Adrienne

Thank you! I am glad I have inspired you to plant your tank. I assume you are talking clown loaches? How big are they? I had another 5ft tank fully planted, mostly with stem plants I had either clown loaches in with the discus. They had lots of driftwood hidey holes behind and under the plants and left the plants mostly alone. I would go for a deep substrate - a good 5cm and plants which can be pushed right in to it. Sword plants are normally good, trim the roots down by half their length and push them in deep, either use fertiliser in the substrate or root balls The upside with swords is that once they do become established it will take more than a clown loach to move them!!

Do the Animates stores down there not have any in stock? I have seen them up here.

What about looking into pond water conditioners?

TLC startsmart (bottled bacteria) allows you to fill your tank and put your fish straight in (once temperature is reached). It works really well.

:thup:

Use a cable tie or cotton/fishing line or even a rubber band to attach the java fern to wood or rocks.

By buying T5 you are moving away from low tech Tropical bulbs bring out the colours in your tropical fish better than the daylight (white) bulbs. For info on growing java fern either click on the FNZAS home at the top left of this page and then go to the plants section on the FNZAS website or click this link http://www.fnzas.org.nz/?p=933 which will take you to the same place. Theres way more to the FNZAS than just this forum

Black Beard Algae - the bane of plant tanks. Starts as little furry patches on the edges of slow growing plant leaves and on driftwood. Multiples when the little tufts break off and attach to a new surface. In the new stages SAE will eat it, after that only flourish excel will deal to it properly. Bristlenose are unlikely to hurt each other - I have 5 in my tank, no issues - its a 450 litre. I also have one large SAE in there.

hmmmm I really need to do something about that transformer sitting on the side of the stand. Great pic Caryl!

lol - I was thinking the same about the full tank shot. I will use my point and shoot for a full tank shot - it seems to work way better. My biggest issue with the full tank is that the strength of tank lights turns everything lime green under camera. It looks so much better than when you were all here, can't wait to see what its like after a couple of weeks of the new dosing regime.

If you run CO2 you may need to run an airstone on a timer at night.

Does anyone on here subscribe to this magazine? I am after some details about it so if you do would you please send me a pm. Thanks

Thanks Liam. I don't have the camera lens you do nor do I know how to work my camera to the best :oops:

my thoughts on your issue - I take it your tank is a 60cm long based on your lights wattage. How high is it? The difference between a sunlight and a tropical bulb is a pink bulb brings out the colours on the fish more. I would also up the amount of time you have the lights on - up to about 10 hours per day. If your ambulia growing long and stringy then it is 'reaching' to get to the lights. This suggests that the lighting you have is not strong enough to get down through the tank. You can easily snip off the healthy part of the plants and replant them. I find java fern/windelov very difficult to grow but most people appear to have no problems. The only time it takes off on me is if I chuck it in a tank with next to no lighting and ignore it. Then it grows beautifully. My big planted tank has a couple of plants which haven't really done much - it will be interesting to see if this changes with my new fertiliser dosing. You have a nice looking tank with a lot of plants. :thup: I wonder if 40% water changes per week along with the use of the fertilisers by the number of plants is too much and you would be better to drop it back to 30%. Are you able to test your nitrates? Often planted tanks are better with slightly smaller water changes. Your swords will need a fertiliser in the substrate to grow properly as they are heavy root feeders - they don't take a lot, if any, from the water column. JBL balls are great for this - just push them in around the root base of the swords, be careful when you gravel vac not to pull them out, and they will last up to around 12 months - around about $13 for 7 balls I think. You could try increasing the amount of ferts you are dosing slowly and see if that helps as well. Hope some of this helps you

I have to say that sometimes it is hard to tell an apple snail from the mystery snail, particularly while they are still small. I have noticed that both snails shells can end up covered in a browny green stain. Apple snails can grow to the size of a tennis ball! Mrrick - ottocinclus only eat brown algae. Bristlenose eat green and brown algae. Siamese Algae eaters eat the new growth at the beginnings of BBA. Nothing eats the green spot algae that forms on the glass - thats your job!

Its looking good. Do you have dwarf chain loaches in your tank? I found that until a couple of weeks ago mine stripped the rotala bare every time a new shoot appeared. They have left it alone the last couple of weeks but I have no idea why.

11 weeks since the last photos were posted and a few changes, yet again. The magdalensis chain sword produced hundreds of new pups, until the tank was taken over. I have removed all but a few around the sides and back of the tank and have let the glosso take over the tank. The large sword at the right rear of the tank has been removed and instead the rotala is being allowed to grow. The anubias nana petite has doubled in size, as has the gloss bush (sorry I do not know what the correct name is) which I trim at least twice a week. In the last three weeks I have battled a major algae outbreak in the tank - an algae which covered the top of the tank, a bit like a green greasy slick. It then bubbled and attached around the edge of the tank and to the large horemani sword leaves on the tank surface. On googling I discovered that this algae was caused by no nitrates in the tank and my nitrate test confirmed this. Puzzled at first, I discussed this with a friend and came to the conclusion that the huge growth of the horemani (I trim at least 8 leaves off a week) was sucking all the fertiliser out of the substrate and nitrates out of the tank. I began to dose excel comprehensive at the rate of 5ml per 40 litres of water each day, increased the surface movement of the water and within three days it began to reduce. Three days ago I began EID (Tom Barr) and the tank is now crystal clear and I can already see more plant growth. Pics -

Have a look at this link http://www.fnzas.org.nz/?p=620 - its on the FNZAS main site. There are other articles there if you haven't had a look around. Just click on the FNZAS Home logo and the menus will appear.

Those things in the tank don't really look like the plastic moss balls but then again the photo is not very good. They look like small rocks to me with algae on them. :roll:

The FNZAS are about to undertake some significant changes to our presence on the web. We're seeking volunteers who can assist us with this process and help out going forward. If you are an IT minded professional, familiar with web backend systems, or web design, and are keen to volunteer, we'd like to hear from you. Please email me rather than pm if you are willing to assist us with this exciting new development. Thanks Adrienne Dodge FNZAS Secretary/Treasurer Edit by Phantom: Post is locked - please email Adrienne rather than posting here.

The FNZAS are about to undertake some significant changes to our presence on the web. We're seeking volunteers who can assist us with this process and help out going forward. If you are an IT minded professional, familiar with web backend systems, or web design, and are keen to volunteer, we'd like to hear from you. Please email me rather than pm if you are willing to assist us with this exciting new development. Thanks Adrienne Dodge FNZAS Secretary/Treasurer Edit by Phantom: Post is locked - please email Adrienne rather than posting here.

the fuzzy is the beginnings of BBA - at this stage a Siamese Algae eater will eat it but not when it becomes more established. No idea what the white is though unless its dust in the water settling still.

SamH would probably be better to ask than me about a light for a small container but I am sure he will be reading this thread anyway Crypts, you would need the smaller growing varieties, I have seen one in a newt setup that looked good but not sure what it was. The other thing you could try is some of the plants sold at the likes of animates. Most of these (not talking about anubias, ferns or mosses here but stem plants) are grown submersed and will happily continue on in a setup such as yours.

Are you going to keep the substrate wet? If so you could try some anubias nana petite. I'm not sure of your plan here but putting a piece of gladwrap over the top would increase the humidity.

We tested Burger Fuel for the first time tonight - apart from the fact they have mayo (yuk) in them, they were alright