bdspider

In regards to 5, I was very paranoid about this too, but its very hard to do. They normally just move out of the way. I've been told, if you do suck them up, they will just stick themselves to the inside of the vacuum, and not actually go very far + its not powerful enough to pull them up, so they'd just fall back down like the gravel does. You can just feed them vegies, like courgette and peas, you don't need to buy a commercial food. Make sure there is some driftwood in the tank for them to chew though. There are heaps for sale on trademe, they're probably healthier than shop ones cos they won't have the stress of being moved about as much (And their 'parents' will have taken better care of them than certain pet stores.....)

I'm pretty sure they're common spiny eels.

My boyfriend's spotted metynnis cleared a 4ft tank of duckweed. Mind you, they'd eat all your other plants too. If you make sure you get every little piece out it won't grow back. Bit tedious though.

They look really cool with sand, instead of spitting it out the sand flies out their gills. As others have said, they're better off with sand than gravel. They keep the sand nice & clean too!

My grandparents had their pond cleaned out by a heron. Once the bird realises there are fish in the pond, they will keep coming back to it. In the end they only had bronze goldfish because they were better hidden than the orange ones.

Won't the kuhlis burrow into the bottom layer? Would that be bad for them? Would it make the water all cloudy once they'd broken the sand layer?

My hoplo is obsessed with bubbles. He likes swimming around the top of the ug filter, where all the bubbles come out. It's so cute. He is also very greedy, he will handfeed just so he can get to the food faster.

Mine don't get any commercial food, just courgette, which I replace every day even if there's some left. They also love peas (squeeze the shell off). I have noticed that they do eat any frozen bloodworm or tropical flake that falls to the bottom. Even if your tank does have algae, it is a good idea to supplement their diet anyway.

How aggressive? I want to get an opaline gourami in future... Would it be better not to mix them?

Why's that? I love bottom dwellers. Catfish are my absolute favourites.

Just wondering if a betta splenden (siamese fighter) would be suitable for my tank. The tank is about 85litres, 2 foot long. Tankmates are 4 bristlenoses (little baby ones), 6 neons, 1 baby whiptail & a hoplo catfish. Some sites I've looked at say the bettas are quite aggressive so that tankmates should be carefully chosen, but I thought they were only aggressive towards other bettas? Thanks in advance for any advice

Yay, my little baby is learning to handfeed. I hope he enjoys being stroked! I'll try and get him used to that when he's a bit bigger.

Here is an online calculator that works it out for you. You enter what your electricity costs are, and all the wattages of your bits & pieces. My tank only came to about $110 a year though, that seems really cheap! http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/p ... _costs.php

Aw, they're so cute. I love bristlenoses, I have 4 of them at the moment (common ones I assume). They're about 2 months old. Just wondering, how fast do they grow?

Yay, my tank has arrived & is all setup now. It looks great, even without fish & with only a few plants. I'm getting some bristlenose fry tomorrow, then next week it will be off to Organisms! I love bristlenoses, I can't wait til they grow bigger.

You won't catch a 9cm eel like mine that way... (well, he would have been about 4cm when caught. A little glass eel)

I was given my eel, so not sure about catching sorry! He isn't needy at all. I'm sure this will shock people, but he doesn't even have filtration in his tank and is doing fine. When he was little, he didn't have any substrate, just java moss to hide in (+duck weed). Now he has standard aquarium stones on the bottom, he loves moving around under the stones. It's been suggested to me that he'd be more active with filtration cos of the extra oxygen the static water would get. He's quite active during the night, nocturnal of course. I usually do a complete water change, so I can rinse the rocks out (Tank & eel are too small to be able to use one of those fancy gravel vacuums) but then I live in Chch, so there's little worry about having to cycle water and get rid of chlorine. He eats a teeny piece of frozen bloodworms daily. I sometimes give him bits of chicken. I'd love a teeney baby freshwater cray to go with him! Yours is very cute. I like the idea of a bigger freshwater tank. I love how you don't see the natives during the day, but at night they all come out.

Yep, I realise... eg. I love black ghost knife fish so much, but I know they grow quite big. It's mostly wistful thinking. Don't worry, I know several experienced fish freaks, so I have had plenty of advice given to me

He's very friendly around feeding time... I should probably try to teach him some tricks, they're a very intelligent species.

Yeah, I don't think I'll get the actual fish for at least another 2 weeks, assuming I can setup the tank next week. At least Christchurch has great water, so no chlorine to worry about. And forgot to say in first post, I guess it's my first *tropical* tank, cos I have a longfin eel too. He's very cute, 9cm long now. This photo was taken about 6 months ago, hes fattened up a bit since then.

Hi all I'm about to get my first tank and am so excited! It's only a 2fter, but it'll make a great start. I'm awaiting the arrival of the tank (it's being made right now) and the filter system was not available from my source anymore so I'll have to check out some pet shop prices today. I think I'm gonna start out with a pack of zebra danios, some sort of cory (either bandit or panda) & a heap of baby bristlenoses (cm long ones). And maybe some tetras, depending on what Organisms have discounted. Tetras are so boring. After that, there's so much I would love to have... kribs, kuhli loaches, synadontids, kissing gourami, knife fish... so exciting.