whetu

I did too. So watch yourself.

Yep, I agree with Lindyloo. Also be aware that your loach will be happy in the higher temps but your other fish myay suffer. Some people recommend using either the heat treatment or medication - the combination of the two can be very hard on some fish. Do keep a close eye on everyone in the tank, and make sure you have lots of surface agitation to get plenty of oxygen in the water while the temp is high. Be prepared to do water changes to dilute the meds if necessary, but be careful to only change the temperature gradually so you don't stress the fish more than necessary. Good luck.

I've had a piece of wood weighed down un my tank for more than two years - and it still doesn't sink on its own! :roll: It depends on all kinds of variables, like what kind of wood it is, how long it had been out of the water when you found it, how thick the piece is... Currently the wood in my tank is kept down by being tied to rocks. I also have some in a barrel outside weighed down with rocks on top of them. Previously I got some to sink by screwing icecream container lids to them, then lying the lid flat on the bottom glass of the tank and piling the substrate (pebbles) on top of the lid. There are all sorts of techniques people use depending on what they want to achieve and what they have handy to use. Just be aware that you might need to think of a long-term solution because the wood doesn't always co-operate!

I just have mine set up the way the instructions say (I have an eheim). IMO the paeople who designed and developed the system know how it all works best, so there's no point messing with their system! I find the eheim media to be excellent, but expensive.

Hello Pegwood, congrats on your new tank! That's an excellent size for a nice, stable setup that you can experiment with, without too much going wrong. Excuse me if you may have mentioned it in other posts, but I'm not clear if you are brand new at keeping fish or have some experience? If you're new to the hobby I would suggest concentrating on making sure your setup is both easy-care and flexible. By easy-care I mean choosing fish and plants that are very hardy and keeping your stocking levels low. That way you can make a few mistakes and your fish will survive - it can be a big learning curve! And by flexible I mean choosing fish that are compatible with lots of other types of fish (ie non-aggressive, requiring neutral water conditions). That way if you change your mind over time about what kind of fish you want to keep, you're not too restricted by their existing tank mates. Have fun and keep asking questions! :bounce:

Your hairgrass might grow better if you loosen up the clumps and spread it out a bit more on the substrate. Did it come planted in rock wool? If so, did you remove all the rock wool from the roots before planting it? Check out this article from Tropica on handling and planting new plants - I have found it very useful. http://www.tropica.com/go.asp?article=883

Something nobody seems to have mentioned yet - with the yeast mix up high above the tank water level, you will need to make sure it doesn't overflow into the tank. You might be better to bring the bottle down to a similar height to the tank water, to reduce this risk. Also, the yeast mix will do best if it's kept at a steady, warmish temperature (about 20 degrees). If you can have the bottle up against the tank glass it will benefit from some of the warmth from your heated water. You could also put it near your lights - that will make it warmer during the day which is when the plants will want the CO2 anyway, so works out quite well (as long as the mix doesn't get too hot).

WOW! That was unexpected! Oh now you've made me cry. That is a gorgeous poem! My Dad was a pilot. He died a couple of years ago and my brother just gave me Dad's old leather flying helmet and goggles and some of his old flying instruments. (Dad was a Tiger-Moth pilot!) I have them sitting on my dining table and I look at them every day, trying to decide what to do with them... My Dad was a fantastic pilot and parachutist and just loved the freedom and peace it brought to him when he was soaring amongst the clouds. My brother was also a pilot until he had a car crash a few years ago and has been confined to a wheelchair ever since. Thanks for sharing that poem, phoenix.

LOL I tried livebearers once and they bred so fast I got rid of them ASAP! I gave them and all their little baby fish straight back to the pet shop within a few weeks! Personally I like cherry barbs and/or gold barbs. They are both peaceful, colourful and hardy schooling fish. They are not too fussy about things like temperature or food and are compatible with every other kind of peaceful community fish. You can also breed them very easily if you choose (although you need another tank so you can stop the parents from eating the eggs).

Caper, what you said is exactly right. So to summarise the advice given to the original poster: There is no need to turn the temperature up in the winter. Just set it to the ideal temperature for your fish and let the heater (with its thermostat) do its job. If you notice your heater is on a lot during winter, check the tank temperature with a seperate thermometer. If the temperature is rising above what you want, it may mean the heater has jammed on and you will need to replace it. If the temperature is not rising (or if it is falling) then your heater is struggling to maintain the temp and you would be advised to get a second heater and add it to the tank (set at the same temperature).

What kind of fish do you have, wellmax? Obviously some prefer higher temps and some prefer lower... but also some have a greater tolerance for being outside their "ideal" conditions. I would start by looking at your most delicate and/or most valuable fish and what range of tolerance they have, then use the other fish to decide whether your temperature should be at the upper or lower end of that range. Personally I keep my tank at around 28 degrees because that's what my clown loaches like. My barbs would probably prefer the temp to be a little cooler, but they are very hardy and will be fine in a wide range of temps, so the loaches get priority. Oh, and at warmer temps you will need to make sure your water is well aerated and you keep a close eye on water quality, algae blooms, disease outbreaks etc. At higher temps things can progress very quickly so you need to act fast if anything gets out of whack.

*bump* Sorry I can't help with any of these options, but I hope someone will be able to help you. It's stressful enough being made redundant without having to worry about your poor little fishes too! By the way, where on the North Shore do you live? It might help people decide if they qualify to be of assistance.

As for the old glazed pots from days gone by, I wonder if they used to use things in the glaze like lead? I know a lot of older pottery can't be used in a microwave because it has metallic glazes - but I would assume the metals have been contained within the glaze and would not be able to leach into the water... These are just thoughts and questions... i don't have any answers for you! Anyone better informed who could help out with my musings?

It seems to me that the pet shop person has set the heater at a temperature that will not harm the goldfish (20 degrees is just a warm room temperature - in a lot of places in the world they keep their houses warm all year round, believe it or not!) And with a steady temp of 20 degrees that will also allow an algae eater to be kept in the tank - one that has a tolerance for the lower temperature ranges rather than some of the really warm tropical temperatures. So, to me, it sounds like good advice from the pet store so far. As for the original algae problem, there are still some questions we need to know before we can help answer the question: 1) What kind of algae is it? 2) What kind of algae-eater is it? 3) Has the algae-eater already cleaned the algae off the rest of the tank & ornaments... but there is still algae on the silk plants? If it's only the plants that aren't being cleaned, I would suggest that either the surface of the leaves is rough, so the fish can't get at the algae, or that it's a different type of algae that the fish might not like, or that the algae has been established for a long time and has become too hard for the fish to scrape off. I would suggest removing the plants, scrubbing them thoroughly (Just use a toothbrush - definitely no soap or other cleaning products!) then put them back in and see if the algae re-grows. The fish might be able to handle soft, new growth better than it can deal with harder old growth. Hope that helps.

:bounce: Happy birthday si_sphinx :bounce:

OK it's a deal - if I win Lotto I will fly you to Auckland once a week to do my water changes and trim my plants. :lol: As for the plant:fish ratio... that depends on the size of each. I'm planning to have about a million little schooling fish and 10,000 large exotic plants. That's all there will be room for. But that's only my first new tank. On second thoughts you'd better be here for two days at a time. That's how long it will take you to do all the water changes on all my new tanks and prune all my plants. :bounce: Oh, and mop the floor while you're there will you? The housekeeper will get annoyed if you leave drips on the italian marble floor. :roll:

It's my birthday on Wednesday, too! :bounce: I still like having birthdays and I'm OLD! I always ask for pet store vouchers so I can go and buy all sorts of goodies for my fish. If I get vouchers this year I will buy: - liquid ferts for plants - frozen food - a few extra cardinal tetras to boost my school numbers Or if my partner checks his lotto ticket and he's won, I will ask for a HUGE tank with a MILLION fish and 10,000 plants! And a house to put them all in! And a helper to come around every week and do my water changes for me! :bounce: :bounce:

Happy Birthday Sweety! You're a star! :bounce: :bounce:

Oh! I'm surprised! The reason it looks like the plants aren't getting much light is the distance between the leaf nodes. Plants grown in low light conditions have longer lengths of stalk between each set of leaves - and that's what it looks like yours are doing from the pic. In that case, I would definitely chop off the tops of the plants and replant them, and when they thicken up a bit more start gradually adding low doses of general ferts. Make sure you do regular small doses of ferts rather than sudden high doses. If you suddenly add more nutrient to the water than the palnts can use you may end up with an algae bloom.

Hmmm... that seems a bit of a puzzle. I would also agree that water coming from a river on a farm is quite likely to have a lot of nutrients in it, which might be causing the algae problem. Do you drink the water straight from the river or does it go through some kind of filtering system first? I'm not aware of any algae that's poisonous to catfish... What kind of catfish have you had? And what kind of other fish are living in the tank? Do you have any test kits to test the water? If not, the shop where you bought the fish will most likely do a water test for free and tell you what levels of ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and phosphates are present in your water - this should help with a diagnosis.

Hi JarrenB, it seems that you have a low-light tank there. Your plants are growing tall, but they are not going to get bushy - because they are all reaching up for the light. If you want your plants to grow thicker & bushier you are going to need to add quite a lot of extra light to your tank. As for CO2, ferts, etc, it's really a matter of achieving a balance between all the elements. I would suggest that adding CO2 or ferts won't do a great deal for your plant growth at this stage, but if you were to add extrea lighting and speed up the plant growth, then it would be time to start thinking about adding the other elements. Once your plants reach the top of the water, prune the top half off then replant the top in the gravel. That will help you get more plants and might help make the existing ones thicken up a bit more.

Bit early for Matariki, isn't it?

What do you mean about keeping the water 'clear'? Do you see particles floating in the water, or is the water just generally cloudy? Also (like Romeo said) is the water milky-cloudy or green-cloudy? The problems are caused by different things.

Welcome Stretch. How big is the tank? (Dimensions?) Sounds fantastic! :bounce:

:bounce: