John Rimbauer

I've found the AquaOne to be a good brand, if perhaps a little underpowered. I've got round this by using one size up from what I needed. They're still cheap and reliable, even factoring in going up a size. I've got a CF-700 and CF-1000 running on tanks now, they've been running for the past year with no problems.

I've kept them in a cattle trough over summer, and they were healthy and colourful as - perhaps too healthy, as the pond attracted the attention of a kingfisher... As they spent a lot of time around the surface, they gradually thinned out until none were left.

I managed to get a roll of 250 micron black polythene from a plumbing supplies warehouse. This makes an excellent heavy duty pond liner, I've done 3 out of it and none have breached over the past 5 years. That's even with the cats tromping all over it to drink the water!

Any serious retailer of mp3 players will have models for you to try out, the last Dick Smith Powerhouse I went to (Manukau) had about 15 different models to test drive on a display unit. Have a fiddle, pick one you like, and don't worry too much about the brand. I know people with Ipods, Samsung, Creative, etc - they all seem to be about the same. The big difference is price, and that seems to be based on brand name more than anything else. I got a Samsung one because I wanted a radio too, it was about $200 a year ago. I couldn't be happier, it can copy CD's complete with all the info just like an Ipod, and was about half the price. Still going strong too.

Go the SAAWGS! - hmm, that acronym needs some work. The last meeting was a blast, so I'm looking forward to this one. If anyone needs a lift from the Waiuku area, let me know. I can take a couple of people along with me. I'll even try and bring along a plate of homemade biccies, if I can talk the missus into making them. :lol:

I put one on my 2ft tank using 2 blue LED's, 2 resistors, some stereo speaker cable, and an old DC powerpack from a phone. It was very easy to do, and I put the powerpack on a plug in timer. That way it comes on for four hours around midnight. It means you can see the nocturnal fish, and it looks cool when the house lights are off. Also, no stubbed toes when getting a drink at 2 in the morning! From a practical point of view, waterproofing the connections is important, and LED's tend to throw about a 30 degree cone of light, so it's very much a spotlight effect.

My striatums love mince, steak slices or schnitzel when it goes into the tank. And kind of strange, but they're the only fish that my big girl bristle nose will share her peas with - they pick at the pea as she eats, and grab any bits that float away. But if any other fish (eg tetra's) try it she goes all territorial and berserk.

I've seen a couple of cyano blooms set off by very low nitrate and slightly high phosphate. If you can do lots of changes with water that has no phosphate (eg rain water, or deionised water) you can bring cyano under control. It's not quick though, will take weeks at least. If you do this, maintaining your nitrate levels at 5-10ppm can help speed things up.

I've got all three - a velcro magnetic scrubber, a not scratch pot scrubber, and an old AA card. The card works best of all, of course I found out after I'd paid for the other two...

I'd like to know the date time etc too. I reckon that as I've learned stuff, it's just given perspective to the vast amount of stuff I don't know...

The last couple of ponds I've done, I used 250 micron black polythene from a plumbing place. I've not had any problems with leaching, and it's pretty tough too.

I'm not sure how relevant this is to your tank, but I triggered a brown algae outbreak in my tank by using rainwater for water changes. On my voyage to figure out why I eventually found that having a layer of very small leaves and branches in the guttering was somehow to blame. Once I cleaned the guttering and my rain barrel, the problem went away.

Young BN can be a little touchy with water changes though. I had 12 given to me in a bucket overnight. The largest would have been 2cm, the smallest about 1cm. The little devils survived a winter night in a bucket in a garage, a couple of car rides, and then a day at work before they hit my tank. While I was away, the tank had a whitespot outbreak that killed 6 lemon tetras. After half dosing medicines etc, 3 days later I did a 30% water change that killed them overnight. What really sucked is that I used RODI water, and the two big BN (approx 5cm) survived fine.

You saw which now?

I think the spectrum of the light might be too low for good plant growth at 4000K. Most people use 6500K or so for plants, it is a more blue/white light like sunlight. 4000K is pretty yellow, not so good for the plants.

The best one (that I've had running the longest) gets a handful of freshly pulled up grass if it looks too clear. And a bit of fish tank water from waterchanges every 2 months if it's lucky. The ones I actually tended carefully don't do so well. Strange huh?

My daphnia tub in the back yard is teeming with small daphnia when I looked this afternoon. BArrie - if you're in the Waiuku area you're welcome to help yourself to some.

I know there are a couple of fishkeepers out this way. It'll be interesting to see how many put their hand up. PS Congrats on having a cycled tank!

I think that's more or less it. If you have phosphates and carbon available, but little or no nitrate, cyanobacteria seems to go nuts. It gets much MUCH worse if there are high phosphates. Low carbon, low phosphates and high light seems fine, as long as the nitrates are around 5ppm. Both the bad outbreaks I've had have been in well planted tanks with no detectable nitrate (one with pressurised CO2, one without). In each case, dosing nitrate up to 5ppm has caused the cyanobacteria slime to slowly start disintegrating. I reckon that normally plants can out-compete the cyano, but if the plants get nitrate limited then the cyano starts to grow. Anyone got a tank they want to test drive this theory in?

A second thought, I never had any cyanobacteria problem until a few weeks after I set up DIY CO2. This is only a theory, but I think that the rapid plant growth stripped all the nitrates out of the tank and gravel. This might have left a gap for the cyanobacteria to grow, as the ratio of phosphate to nitrate in the water was too high. It would be interesting to see if anyone else has had that happen.

jn nailed it. I bought some from Stocker Hydroponics. I had used chemicals from the local garden centre, but I wasn't very happy with the purity of them after I poisoned my snail and daphnia tank. The chemicals I got from Stocker are top notch, I've had no problems since.

I've had a couple of planted tanks get this now - in both cases nitrates were zero. I've read that cyanobacteria can fix and use atmospheric nitrogen dissolved in the water and use that to grow. I think this is true, as in both cases when I dosed with potassium nitrate to bring nitrates up to just under 5ppm, and held them there, the cyanobacteria has died back over a couple of weeks.

I've done something very similar for two tanks I've got. The 3ft tank I have in the office at work has 6 x 23W 6500K energy saving fluorescent lights in it. They are run through standard batten fittings put together in series around the outside of a custom-made hood. The hood was painted white on the inside, left to dry, and then lined with mylar for the best reflection I could get. The only down sides I've encountered where that firstly, wiring in around a hood is time consuming and awkward, and secondly, the high heat environment makes them fail quite quickly - I now swap them out at six months and use them around the house. I asked a sparkie friend to wire up the second one I did - it took him about half an hour to do six, whereas doing 4 on another hood took me about 2 hrs! It also meant that he could test and certify the work when he was done, which is always good when you have power around water. At the end of the day, the plants and fish are going great, and I have heaps of cuttings to give away. I guess that means it works. Good luck with it.

Welcome aboard Nicolette. I've got some Cryptocoryne crispulata, a young E. Osiris plant, as well Alternanthera rubra and Ambulia cuttings I'm happy to give you. I'm in Franklin too, just over the hill in Waiuku, so if you're keen let me know and we'll sort something out.

I've just battled an outbreak of the dreaded blue-green algae. Mine was caused by having zero nitrates in the water, with some phospates. Because I have a heavily planted tank with CO2 and high lights, I think the plants absorbed all the available nitrates, leaving the water proportionally high in phosphates. I've read that this favours cyanobacteria as they can utilise atomspheric nitrogen. To cut to the chase, I've gone from having an incredibly fast growing mat of blue green slime to bare bottom again by judicious dosing of Ammonium Sulphate, and changing out some old light tubes. It has taken 3 weeks to do, but the algae is now only on some old leaves. It has died off the substrate and rocks etc. I don't know if this is the cause of your mate's problem, but it's always worth checking the water parameters.