whetu

You could add more filtration to your tank (as in another filter in addition to the one you already have, or a different filter that will put through more litres per hour) and/or add some finer filter media to the last stage of filtration. If you're already using the white filter wool, make sure none of the water is able to bypass it and avoid the final physical filtration. Some people go all-out and get water polisher-type arrangements, which use very, very fine filtration as the last stage, and other people use chemicals that clump the fine particles together (but then they will just drop to the bottom of the tank in clumps - you still have to filter them out somehow). Also consider your substrate. Obviously finer substrate is more easily stirred up and there's going to be more of it suspended in the water than a heavier, coarser substrate. After saying all that, you really need to decide if it's worth the effort of trying to fix it! I mean if you're serious about photographing your tanks and entering contests then you might be prepared to put the effort in, but personally I can't be bothered! :lol:

Yes, they are very peaceful. The males do flare their fins at each other though - are you thinking of putting them in with the betta? I don't know if they would be safe in there!

Here's a pic of the red pine with naked stems. Also a male cherry barb being shy and trying to avoid the camera!

No kribs. Just clown loaches, cherry barbs, gold barbs, cardinal tetras, siamese algae eaters and bristlenoses. By the way Sam, the cherry barbs seem to be fine with the current light levels in my tank (162 watts of fluoro light of various spectrums). All the fish go and hide under plants in the afternoon when the sun shines directly into the tank, but the cherries don't hide more than anyone else. On the other hand I don't know what they will think of your planned MH lights! The cherries are really colourful, active, pretty little fish. The males and females look quite different, but are both very attractive in their own way. I recommend them! :bounce:

Hmmm... I suppose that is a possibility! I might have to apologise to my fish! There is no sign of leaves floating around in the tank, but I can't blame the fish for nibbling at leaves that are softening/falling off anyway. I wonder what could make the leaves fall off? The stems are towards the front of the tank, in a position where they get afternoon sun coming in the window for an hour or so each day in addition to the tank's fluoro lights, so I don't think lack of light to the lower stems is the problem. Zev, how long have your plants been like that?

What did I miss?! :bounce: :lol: Nice tanks! Congrats to the winners!

Yep, I was going to suggest the white vinegar trick. It works well on glass but I've never tried it on plastic. The result will depend on whether the plastic has been 'etched' by the minerals, but the vinegar certainly won't hurt so give it a go!

:lol: Good try Sam, but it's not going to happen! :lol: I'm not even really sure who the culprits are. I saw the SAEs nibbling at it first, but I'm pretty sure they are good at eating algae without eating the actual plant. The cherry barbs were paying a lot of attention to the red bits on the first day. My partner commented that it looked like the plants were their long-lost family because of the attention they were giving them, and the fish were the same colour as the red tips! It was a very, very pretty sight! Personally I suspect the gold barbs, but without hard evidence I can hardly transport them to a penal colony! :lol:

Thanks Navarre. I think you're right that under-dosing is better. When I started adding 'Plant Gro" liquid to my tank I would get green water every time - most frustrating! I would rather add less and build it up, as you suggest. On the other hand, I don't think I will carry my white powder to a gun shop, a hydroponics shop then Sam's school... :lol:

I do the same. My maths brain isn't good enough to keep mentally recalculating the doses, especially when the bottle says something like "add 5 ml per 10 US gallons (38 litres)..." :roll: :-?

But Bilbo, if your plants are growing well and you don't have an algae bloom, then surely you must be dosing the right amount for your tank? I mean, the original advice of a couple of drops a day doesn't ytake into account how many plants you have in there, or what kind of hungry, fast-growing plants they are, or how often you do water changes...

Yeah I reckon don't go to briscoes for the scales. Looks like Zev has already done the hard work on our behalf. As for opaque bottles, I'm sure someone on here must have a spare bottle. I actually have an empty 250ml Leaf Zone bottle sitting right here by my computer but you're in Manukau so that's not much use to you is it?! You shouldn't need to remove the platy if you start off with nice low doses. Even if you get an algae bloom the platy will probably just think "hmm, it's foggy this morning!" but have no ill effects! :lol:

:roll: I finally saw red pine for sale at Animates and (now that I have better lighting and PMDD on order) decided to get some and have a go at growing it. The girl in the shop said I would never be able to keep it red because I don't have enough lighting still, but I wanted to try. Well, that was a week ago. Since the day I put it in the tank the fish have been pecking at it. At first I thought they might just be cleaning algae off it, but gradually all the 'pine needles' have been disappearing, leaving just naked stems. The irony is, the fish have eaten all the green leaves and left a tuft of red ones on the tip of each stem! :roll: I really like the look of red pine. The day I put it in there it looked fantastic and I was delighted with it! What am I going to do? Put an electric fence around it?

I can't answer your question directly but I do know that clown loaches will be fine in the higher temps recommended by others. I treated my clowns for white spot (some years ago now) using meds and temperature up to around 32 degrees and they were fine. Other fish in the tank (ottos etc) did not fare so well.

Aha! Thanks Zev! So 2 tsp = about 10 mls = about 10 grams. So your ratio of 2 tsp of powder to 50ml of water is about right, and I would need to dose 10 drops a day (0.5ml) in my 200 litre tank. Or I could put 1 tsp powder in 50ml water and dose 1ml/day (the smallest amount I can measure using my StressCoat lid). That way the solution will only last me 50 days! Wow, that's concentrated stuff! Anyway, as implied by phoenix, the concentration doesn't matter too much as long as I use the same proportions each time. I can start off with 1ml/day and see how it goes, then increase the dose later if I want to. I will write my formula on the bottle so I remember how to make it the same way next time. Thanks everyone! :bounce:

Ok so now you want me to hang around Sam's school with bags of white powder?! I'll just say to the nice police officer, "this guy named phoenix off the internet told me to do it..."

Ok then... keeping that in mind, how do i measure the powder to get the right concentraion in my solution? Is 20g a tablespoon? Or two? Or three? :-? My kitchen scales certainly won't weigh out 20 grams accurately. I might have to wait until SamH gets some scales then I'll go visiting with my PMDD and put it in 20g baggies. Sam are your neighbours the suspicious sorts? :lol:

I don't know that they have arrested anyone yet have they?

Also this sort of behaviour was present in other generations, just directed elsewhere. I'm not going to get into detailed discussions about which generation was the most brutal, but I think if you look into the history of human behaviour there have always been people who chose to inflict pain and violence on others. Just sometimes that behaviour was overlooked by authorities when it was focussed in a certain direction (eg race hate crimes, war crimes).

Hooray! I finally ordered some PMDD form Hans and I'm hoping my hungry hungry amazon swords will love it! :bounce: Here's what Hans' instructions say: I'm assuming that's 2 drops per 40L each day? My tank is only 200-ish litres so I will be adding 10 drops of PMDD solution each day. But how much is 10 drops? :-? I don't have a medicine-dropper type thing, just an old Stress Coat bottle with a screw-top lid. The lid has 1ml, 5 ml and 10ml measures on it. I also don't have a sensitive scale for weighing out small quantities of the powder, so there will be a lot of guess-work involved. So, for example, if I want to make up 100ml of PMDD solution I will need to measure 20 grams of powder. Can anybody tell me what 20 grams would be in quantities that I can measure with kitchen measuring spoons? i.e. translate grams of PMDD powder into mls for measuring spoon purposes? *head explodes from too much thinking*

Thanks Caryl! As soon as I posted that I thought it probably explains it all in the video - but I'm trying to avoid watching YouTube videos as I seem to use up all my allocated interweb gigawhatsists each month by watching too many then I revert to dial-up speed for the last week! :roll: So I will watch the video closer to the end of the month when I know I can afford to! :lol:

Excuse my ignorance, but what are MTI tanks? :-? :oops:

Very sensible response. Despite our gut instinct when we see awful cases like this (i.e. hunt them down and take revenge) realistically the best thing we can do is to support the SPCA in their valiant efforts to track down and prosecute these people. And also support them to track down the perpetrators of "less serious" (or less publicised) cases of animal abuse, so hopefully they will never get to the point where they are capable of such vicious crimes. As has been mentioned several times before, people who do this kind of thing are the same people who go on to abuse humans. They are nasty bullies who lack any empathy and will easily hurt children, the elderly, or anyone else unfortunate enough to meet them. Sometimes I just shake my head and wonder how anyone can be so nasty.

House moves are considered abuse?! Uh-oh... I had better pay more attention to my five-year-old eheim that has moved house with me at least five times! But I do agree with the others who say nothing should need replacing - just regular checking and maintenance to make sure everything is still doing what it should.

I believe that power prices in the US are much lower than ours. Also they tend to maintain a reasonably stable ambient temperature in their houses year-round, so they would heat their whole house in winter. Therefore the tank heater would only need to lift the water temperature from about 20 degrees to 25 (for example) whereas a lot of our houses drop to pretty much freezing overnight in winter!