Ianab

The wattage should be on the tubes. 20, 30, 40 watts etc. 1,000 watts for an hour is 1 'unit' of power and cost you about 20 cents. So if you run 100w of lights for 10 hours, it will cost you about 20 cents. Cheers Ian

Agree... if the tank is cycled and reasonably clean there is no reason you cant add a heater and some guppies. The snails will have been creating some bio-load in the tank and kept the nitrogen cycle ticking over. I would give it a general vacum and a couple of water changes, put in a heater set to low and warm it up over a few days and then add your guppys. As long as the tank is healthy there is no need to scrub it out and start again, in fact that would require you to cycle the tank again and would be harder on the fish. Cheers Ian

I have cycled tanks with guppys AND an undergravel filter. No problems, just take it slow and just add a few at first. In fact with guppys you can probably just put a pair in and wait. The tank should stock itself over time. If you take a handfull of gravel from the established tank it will have some bacteria on it to 'seed' your new tank/filter. UG filter will be fine for a guppy breeding tank, there are no strong currents or filter intakes to suck up the fry. Cheers Ian

Alan.. I never said UG filters dont work, they do, I have them in 2 of my tanks. As far as cost effectiveness goes they probably win hands down. But sorry I dont think they do as good a job as a good power filter and definately not a big external canister. My comment about the surface area is because gravel is just small rocks, OK a nice thick layer in a tank adds up to a usefull area for the bacteria to live. But compared to sponge, wool or ceramic beads it has a lot less surface area per volume of media. Another plus for the UG is that there is no big current generated, makes it suitable for fry rearing tanks. I allways find guppy fry inside my ehiem internal. :-? No reason you cant run both... more filtering is better and that way you have a backup to your power filter. Cheers Ian

The filters all work in the same way.. you have some media, bacteria grow on the media and you arrange for water to flow through it. With an undergravel filter the media is the tank gravel. It doesn't have a huge surface area because it's relatively large rocks, but it's cheap and simple. It's OK for smaller sized tanks and lower stocking rates. You can also use a sponge filter, thats a chunk of sponge with an air stone inside to move water through the sponge and do some filtering. An internal power filter is a step up, it has sponges and or ceramic beads for the bacteria to grow on and a pump to move more water. After that you can go to an external canister filter, it can be much bigger, more media, bigger pump, so it does an even better job. A sump filter seems to be the ultimate, a whole small tank set up below the main tank with filter media and other fancy gadgets, used for marine or big tropical tanks and lots of fish. Generally you dont need carbon filters in a normal tank, unless there is some contamination you are trying to remove. Like medication after treating a disease etc. So you can use just an undergravel filter, but it wont keep the water quality as good as you can with a better filter. It's OK for small tanks and a few fish, but a better filter lets you keep more and healthier fish. Cheers Ian

What BK said... The filter will need cleaning out at some point. If it has multiple sponges, just clean the most dirty one (the first one) this time. Dont be too through with the cleaning, just give it rinse in some tank water in a bucket. You dont want to remove or kill all the bacteria. The filters work best when there is some gunge in there, full of bacteria, but eventually they would block up completely. The media may need changing when you cant clean it any more or it starts breaking up, but thats probably years away. Cheers Ian

Usually.. But you cant count on it No plants, but no shortage of guppies either Cheers Ian

Yup, loaches are social fish and like being in groups. Get more yoyos They will be more active and playfull when kept in a group. Cheers Ian

Wire the fans, whatever you end up using, so they are on all the time. Put the light bulbs or heaters on the thermostat. That will give you a more even temp around the cabinet. Cheers Ian

Good save Ian

Yeah.. a part water change probably wont hurt. Tap water is under pressure so may have more dissolved gas in it as well, plus it will reduce any ammonia etc in the water. I like to have airstones in my tanks as well as a filter, that way you have a backup if the filter stops. Not as good as the filter, but might be enough to keep your fish alive. Cheers Ian

Can you get an airstone running in the tank to create some more water movement and aeration? Failing that you could use a jug and pour water back into the tank, just need to get some circulation going again. There may be high ammonia and low oxygen in the tank. Get the water circulating again. Cheers Ian

Could be.. after a few days it will be big enough to survive. Many fish will spawn in a community tank, and often a couple of fry will make it if there are no big predators in there. But setting up a breeding tank lets you raise 90% of the fry instead of 10%. Cheers Ian

The plecos should help get rid of the algae, especially the stuff that grows on the glass, but if they are only small it will take them a while. I put a small goldspot in my 3ft tank that was under a window and pretty green. Took it a month to get it reasonably clean. If there is plenty of algae dont overfeed the plecos with wafers and veges, if they are little hungry they will hog out on the algae and clean it up much faster. Once they have it under control (or you have reduced it with other methods) then you have to start feeding them a bit more. Cheers Ian

Whats it dropping to? The water sounds very soft, more like rainwater. Thats not a problem in itself, but the water will have less buffering capacity and be more prone to changes in pH. The fish you have should be happy with a pH between 6 and 7, but stable is better than having it fluctuate as you try and control it. If you can keep it around 6.5 by doing water changes I would just try for that. Cheers Ian

Could be swordtail or WCMM, hard to tell at that size. There are probably several in there, and if you can catch them a breeding net will work fine. But the ones that are left are the hardest to catch/ best at hiding ones. About now you start thinking " A small breeding tank would be handy ".. And so it begins :lol: Cheers Ian

I dont know of any one fish that will do both.. and not eat guppies anyway. Zebra loaches are good snail eaters, and will live happily with guppies. But you will want several as they are a very social fish. Then most any medium size community fish will control the guppy fry. I have a kribensis in my guppy tank, keeps the numbers down, but occasionally a male gets it's tail trimmed So I wont really recommend them. Maybe some small barbs (golden etc) would do the job? Cheers Ian

Personally I would stick with the Eheim. There wont be enough difference in filter performance to justify the cost. The Fluval pumps more water, but I believe the Eheim has more filter media, so similar results. Of course you could go for a nice canister filter, but by the time you buy one of those you could have set up another 100l tank with basic equipment and have solved your overcrowding that way (for a while at least) Cheers Ian

Tank that size, cold climate I would go with a 300w heater. You wont NEED that much to hold 20deg, but it will do the job fine if you want to wind it up to 29 when you get a hankering to keep Discus or something in the future.

Correct Bristtenose like around 25c, Hillstream loaches around 20c, but you could keep them together around 22. The bristlenose are pretty adaptable. Cheers Ian

The guys have just saved you a whole wad of cash The old filter media are gungy because they are full of benefical bacteria, probably about as many as there are in 1,000 bottles. Just give them a light rinse out occasionally and bung them back in. That way you maintain a good population of ammonia eating microbes living in your filter and no need to add more. The liquid bacteria stuff might be of some use when you first set up a tank and need to seed the bacteria in the filter, but it's cheaper to just steal some media from another tank to get things started. By changing the media all the time you effectively have to recycle the filter each time. The other chemicals aren't needed as a normal maintainance, fish have lived without them for millions of years. Use them if you have a specific problem (new fish, injury, disease etc). Keep the stocking levels sensible, then a good cycled filter, plenty of fresh water changes and some food will see you right. Cheers Ian

The thermostat are probably set.. to something... but you dont know what. Sit them in a bucket of water and see what it heats up to. Yes I would check the electrical connections, especially if they look DIY. There are a variety of safe ways to connect them, and some real dodgy ways like just twisting the wires together If they are just wrapped with insulation tape you can unwrap it, check there are some proper electrical connectors used and the joins are still secure, then insulate it all up again. If you aren't sure get someone with some electrical knowledge (preferably an actual certificate) to check it for you. Cheers Ian

When you say the costs of 2 tanks... how much are you actually spending? Once the tank is set up there should be little ongoing cost apart from a bit of fish food and power? A lot of things that pet shops try and sell us isn't actually needed Rift lake cichlids and plants just aren't going to live together.. it's one or the other there. So if you want planted tanks sell them off. You can allways go to more peacefull cichlids like Kribs or Rams that wont wreck the tank and everything in it. Give them a nice quiet tank and they will probably breed anyway. You wont make a fortune selling kribensis, but it might cover the cost of the fish food they ate :roll: Cheers Ian

The fish that have died, did they look well fed, or where they hollow bellied? You say you only feed a few pellets every other day, do the little middle swimming fish like the tetras actually get enough to eat? I'm just wondering if the pellets are being hogged by the bottom feeding fish and some are missing out. I feed my fish at least 2 times a day, and a variety of food types depending on whats in the tank. Only small amounts of course, but the tetras and barbs seem to go for the flake food from the surface and as it sinks. Any they miss gets hoovered up by the loaches and catfish. A few sinking shrimp tablets for the loaches and cichlids that hang out at the bottom and some algae tablets or chunk of vege for the plecs. A lump of freeze dried worms is a treat and gets stuck in the middle of the glass and usually creates a brief feeding frenzy. I would suggest some different foods, still small amounts, but more often. Watch to see it all gets eaten right away of course, but different fish have different feeding habits. This will probably increase your poo issue, but I dont think thats a problem. Just break out the gravel vac when it gets obvious and use it to do a small water change. If your filters are working properly then they will take care of the ammonia, a bit of fish poo wont overload them. My bigger plecos probably do No2s that are bigger than some of your fish Ammonia will kill fish quick by damaging their gills. They will all start looking distressed and gasping. Take a sniff of some ammonia based cleaner and you will know how they feel Cheers Ian

maybe too many different fish I think... You MIGHT be able to keep those fish in that tank, but many of them grow to decent size and will overcrowd the tank eventually. If the fish you have are living together happily then maybe build up the numbers of them first, more neons and kuhlis wont cause problems. I just find that a decent school of most species looks better than a couple of strays in a community tank. Cheers Ian