Warren

Did it fizz lots or just a small stream of fine bubbles from a couple of places. Some rocks have fissures in them that release air when put in the aquaium. If you are uncertain, drain some water from your aquarium into a bucket. Measure and record the pH. Put in some of the rocks and leave for 1-2 days. Measure the pH again and compare to the original. Any change, - rocks no good.

Yip, many of them did look like Thunderbird 2. I think it is also the easiest way to sex them. I think the female have fatter guts than males. Does anyone else know a conclusive way to tell them appart? They had faded a bit. Did you know that clown loaches can live for 70 years if you don't accidentally kill them first like me. You had to be carefull feeding them. They loved bloodworms. They always came to the surface to rip them out of your hand. They've got very big nasty teeth when they get 250mm long. I had chunks bitten out of my fingers a couple of times (slow learner). It wasn't intentional, they just mistook me for food.

I've always found demolition yards to be a good source of glass. They often have good sheets of 10mm too. One of our local yards has about 5 sheets of 19mm glass and 8 sheets of 35mm glass. There are various other sheets of thinner glass as well. A lot of it is no good, but it is usually worthwhile visiting regularly, as a good sized suitable sheet pops up from time to time (6-10mm).

Good tank. Sounds like you need to accidentaly drop the camera in the tank! I'll pinch the camera from work and post so photos of my tank.

Isn't this a fairly universal problem most males suffer from?

Cheers Midas, I'll root around the local labs and chemical supliers. If anything turns up I'll post the results here.

You'll have to keep an eye on the Rams. During breeding, the male (as usual) can be quite agressive. It the spawning is unsuccesful, the male will sometimes kill the female. Its just something to be wary of, after all Rams are not cheap!

I've got a couple of Jurupari left (about 150mm/6 inches long). They do indead get 250mm long. I've also got 1 Surinamensis left. It is 220mm long. They get pretty big too. The males typically have much longer fins, and long thin trailing edges off the fin tips. Males also have a flatter belly. The females tend to look a bit more like Thunderbird 2 in the belly.

Sounds like you are on-to-it! Hopefully things will start to settle out in a couple of weeks. Regards

I've just be going back over these old posts. Have you tried bristlenose? They need wood in the tank. They spend a lot of time sucking the wood. They must need it in their diet. They are great for cleaning up logs. If it is your log that is causing the brown sediment, the bristlenose may remove what is causing it given some time. They are a nice fish and a usefull addition to most tanks (except where the fish are big enough to try to eat the bristlenose).

Sounds pretty good to me. I don't know how it would be done so we can easily get in to update it. Would be best if it was in a list form where each person can update their bit as needed. Maybe Cees can suggest how to do it based on the technical limitations of the system. Put me down for starters!

Hi Ira, You may also want to put in some plants like Hygrophila difformis or Hygrophila polysperma. These are fairly hardy stem plants. They usually grow berserk. Limnophila sessiliflora (Ambulia) is also good. Most stem plants grow fairly quickly. This means they will use up the excess faster. May be worth trying some. They are also the cheapest types of plants. Your Borneo Sword and Java Fern are both nice plants, but are both quite slow growers. If they algae up faster than they grow, it might worth giving the Hogrophila's a go. Also, another good plant for nuking nitrate is Duck Weed. Its a pain to get rid of, but it eats nitrates fast!

Hi Blair, How will the sale of live seahorses be handled? Will there be sales to the public directly from the tourist part of the business, or will it be exclusively through retail stores? Any idea of target retail pricing? Great place by the way. You guys have come up with some really awesome and innovative ideas. I hope they are suitably commercially protected. Can't wait to see how the tourist bit works out.

I used them once too. They were not too bad from memory. I don't use test kits much anymore for CO2. I have a system that seems to work pretty well. I have the Dupla CO2 Dauertest indicator in the planted tank. As long as its colour is green I'm happy. It saves all the mucking round with test kits. About every 2 weeks I do a pH test as a backup measure. If all is going ok (as it usually is) the pH is bang on 6.8 I looked at pH probes but they were either too expensive or too unreliable.

I don't know if this is the correct place to put this post but here goes. You are possibly looking at adding some plants? If your nitrate is truely 120ppm plants will not grow at all. They will just sit there and slowly rot. You will need to get the nitrate down below 50ppm (or 30ppm even better) by water changes before the plants can metabolise nitrate. Plants do not actually use a lot of nitrate. How they control the nitrate level is by using the ammonia products before they are coverted to nitrates. They aid the filter in other words and use some of the excess nitrate. Hope this helps.

I used to have 16 Clown Loaches. They were all quite big (150-250mm Long). They were great. I kept them in he same tank as 10 Geophagus surinamensi and 10 Geophagus jurupari. I had them for about 5 years. I got most of them in Rotorua from a guy who had them for about 5 years. That made them about 10 years old (mmm I can add!) I used to really like them (were my favourite). One day I got home and all 16 were dead. I have no idea what killed them. They were fine in the morning, but at 5:00pm when I got home they were all floating at the bottom. None of the other 20 fish had anything wrong with them. It was bizarre! I was totally gutted. So much so that I've not got back into keeping them again. I will one day however as they are on my top 10 list.

If it's a coldwater fish, its unlikely to be allowed in.

I had a talk to DOC. It is illegal to catch whitebait at any time other than whitebait season. However, whitebait are juvenile Inanga. It is legal to catch Adult Inanga any time of the year. If you are going to catch some, please be responsible about it. Try not to destroy the habitat and only take a few at a time. Do not strip fish an area! Helpful hint, Inanga like to swim along the bottom of the stream. They are very fast and extemely difficult to catch during the day. The first time I went out to catch some yeilded 5 in 2 hours. The biggest secret is to go at night. They are a bit slugish, and you can sneak up on them. They usually hide in deep areas at the edge of plant lines. When I went at night, I caught 10 in about 5 minutes. That was enough, so I went home. I still have 14 in a coldwater setup in the fishroom (one jumped out a crack it would have had to squeeze thru). I've had them for about 1 year now. They adjust well to captivity and eat just about anything (Flake, Crumble, Beef Heart, Shrimp, Bloodworms...) They sit at about 18-20'C and pH of 7.0. They are all about 100mm long now (about 60mm long when caught). They were young adults. Adults are quite easy to identify as they loose the clear body and develop a gold line down their side. If you catch clear ones out of season, put them back. There is quite a big fine if you are caught with them. They are a neat fish with tons of character and are always active.

Well done Midas! I've never heard of a water additive for deworming. It's normal to have to ingest the worming agent for it to be effective. This cure is especially important as it can be used on fish that do not want to eat. Can you tell us more. 1. Where did you get the stuff and exactly what was it called (brand name / active ingredient name)? 2. What size packet did you get? 3. How much? Thanks Warren

Probably not. 20L is a very small space. Once in a larger tank the loaches and other fish will have heaps of room (until they get 200mm+ long). It sounds like it is the small space causing all the activity. Your loaches better get used to the small tank. You're not going to be able to put them into the new 330L for 2-3 weeks after you get it anyway. If you do you run the risk of stressing the loaches. You do know the common name for Clown Loach don't you, - 'White-Spot Magnet'. Because they are scaleless any toxins (ammonia and nitrite) effect them more as they can be directly absorbed through the skin as well as impeading gill function. You'll need to make sure the Nitrogen Cycle is well finished before putting in the loaches.

This method works fine if you have really good test kits that can measure accurately in the 2-4dH range. Most test kits (all I've tried) only give 1dH steps of accuracy. This allows you to only approximate the CO2 and it could be out by as much as ±50%. I've found the best method is to add enough CO2 to make the plants happy and no more. If in doubt, err on the low side until you are sure. I have a CO2 test kit. I haven't checked to see how it works. Many test kits rely on the pH and KH being between certain values to give correct results. The one I use is a Tetra brand. It seems to go ok and tells me I have between 10-20ppm CO2. Its not very accurate, but indicates its within the right amount.

Take the front corner of the aquarium where the side is butted up to the front glass as an example. Get a long narrow peice of 10mm glass 50mm wide and the full height of the inside of the aquarium. Cover one wide side and one narrow side with silicone (after cleaning it) and push into the corner. Move the glass up and down 1-2mm until all the air bubbles squish out. Now you have a double-butt, - over twice as strong as the original. Why twice do you ask. The tensile strength of silicone reduces as it is stretched. With twice the contact area the silicone does not stretch as much + there is twice as much silicone to start with. It usually pays to tape the glass in place while the glue cures. It will take at least 1 week for the glue to cure. You finish the aquarium first, making it the way you would normally. You go round afterwards adding these extra strips of glass to double-up all the joins. This is only a security measure however. There are very few tanks out there made this way. All I can say is; Most of my tanks are double butted. The only tanks I've never had trouble with are the double butted ones. I've had trouble with every single standard tank I've got! I only have the trouble once now however, as any new leaky or broken tanks end up double butted when fixed.

If you are going to only put in 2 discus to start with, keep an eye on them. They sometimes bully each other to the extent that one will die. If this is happening, you may have to temporarily fit a divider between them until you get more. Once you have 6 the fighting is usually distibuted between them enough to sort out problems.

If you are going to keep Discus, your pH will be less than 7. In this case there will be no ammonia in you tank, only ammonium. Ammonia is toxic to fish, but ammonium is not. As Ira states, you filter will take care of the rest once it is mature. I would expect the nitrite bacteria to be starting to form about now. Over the next week you should see the nitrites drop and the nitrates start to rise. Once the nitrite has fallen to 0 your tank is ready. I would put in a few more other fish at this time. This will increase the load on the filter system and make it stronger. If you suddenly introduce 6-8 discus from virtually empty, the filter will not be able to cope and it will go through another nitrogen cycle. This can be harmful or even fatal for the fish. You could probably add a bit of Cycle to your tank about now too. This will help to kick-start the nitrite to nitrate conversion.

If you do use cooking oil, make sure you clean it up very well. The glass edges must but free from all oils and dirt. Any film of oil left anywhere that the silicone goes will mean it won't stick. Even if you can't see it there can be a problem. I wipe the area where the silicone is going to go with spray & wipe then wipe it clear with paper towels. Next wipe the area again with meths and a paer towel. Wipe twice with the meths. The last time you wipe away the meths residue with the paper towel, do it very thoroghly. Now the glass surface is ready. Do not get the spray and wipe or the meths on the original silicone in the remaining joins of the tank. It weakens it.