whetu

I suggest sealing all the joints, filling it with water and calling it a fish tank! :bounce: I would donate a lot of lovely aquatic plants to see that happen! :lol: Or you could just sprinkle grass seed on the carpet and water it. I hear you can achieve a nice 'lawn' effect that way.

Yes, I just got another light so I'm going to get it some new tubes in the next few days, then maybe try something like hairgrass in the foreground. I might just re-float the ambulia while I'm trying to decide what to do with it. I like having it in my tank as it's a nice textural contrast with the other plants, and also being so fast-growing I think it helps absorb any surplus nutrients in the water and helps keep everything nice and stable.

My next question is this: I would like to plant my ambulia back in somewhere (it's currently in a bucket awaiting my decision) and I would also like to try some red plants like the ludwigia as suggested by Phoenix. Unfortunately I have completely run out of room! There is no room to plant anything behind the big amazon sword because the heater's back there. And I can't really move the sword forward without using up all the open space. I think I might have to remove something to make room. Suggestions?

Ok I rearranged my tank to hide the filter intake. Basically I just took one of the pieces of Java-fern-covered-driftwood that was lying horizontally and repositioned it vertically in front of the intake. I also had to move the right-hand amazon sword forward to fit the driftwood behind it. I also moved the heater down a bit to try to hide it on the left - but it's such a long heater now you can see it inside the cave in the middle! :roll: And I must remember to hide my magnetic algae-scrubber better when I'm setting up for a photo. Before: After:

That's really interesting, BikBok! It's great that they gave you that level of detail (a bit of a shame that they didn't give you some interpretation though).

I only say sorry when I'm wrong. And I'm only wrong once in about 100 years!

When I was still at school I had a part-time job in the Taupo Honey Centre. I was in sole charge of the shop on Sundays, and that included filling people's jars with liquid honey when they came in for a refill. (Just to keep up with the milking theme, the honey was stored in steel milk vats.) Anyway one day I was really busy, a tour coach had just arrived wanting a tour, and someone asked me to fill their jar. I filled it for them then went out to the coach, showed people around, rushed back to the counter where there was a long queue of customers waiting. While I was serving the customers a man at the back kept saying "Excuse me! Excuse me!" and I thought he was very rude for trying to jump the queue. But eventually he got my attention and he said "Is there meant to be honey on the factory floor?" I looked in through the door of the pack-house and sure enough there was liquid honey all over the floor. When I had filled the customer's jar I hadn't secured the valve on the bottom of the vat so the honey had been leaking, then pouring, out for at least half an hour. The vat had been almost full so I lost approximately two tonnes of honey. It took until about midnight that night to clean up the mess.

Dunno - I've never tried the enjo ones. Mine were just cheap from the supermarket and they seem to work fine. I wonder if someone has tried both?

Some Grey Bloke LOLed too.

Well someone was looking for a recipe for bubble-blowing formula the other day. I think my fish may have found it!

This morning I had a (very minor) disagreement with my partner. Then he left for work and I stomped around the house being annoyed with him. I decided I would do a water change on my tank. As I was running water into my bucket at the kitchen sink, I was still grumbling to myself about how unfair the world is... and then realised that instead of putting a squirt of dechlorinator into my bucket, I had put a squirt of dishwashing liquid! This is funny because just the other day my partner used my fish bucket to carry some water out to top up the radiator on his car. I jumped up and down --> :bounce: and said "that bucket is for FISH ONLY! I don't want it contaminated with dirty car stuff!" I think karma may have got me this time. :oops: PS I sent him a text saying I was sorry for nagging him this morning. :oops:

I have compost worms that I sometimes feed to my fish. I was once told that the contents of the worms' gut can be very bitter, and that you're best to put the worms in a container with some bread overnight so they eat the bread and clean the compost out of their gut before feeding them to the fish. I have no idea whether this is true, or how the person discovered that worms taste bitter!

Vinegar and baking soda are my favourite cleaning products - and those brilliant non-chemical cleaning cloths! Vinegar is wonderful for dissolving any hard-water residues around the surface of the water. Baking soda mixed to a paste with a little water is very gently abrasive and will help you scrub the glass and the silicone without scratching. But my best discovery ever is the "Oates Clean" Enviro General Purpose Cloth. I got it from the cleaning aisle in the supermarket. It's just a white micro-fibre cloth that doesn't need any chemicals added because the weave of the cloth does all the hard work! It is now the only thing I use for cleaning my tank glass (in my set-up tank) because it is chemical-free and leaves the glass sparkling! :bounce:

Yes! Water quality in Auckland can vary a lot, depending on all sorts of factors. I once spoke at length to the water engineer at Metrowater (or whatever they are called) and he told me all about the different doses of stuff they use and why. The things I remember are: The water varies a lot because in some areas it comes from dams fed by rainwater, and in others it comes from underground aquifers or even the Waikato River They dose with more chlorine after rain because runoff can be contaminated and they want to kill all the bugs In areas with newer concrete pipes the pH will be higher than old clay pipes (partly because it picks up the minerals from the cement and partly because they buffer the water to stop it dissolving the pipes too fast) In areas with old clay or iron pipes they add more chlorine to the local supply because there might be leaks that let ground water into the pipes Water will have a higher pH after its been left to sit overnight in concrete pipes, so always run it before doing a waterchange in the morning (wait till everyone in the neighbourhood has had their showers etc). Another reason to run the water is because if it's sitting in your household plumbing it can pick up traces of heavy metals (in old houses) or plastics(in new houses). I strongly recommend talking to someone at your local water supplier. If possible, even meet with them to discuss it and take along a notebook to note the important stuff. The guy I spoke to was delighted to have someone interested in his job and could have talked about it all day! :lol:

Erm... I think that may have been a very clumsy attempt to get a new tank. :lol: My report on the matter says "must try harder"

:bounce: Well done pufferfishnz! :bounce: It can get very disheartening when you have been looking for a long time and you don't find anything - especially when every day on the news you're hearing about growing unemployment. It can be so easy to get discouraged and feel like giving up. Congratulations on getting on with it and not giving up!

That's very interesting, Caryl. (And thanks for asking the question, scales&tails!) I have never tried growing daphnia, but at the moment I happen to have a plastic barrel full of water outside on the deck. I am currently using it to try to waterlog some driftwood, and was intending to use it again this summer in an attempt to breed cherry barbs. Instead I might give it a go as a daphnia breeding programme! :bounce:

Yes, my ambulia (which is currently floating so it's about as close to the lights as it can get) is very bushy and reddish at the moment. When it's planted it's often green at the bottom and then reddish-pink at the tips once they hit the surface. But usually I'm quick with the scissors and it gets pruned before it gets to that stage!

The last time I tested my water was when I moved house - took the tank completely apart and set it up from scratch with quite a few fish in there, so I thought it was important to keep a close eye on the ammonia and nitrite levels! Apart from unusual situations like that, I don't test my water routinely. BUT when a newbie (or not so newbie) comes on here and says "my fish is sick! What's wrong with it?" The very first thing I want to know is whether there is any ammonia or nitrite present in the water and whether the pH is stable. So a good, reliable test kit is important, especially when something isn't quite right and (unless someone off this forum can actually visit the tank in question) it is one of the few tools we have for diagnosing problems from a distance. Hmmm... I must check the expiry dates on mine. I think they are probably about 100 years old. :oops:

Oooh I like the look of the ludwigia! Thanks for the pic! I will investigate further. Not so keen on the crypt though. Like HaNs subtly implied, its leaf shape is quite similar to the Java fern so might not add as much variety to my tank.

All good suggestions (especially the neon blue fake plants - I wonder if they do hot pink as well?) I can provide them with lots of iron as I have a big bottle of liquid Plant Gro that seems to contain plenty of iron but not a lot of other elements. Not keen on the CO2 though. I've had CO2 in the past but I really don't want to start getting too complicated with this tank. I prefer to keep it simple. I will go and look for pics of all those plants. Thanks!

That is a very very cool piece of wood. I think he could earn good pocket money finding more of those for people!

Yes please! :bounce: Now I hope it's not purple-red :-? because I need something that co-ordinates with my gold barbs so orange-red would be better. But yes please to the pic! :bounce:

I agree that would be nice, but I don't know what coloured plants would grow in a tank with 110 watts of light. (Today I bought a new light so soon I will be able to boost it to 170 watts... I think coloured plants may be in my future!) Can you recommend any particular coloured plants?

Yes, I really need to visit the LFS and take a look at what they have in the way of bottled brews. I bought the Nutrafin Plant Gro thinking it would solve my problems but it hasn't. I needed to do a bit more research first - next time I will look for one with potassium in it.