Warren

Looks a lot like std quadricostatus to me. I've never had quadricostatus var. magdalenensis before so I don't know exactly what it looks like. The std version I had looked just like the photo's above. Also not too sure about what other variants of this plant there are. Many of the swords in NZ are hybrids...

I use 2-4mm gravel and iron rich home made clay balls pushed into the gravel around plants.

Welcome

In a day or so I can go through my books to see what is Amazon and cross reference with what I know is available... Will let you know.

Echinodorus seem to be most common but most of the plants on your list are available. I'm about 80% Amazon as well. The extra 20% are specialised plants for a bit of variety.

I may be miles off the mark here but I don't think there are many if any Amazon crypts...

As TM said, 1 day per mm. If your joins are 6mm wide then that 3mm in from each side so 3 days. Anything less is risking the silicone letting go...

I think the max thickness available now as a single is 19mm. Above this you have to laminate to get the thickness you want. I haven't worked out what the requirements for thickness are for laminated panels but I'd expect they'd be reasonably similar to solid glass...

For the size you want you'll need at least 19mm glass with 25mm preferred. You could use 2 x 12mm laminated to do the same job but you will have to make sure the edge is perfectly sealed so it doesn't delaminate. Would be a great project...

This thread has been cleaned. Let this be the end of the unpleasantness. No more nasty comments.

Good synthetic filter media has massive surface area compared to stone - like hundreds of times as much for the same volume. One of the best is Biomax (1400m²/L) followed by Effisubstrat (450m²/L) then Siporax (210m²/L). All are excellent media. Synthetic media allows you to use a much smaller space for the same amount of effect media. My filter if filled with stone would have about 40m² of surface area. However, it's filled with Effisubstrat so there's 6750m² of surface area... Mine is over 10 years old. I do use a prefilter which may be why it's lasted so long. I suspect the 6 month replacement recommendation by the manufacturer is more to do with revenue than actual replacement requirement.

If they are eating, why not try using medicinal food instead...

500 Liters takes 5 days to produce. I have no idea what the TDS is after remineralising and it would take me a while to figure it out (would have to look up how to do it now as I can't remember anymore). I do know if water changes are not done within two weeks the pH starts to crash. I'm adding only the bare minimum to keep the pH stable and supply enough basic nutrients for the plants and enough salts to stop osmotic problems in the fish. The water is very soft. You would need to add much more of the salts mentioned earlier to get higher KH and GH for other types of fish.

I have to as we have 6-8ppm phosphate in our tap water... There's no choice but to strip everything out just to get rid of the phosphate. I possibly could have used phosphate resins but it's a lot more cost-effective to use RO. I use 500-600L every week for a water change on my tank so resins get expensive very quickly. It costs approx $40 a year to run the RO ($25 for a 0.5 micro carbon filter and $15 for the membrane). So far the membrane has lasted 10 years. We have no chlorine and very little TDS so the RO isn't working very hard. That combined with the 0.5micro pre-filter seems to be doing the job well. Maybe this combination is why the membrane has lasted so long as you're normally lucky to get 2 years out of one...

Ira's right about the drinking water. You'll need to partially remineralise the water to use in an aquarium or your pH will be wildly unstable. I add the following for every 200L for use on Discus and Dwarf Cichlids: 1 heaped tablespoon of Sodium Bicarbonate (pH/KH buffer) 1 heaped tablespoon of Potassium Sulphate 2 heaped tablespoons of Magnesium Sulphate 1 heaped teaspoon of Calcium Chloride. From time to time I also add a trace buffer from the LFS. Because I have a heavily planted tank I also add micronutrient trace element mix and iron chelate's. Have been doing this for around 10 years now with no problems.

Slowly raise it 1'C at a time to max of 29'C. Increase aeration and/or surface movement as the oxygen level drops as temp goes up. If the fish show further distress, drop the temp a little. Higher temp just speeds up the process by increasing the metabolism of both the fish and parasite. If you find you can't go up by 3'C then add an extra day to the treatment time. Leave the 5 day rest period the same though.

If they are eating, try the medicinal food method. It's not as hard on the fish. Get some frozen food and thaw it until just mushy. Depending on the type of food you may even be able to mix it in while still frozen. I use Discus tucker as most fish seem like it. If you already make your own frozen food, just us a bit of that. Mix powdered tablets into the food really well and re-freeze. Make sure the tablets are powdered extremely finely. You can then treat the fish in the tank directly with very little of the Met getting into the water. As it's internal parasites you're targeting so it's also a lot more effective than treating the water. After six days do a good sized water change and add carbon to the filter to remove any traces of the Met.

The dose rate for Met is: 1. 500mg per 100L of tank water. Raise temp by 3'C, Treatment is for 3 days, no need to re-dose. When the treatment is finished, 30% water change + activated carbon added to filter. Wait five days and repeat the entire treatment. 2. 250mg Met added to 100g of food. Feed twice daily for 6 days.

The Google search is still working for now. Cees ran into some trouble loading up the original search function last night. He'll have another go tonight so maybe it will be all go tomorrow...

Sounds more like the engineering on the stilts/land was done very poorly. The weight of tanks you suggest is insignificant compared to the weight of the house on the stilts. Either the land has moved or the stilts were not sunk deep enough to find a solid enough surface to put the weight on. Someone has stuffed up...

Yeah, good point. We tend to forget how tiny the NZ market is...

Anyone can import fish if they either get the correct permits and organise a quarantine facility or find a quarantine facility with an owner who will to do it all for you. The $800 Alan is talking about is quite fair. Firstly, the permits to bring in the fish take some time to fill out and cost to have processed. Then the owner has to go to the airport to meet customs/MAF who clears the import. Then the MAF agent has to go to the quarantine facility and check the fish (at $100/hour). Then over the 6 weeks Q period, theres water changes and more MAF inspections. Finally there is the final MAF clearance for Q release. After all the fees, the Q facility owner would be hard pressed to see more than $300-400 for all the hard time spent collecting and looking after the fish and that not including overheads (power, phone, mortgage, tax etc etc...) $300 is very cheap for a quarantine tank. At that price the tank is being offered as a service. If you are considering importing and using a Q facility, you'll need to organise the shipment to arrive on the Q facility intake date. If not it will miss the 6 week cycle and may be rejected by the owner. To delay all their other tanks release date if your shipment is late will be very costly. Time is money!

My big tank weighs about 2500kg. Before I moved to a concrete floor house I was in a house with a wooden floor and piles. I set new piles into the ground under the corners and center of the tank. I dug a hole where each pile was to go 300mm deep and 600mm square. I set the pile into the concrete poured into the hole while it was sit wet. It was about 100mm short of reaching the floor so I made M25 threaded adjustable jacks to sit on top of each pile. The jacks could then be adjusted as required to help level the tank. It also meant if the piles settled I could adjust for it. They never moved however. Even though it's a bit of work, it would be good insurance to set new piles under the tank. You'll get really good peace of mind from it as well.

I think by "head of water" he means "how deep the tank is". A deeper (taller) tank will exert more force on the same m² if the tank footprint is the same. In this case, the tank is not only taller and heavier, it has a smaller footprint. There will be more force per m². However, as it seems to be better distributed on the floor, the pressure will be lower at the point the stand meets the floor. Overall though, the supporting joists will have a higher load. It should be ok however. If the tank is pushed hard up against the outside wall of the house then the ring foundation (if it has one) will support the back edge of the tank very well. Then the joists are effectively only supporting half the weight of the tank.