Southerrrngirrl

ha! I just came on to post the same question. I also got 2 Blue Gouramis the other day. Asked the girl at the LFS what sex they were, she said they were too young to tell? Hubby estimated their size at about 4-5 cm, is this considered still juvenile? I'll post a pic tonight

Casper, it is generally recommended that only one of the rainbow shark species be kept in a tank, unless you have an extremely large tank where they can all have their own bit of territory. I have one in a community tank with tetras, corys and a couple of loaches. He chases them when they get near his food or in his hidey holes but thats about it.

I was looking at the above pic before and thought "gosh, they look like rainbow sharks except shorter" Maybe you have rainbow sharks Casper???

Yep, we've looked at lightbulbs. The aren't over a year old yet but will be soon. The LFS doesn't have the right kind of light bulbs at the moment, so I have to wait until they arrive.

Yeah I was told the same thing, along with Oto's etc but I just don't have any more room in my tank for more fish... nevermind. My tank is much cleaner now and I'm going to do everything I can to keep it that way.

Ok thanks, thats what I'm after.. opinions and others experiences with mixing types of fish. Yeah I agree with the khuli thing too, I knew that they would do better in a group of 6 or more, but I was gonna try out 4 to see how it went, cos I really wanted some room for some other fish. And yeah I know about the sand thing too, I have some gravel thats quite fine though so hopefully they won't mind that. Ok so bettas and gourami's not recommended... I want gourami's more than the bettas so I guess I'll go with them.

Ooh, that would be cool... cardinals would be even cooler! But also about 100 times more expensive...

I'm thinking about and researching stock for the new tank, which is an AR620 (62Wx 38D x 53H) 90 litres. I really want Khuli Loaches and Honey Gourami's so heres what I thought I could get: 4 x Khuli Loaches 2 x Betta's (female) 2 x Honey Gourami's 4 x Dwarf Neon Gourami's Of course I wouldn't be adding all these at once, I think I'd start by just getting the two bettas. Does this look ok?? Too much? Or could I get away with adding something else?

I have no experience with keeping bettas, I know you can't have two males together, but what about females? We saw gorgeous blue female bettas the other day and hubby wants to get some, but only the females as he doesn't like the fins on the males. Will two females together be ok??

OMG Caryl, you were so right. The gravel I got for the new tank, I liked so much that I wanted to replace the existing gravel in my other tank. So we pulled the tank apart, and replaced the gravel. Planted a few algae free plants and put the fish back in.. wow! Their colours are so much more vibrant now, especially the cardinals and glowlights. It was a mission, took about 4 hours from start to finish but it was so worth it.

Well I did it. Pulled the tank apart completely! I actually had another reason for doing it, I wanted to remove the gravel I originally put down, in favour of some finer more natural looking gravel. At the same time ripped all plants out, and only put a few nearly algae-free ones back in. Gave the glass a damn good scrub, and now looks a little bare, but a thousand times better than it did before. And all fish survived the ordeal

So what brand is a good quality bulb then??

Ok, well the bulbs are probably getting near due for replacement anyway so.. will get bigger watt lights.

Tank is an AR850 thats like 150ish litres 84W x 44D x 59H cm the bulbs in the tank are 2 x 25W 10000K and 1 x 20W 15000K.

Thanks for that, BlueandKim, I can tell you, the Amazon Chain Sword does not look happy at all. Most of its leaves are a brown holey mess. This brown algae is really $^& me off! I do have another thread floating around somewhere discussing it, actually posted in it earlier. I've tried most of the suggestions, someone suggested I might have too many phosphates in the water so I got a test kit, it was 2ppm, which apparently isn't ideal so they told me to get phosozorb, which I couldn't find at the LFS, so don't have any of that yet. I checked my lighting it appears to be sufficient, so someone told me, (maybe its time for a bulb change??) and also have been trying adding Flourish Excell, and it still looks like it does in those pictures, perhaps even worse, theres a fair amount of that fluffy black algae now, Black beard is it?? I'm just about ready to tear the tank apart and start again. BUT I will try putting in the fert balls first...

Ok so I've been doing the whole flourish Excell thing for like a month now... with no change. This brown algae stuff is EVERYWHERE, and i've also noticed an increase in the black beard algae I think it is?? The fluffy stuff. Its growing partiularly well on the filter outlet. I've been adding the Flourish excell everyday, and i got some new plants, but they just seem to have been covered by this damn algae. I'm getting so frustrated now.. even considering removing everything from the tank, giving it a damn good scrub and starting over, new plants, gravel the whole lot.

Why do the sell it then, if its not good at growing underwater? What about these ones? I have these in my AR850 (ignore the fact that they are being totally taken over by the brown algae (which I still haven't managed to get rid of!!) THe first one grows incredibly well, i'm constantly cutting it and planting the cuttings. The second one did take of well but seems to have slowed, possibly even stopped. no idea why.

I've got this one and this one

It will clear, I added a piece of driftwood to my tank which i bought from the LFS and for several weeks it discoloured the water but its fine now. I'd just leave it and put up with the discoloured water for awhile.

Have you recently added driftwood? It could be tannins leeching out.

OMG.. I wonder how well that guy did in school?! That is shocking! Roxy tetra :lol: here's me thinking it was a breed of tetra I hadn't heard of

Thanks for that. I haven't a clue what the plants are (wish the LFS would label their plants!!) I'll photograph them and post pics tonight if that helps. I've been meaning to get all my plants ID'ed. The only one I know I have is Cabomba, cos I've got a book that shows pictures of some plants available and its in there.

I've got some new plants, I don't know what they are, neither did girl at LFS, but they appear to already have roots and they came in a little plastic container thing packed with what looks like cotton wool or something similar. When I plant them in the new tank should I remove the plastic & stuff from the roots or can I just stick it right in the way it is?? I also got some JBL fertiliser balls, where do I put these? The lady at the LFS said I should push them into the gravel right next to the plants, is that right?

Ahh, well thats good to know. I've gone for a dark coloured fine gravel I managed to find at the LFS, they don't normally have it on display in the shop so thats why I didn't see it before. We did take a trip down to the river last night and got a bucket full of dark coloured sand, which we trialled in one of the AR380s but it clouded the water really badly and this morning it had cleared a bit but i disturbed the sand and it clouded the water again so I don't think it would have been a wise idea to go with that. They tell me at the LFS that the gravel I bought was cleaned and stuff so, all I have to do is swish it in a bucket of water a couple of times. Got some plants and some fertiliser balls too so I'm all set to begin the set up process!

Awesome tank! I want some of that background stuff you have. Do you just get it cut to the size you want? Does it cost much? *Edit* wait, is that just the flat poster type stuff??