 3 I have work fine (25W,150W,150W). I have two Masterpet 300W heaters, which work fine and keep a stable temp. I have three new AquaClear 150W heaters, and two old ones. One of the old ones developed so much moisture inside it, it ended up staying on, thankfully I got to it in time. The other four all contain moisture (3 of them only a month or so old) but operate perfectly. Dispite the moisture, what annoys me with the AquaClear is that they are hard to adjust, and there is no indicator (no matter how vauge or inaccurate) to give an estimate of temperature change. Both Jebo and Masterpet are cheap, none of mine have moisture build up, are easy to adjust, and if I turn their dials from 27 to 26 I know my temp will roughly drop 1 deg C. This is a life saver when adjusting the temp of multiple heaters per tank, I want to lower my planted tank temperature, but have not done so due to the three AquaClear 150s I'd need to adjust and its just too much of a pain in the pooper. So strangely out of my heaters (all cheap AquaClear, Jebo, Masterpet), the AquaClear is the only one with moisture build up, (I have 5, all 5 have moisture, only 1 led to failure but it was very old). I was annoyed because I paid extra for AquaClear due to being told the problems with Jebo, but ironcally its my AquaClears that are fogging up, and my Jebo's that look shiny and new and are easily adjustable. Irrelevant of instructions all my heaters are full submersed, and on a 45-60 degree angle, and have filters nearby blowing towards them if available. Oh and be careful opening the Masterpet heater packs!!! I purchased two, I opened one, and puddles opened the other, we BOTH broke one of the clips, so when removing the heater make sure you take the cardboard insert out WITH the heater, do NOT RIP THE HEATER OUT. $21 for a 300W, 'twas a bargin, and it left me money to buy sand wooo! If its true quality you want, I've been advised (and agree) that SwitchedOnGardener's stainless steel heaters with external thermostats are a much better alternative to Jager glass, and the same price if not cheaper. No more dodgy bi-metal, solid state electronics for the win! Just my 2c

and...... since our current 'oscar tank' is only 210L, next weekend we will be purchasing a larger 300L tank for him, leaving a spare 210L :lol: We're going to need more Jebo's

While your ammonia may peak at 0.5-1ppm during a cycle, just make sure it doesn't go any higher than this, and keep changing water until it lowers. The accuracy of most tests is to 0.5, so if ammonia is detectable, its considered lethal. Anything higher than 0.5 is considered 'fish lethal' according to most resources I've read. So if its detectable, its considered lethal, which is why its recommended only lower cost/hardy fish are used for cycling such as neons etc For your ammonia to get to 6-8ppm I'd personally put my money on an ammonia based cleaner getting too close to the tank at some stage. I just can't imagine it getting THAT high without a cycle establishing unless you've been using Ammo-Lock everyday since the tank was originally set up. The fish would have started dropping off a LONG time ago if this was a gradual build up. Also I feed my fish about 2-5 times daily, so in your case overfeeding clearly is not an issue and even with a tiny $5 sponge filter a perfect nitrogen cycle would have started and easily maintained the tank in those conditions. From your post above it sounds like you've done everything perfectly If your ammonia is higher than 1ppm definately do some larger water changes though, most of the bacteria is on surfaces of the aquarium and not in the water. A change in pH etc from fresh water will be less stressful than such high levels of ammonia. I'm no professional here, if I'm wrong I'm sure I'll get shot down (I hope!!). Good luck with the tank!

Lucky I've been trying hard to find females, I have over ten Firemouths at the moment and only one definate girl. My adult pair dont really fight, but the male is a wuss and the female is a bit of a man eater. I've got my seven smaller guys (<4 inches) in my community planted tank. I did have to remove the neons because in the morning the Firemouth wakes up straight away but the neons take a good ten minutes, and were just too tempting, only lost 1 neon out of 15 though, so hardly a badass killer, although cichlids will be cichlids too I guess, ya never know. I've found angels to be more aggressive than Firemouths in general, and my cute little young gold severums (which are half the size) don't take any bull from my adult pair of Firemouths. I think the main reason Firemouths aren't labelled as 'cool' is most people don't see (or know that they do) the flarring they do, or the colouration and fin displays of a dominant male, and in all fairness they're one of those 'grey fish' and many people want to add colour to the aquarium. They're also wimpy as far as cichlids go. On another note I've had a pair of Blue Acaras as mentioned before too, they were great but more of an upper than mid-dweller, or perhaps that was just my pair? Male looked great, but female looked absolutely hideous. They didn't cause any aggression problems at all, until a Jewel attacked the female (to her demise ) and after that the male Acara was rather vicious for about a month but only towards Jewel cichlids, so I quite liked them also as they seemed to have some intelligence to them, and didn't use unnecessary violence as such, but once again, I only ever had one pair, so might want to read up some more, just my experience.

Thanks everyone I've used an 8 watt fluro tube I had for working on my car, it sounds exactly like what Stella recommended above. Its a normal fluro tube, in a light plastic case, works great! Anywho tank looks great, great addition to the office room, I'll put up a photo or three tomorrow. Its inhabited by a few neons and five baby GBAs (so cute) at the moment. Its one of two tanks I've recently set up using sand as a substrate too, I'm loving it, except I think my sand is too fine, gravel vac picks up the sand :( but at 5.99 a bag beggers can't be choosers.

Firemouth Cichlid

You can give them a quick rinse, but certainly don't wash them. I've heard tank water recommended before, but must admit I just use tapwater quickly before hooking it back up, just because of convineince reasons.

Hey all, Got a couple of small tanks here (30L x 2), and dont want to pay $60-$70 buying light kits, so just wondering if normal lamps are ok with plant growth. Years ago I heard plants needed some special UV rays? Do all lamps create that, or was that bullocks or was that true? I've got a lamp with a 15W energy saver in it, and I'm sure I could dig up another lamp from somewhere. Plants are just indian fern, and java moss, but I dont want them to die off. Cheers, Jono P.S. gold coin budget

Congratulations on the gouramis Wok 8) Also congratulations on getting convicts that dont breed like rabbits. I'm setting up a Firemouth breeding tank this weekend, stop them from chasing everything else with fins.

Yeah my driftwood grew little white hairs, about 5mm long? Pleco cleaned them up and they never grew back. If its pouring out kind of like a cottony lava, its probably sap, I had that too, didn't hurt anything but sure did make me nervous :-? But then that makes it more 'broken tree' than driftwood I guess.

See, I just couldn't bring myself to do that, I'm too much of a girl (no offense ladies). Whats the deal with the alchol method? Does it work?

If you're building tanks, best to have a browse and read the packaging, if its suitable for aquariums it'll say so on the back in writing. You want an Acetic Acid curing silicone. If its just for repairs, I got a 75gm squeeze bottle from Animates, seems to be an 'X brand' type item, but works, called 'Silicone General Purpose Sealant' (gee creative title huh) but its acetic cure, and fully cured in 24 hours (so fish safe in 24hr), and comes in a package that has aquarium safe printed all over it. Probably the easiest option for the occasional DIY'er, just visit your LFS.

Oh :oops:

I run about 7.5LPH/L in my 200L tanks. So 7.5*630=4725L/hr That might be a bit insane, personally I'd start with 3500, but doesn't mean thats correct, its just what I'd plan to start with, so I'll put my vote in for 3500 and see what everyone else says