michael.qian

Thinking about a Fluval 204 canister filter (second hand for $100 on Trademe) for my tank, as I want mechanical filtration as well as biological and generally more filtering power. Currently running an Eheim 2010 Internal which only has a sponge. Got 2 question about getting the canister filter 1. I need to keep both filter running for a few weeks correct? So bacteria can be established in the new canister before I take out the Internal. 2. What's a good arrangement of the 3 columns? There are rings but don't know what else it's got, should I fill them all up? If so what should I put in them and in what order? Cheers for any help.

sorry to hear that but if you cant find a tank, get a large bucket or something and put the heater in there, your fish will be fine for a little while but get a backup tank as soon as you can.

yes that will be good, I don't have a camera at the moment but I'll see if mine looks like yours. Mine are quite small though about the same size as a adult danio.

Went to Hollywood myself just now and managed to pick up 2 siamese algae eaters. They were sold as "Siamese flying fox". But they looked like genuine siamese algae eaters, with the black line through the tail and clear fins, no gold line above the black line. I told the guy they look like real siamese algae eaters and told him the difference between those and the flying fox, he goes "oh ok is that the difference". They should learn about their fish better lol. Right now sitting the the bag in my tank, will release them in a while.

Oh ok black beard algae. I'll give them a go then if I can't find siamese algae eaters, might pickup a few tomorrow.

sorry what's BBA? thanks

Do ottos eat hair and fuzz algae? If they do I'll get them instead as they are pretty small and I can have 4-5.

Oh right ok. I never knew much about Otos but looked them up last night, could be an option, so either them or SAEs

When I rang Hollywood Mt. Roskill yesterday I got this lady who seems to have no idea what she's talking about, not that friendly either. Me "Hi do you have any siamese algae eaters?" Lady "We got these gold ones and black and brown ones." Me (a little confused) "Are they the real ones or the look-alikes like the flying fox?" Lady "Ummm they just the ones that are golden ones or brown-black ones with the sucker mouth on the bottom" Me "Ok thanks a lot" Lady just hangs up. Does she even know what a siamese algae eater is? What she described sounded a lot like a chinese algae eater.

have you tested your water for ammonia, nitrite and nitrAte? also is the goldfish in the tank with those fish listed below your post? what's the temperature at?

Rozski What is your question? I've never had Otos before, but found ramshorn snails get good at cleaning algae off leaves and side of the tank. But green algae and also green water is helped by excessive sunlight.

what type of algae? normally brown algae appears first in an established tank, I got rid of my brown algae by ramshorn snails, but brown algae should disappear by themselves eventually when the tank gets fully established.

what's the size of the heaters and the tank? if heater too small and tank too big it won't work very well, or if it's in an area of low water flow it will only heat one area more than the other.

Thanks for telling me I only knew the black line has to go all the way through the tail, didn't know the other two.

Rang both Hollywood stores and they only have the look-alikes but not the real thing. Tried calling Jansens but no one is answering. I'm looking for some that'll eat the hair algae (like dust on my leaves and thin hairs), that's infesting my tank. Anyone know where to get them? Thanks a lot

if it's densely planted then you will DEFINITELY have no problems. with a tank that size and lots of planted I wouldn't be surprised if nitrate was undectectable.

You've got a huge tank and right now it actually sounds pretty empty. with a tank that size and especially being planted I think its definitely safe to add more fish. what's your nitrate at? you only have too many fish when your nitrate climb too high between water changes.

Clown loaches like higher temperatures as well, otherwise at 24 or 25 they are more likely to get ICH. I keep my ones at 26.5-27.5 But 26 would be a good temperature for your tank I reckon.

Just tested both my tap water and tank water. Tank water is still at 30ppm, or maybe increased a little since I tested it 3 days ago, but not at 40ppm. Tap was is 0ppm, so definitely room for improvements. I'm trying to get to something around 10-20ppm.

Ok so 30ppm is 100% safe? Because then I can get a pair of gourami sooner, but will wait until the neons are picked up and the leopard danios are sold.

You have low lighting? Or are they not all turned on? polysperma, val grass, blue hygrophila (grows very fast in my tank with medium lighting), even my osiris plant grows very well, so you could try that if you have medium lighting. lots more as well, java moss, java fern....

Hi all, currently my nitrAte is at 30ppm. ammonia & nitrite 0ppm. I would like nitrAte to be as low as possible, perferably 0ppm, even though 30ppm is safe but I would still like to reduce it as much as I can. Got a LOT of small malayan trumpets snails, taken out about 100 in the past 4 days, probably still lots to go, could they be contributing to my nitrate levels a lot? The number of fish I have is definitely ok and plus I have got lots of plants as well and they should help absorb nitrate. Planning to add a few corys and a pair of dwarf gourami. Also I have sold 4X neon tetras and selling 5X leopard danios. Any other method of reducing nitrate? apart from weekly water change which I'm doing 25% each week. Cheers

Yes that is a possibility, the ammonia could have killed the fish slowly and they never really recovered even when the ammonia was zero. But I think they were still active after the ammonia was gone for a while before they all became slow. Now every night at about 11pm I take out as many baby malayan trumpet snails as I could, I took out all the big ones before and they've all laid eggs and they hatched. So now god knows how many little ones I got in my tank. I took out about 50 in total for the past three days. So any the point is they could be unwanted bioload contributing to my slightly high nitrate levels.

the tank would be perfect, wish I had one that size. Definitely perfect for the bichir, never actually heard of a datnoid, going to look them up now.

Cute fish, your tank is almost like mine, same plants, same heater and I got some swordtails as well.