Ianab

There are other ways to heat a tank, but think expensive. Best option is to use normal heaters, the Jager brand ones seem to be the best. They cost a few dollars more, but they are better. You could probably mount them on the end of the tank, along with the filter pipes. If they are in a good water flow from the filter outlet then they will be OK upright. At least that way you can keep all the wires and pipes in one place and maybe even hide them with a cover. I you aren't around to look after the tank then putting 2 smaller heaters in there isn't a bad idea. If one does happen to fail the other one will hold the temp OK. No matter what filter you have it needs to be cycled. The ceramic beads are designed to grow the bacteria that the filter needs to function. Yes you can get filter elements to absorb ammonia, but they are a one use thing. Once they are used up then you need the biological part of the filter to be working. Cheers Ian

Some Pleco pics from the last few days. My bigger goldspot pleco, just lazing around. Same pleco sucked on the glass - after a BIG feed Closeup of my Sailfin gibbiceps. And one of the baby Commons finds that someone else is trying to take over it's cave. Cheers Ian

The cycling is the initial setup of the tank and filter. When you first set up the tank there will be practically no ammonia 'eating' bacteria in the tank or filter. If you add a full population of fish the ammonia will build up quickly and kill the fish. Simplest way is to just add a couple of hardy fish (depends on tank/fish size) and leave them a couple of weeks. This gives the bacteria a chance to get establised and multiply. Then add a few more fish each week and after 6 weeks or so your tank should be cycled and fully stocked. There are ways to shortcut this, but they involve having a cycled tank or filter already. If you are starting from scratch, just do it slow and you will be fine. Ammonia and nitrite test kits will let you monitor this, but if you dont have them, just take it slowly. How often / much you have to change the water depends on the amount of fish.. or more exactly, the amount of food they eat. The filters will convert the waste ammonia to nitrate, which isn't toxic in small amounts but eventually builds up in the tank untill it affects the fish. So we do water changes to keep the level down. 20% of the water per week or fortnight is a sensible level for a normal tank. More fish, more water changes.. less fish you wont have to change as much. You can use a Nitrate test kit to work out exactly how often you need to change water, or just use a rule of thumb like 20% week if you dont want to get too technical. Clean out the filter when you notice the flow dropping off. Dont try and get it spotlessly clean though, you will clean out all the good bacteria. Just rinse it out in a bucket of old tank water while you are doing a water change, wash off the worst of the gunge and bung it back in. The filters are working best when they have some gunge in here, but too much cuts down the water flow. How often you need to clean out depends on the filter type and what fish you have. Cheers Ian

Yup.. they do make like a blundering elephant around the tank :lol: A couple of the the smaller species should suit you better The cuttlefish idea should be fine, it will only adjust the pH slowly and in a fairly stable way. It will increase the hardness of the water too, but I'm guessing your water is very soft at the moment if the pH is low, so that wont hurt. Cheers Ian

The way I remember setting them was to get a big jug of warm water, at 25C or whatever you wanted your tank at. Sit the thermostat part in the water for 10 mins or so, then adjust the screw so it just clicked on. Once you got them set right they were pretty accurate and reliable. Cheers Ian

What else do you have in the tank? Some fish will nip a lot more than others. Unusual for anything to catch a barb though, they are usually quick enough to get away. Yes it should heal as long as water conditions are good and it doesn't keep getting nipped. Cheers Ian

For our brewing cupboards we used to use those little plug in thermostats, just get them from Mitre 10. Plug it into an extension cord that runs into the cabinet, then plug the heaters into it. They aren't calibrated or anything, but once you get the temp right just put a mark on the dial. Cheers Ian

The ones I had 'back in the day' had seperate thermostats in their own glass tubes. You had to pop the top off and adjust them with a screwdriver (with the power off ) They did have the advantage that the temp sensor was seperate from the heater, giving a better control of the tank temp. The new style with the easy adjust temp are MUCH more convenient though. Cheers Ian

Well technically the land is still there... it's just a bit wetter than before

pH of 6 should be OK for most gourami... What else have you got in the tank? Some other species prefer more alkaline water, but generally I think most fish prefer stable pH rather than fluctuating around the 'ideal'. Any algae eaters? Bristlenose or Oto cats should help keep algae under control, or as you have a decent sized tank you might have room for a bigger Goldspot pleco. Mine seem to do a pretty good job on the algae Cheers Ian

They probably came with seperate thermostats that the heaters were originally wired through. If you have a good one of those then they are still usefull. Check the rubber seals on them though, if they are real old they may have perished and will leak.. not a good thing Like Alan I can remember having to wire my own heaters and thermostats together while setting up a tank - never killed myself Cheers Ian

Maybe this one? http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/species.php?species_id=1064 Cheers Ian

I would put the heater in at least a couple of days before you start adding fish, mainly because it gives the tank a chance to get up to temp and you can adjust it to the right level. The temp markings on them aren't allways accurate, so it's better to plug it in and wait a day, then adjust.. repeat untill it's right. You can do the setup much cheaper if you make some contacts through the local club, things like plants and maybe some spare fish etc. Cheers Ian

Ahh.. you are right.. I see it it does burn coal and natural gas. Wonder where they put the ash? Cheers Ian

And remember that most fish tank lights are flourescents - so they all contain mercury :roll: The compact flouros are no worse than normal flouro lights, and possible better as the newer lamps contain less mercury. As a side note... a compact flouro saves enough power over it's life that if it's powered by a coal power station the mercury waste thing is actually better. Burning coal releases mercury too. And thats not even looking at the uranium that coal releases. :roll: OK I know we dont burn coal for power in NZ, but it just demonstrates how complicated it becomes. Confusedly.. Ian

The barbs wont worry, but I would go with a fine gravel, just a thin layer. It tends to trap the crud out of sight, then you can vacum it out as part of your weekly water change/maintainance. If you have a decent canister filter you wont need an UG as well. You can allways go with some plants in small pots and hide them behind the rocks and driftwood. Makes it easy to swap them out if they dont do well or you get some more. A big bunch of Neons does look good, but they are just small fish without much 'personality'. Hard to get attached to one when they are all small and look and act the same. Be aware that tiger barbs are very active fish, and will nip the fins of slow moving long finned fish. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_barb Dont keep them with guppies / anglefish etc and get at least 6 of them. That way they will chase each other and not cause touble. My 4ft tank has tiger barbs, kribensis, a bala shark and some pleocs - with no problems, so I know they will live together happily Ohh.. and make sure you read up on cycling the filter once you set up the tank, basically, add the fish a few at a time over several weeks. Gives the filter a chance to built up a population of bacteria and avoids excess ammonia killing your fish after the first week. Cheers Ian

Pretty well known scam.... Well it's only a scam if you try and sell it... Problem is it takes more electrical power to run the radio transmitter than you can ever possibly recover from the hydrogen you produce. So as a way to make hydrogen ( from hydro or nuclear power) to bottle and run your car on.. maybe. But as a power source, interesing, but you aren't actually gettting anything for free. Cheers Ian

A school of tiger barbs puts on a good show, plenty of action. It does limit some of the other choices, but some small cichlids (rams or kribensis) and a couple of bristlenose plecos (mostly as a bottom / glass cleanup crew ) All low maintainance fish that wont break the bank or outgrow the tank Cheers Ian

As long as the tank is clean and not overstocked you should be able to keep either OK. Bristlenose are more adaptable than hillstream loaches and should handle the dirty water that goldfish seem to create a bit better. Their minimum temp varies with the different species, but the common ones we see here will handle down to about 21C. Hillstreams like cooler, clean fast moving water, they would be OK living with goldfish as long as you can keep your filtering up and water clean. Around 20C is ideal for hillstreams, with an extra powerhead to move the water around. In many ways it's better to decide on what fish you want, then set up the tank to suit. Easier on the fish than keeping them at one extreme of their range. But plecos and goldfish are commonly kept together as they are both hardy and adaptable. Cheers Ian

Dont worry about bristlenose getting too big, they max out about 10-15cm, and are OK with temps around 20C. Just make sure it IS a bristlenose, the other common plecos we see here in NZ all grow to over 30cm long. The hillstream loaches (borneo suckers) prefer cooler tropical water anyway, so 20 is good for them, but they need plenty of aeration and clean water too. Cheers Ian

Probably related, the dead plants will be rotting and increasing the nitrate, decreasing the O2 and generally causing problems. I would clean out all the dead / dieing plants and do some more water changes untill you get the nitrates down, lower the better. Live plants use nitrates and produce 02.. dead plants the reverse. The filter does nothing about the nitrates, it just helps convert the ammonia and nitrite into... you guessed it... more nitrate :-? The high nitrate/ low oxygen then stresses out the fish and leaves them susceptable to all sorts of bacteria, fungi and parasites that they could normally fight off. If the tank is highly stocked you will have to up the water changes to keep the nitrates down, you can keep a crazy amount of fish if you have enough filtering and do enough water changes. Cheers Ian

Thanks for that link Purple.. very interesting I've seen the hillstream loaches and was quite intruiged by them, but haven't got any yet. Obviously they are a bit different to the common fish, and it seems best to adjust their tank for cooler water, high flow and actually encouraging algae. I guess that people are confusing them with Plecos which are more adaptable (and usually love algae wafers) Dont let our lack of knowledge stop you posting good info Cheers Ian

Dont go too small on the tank, you wont save much money and wont have much space to grow the fry when they hatch. You could have 50 small fish to look after soon. The air pump, sponge filter, heater, light etc are going to cost the same wether the tank is 25 or 50 litres. A simple glass tank in the smaller sizes is pretty cheap. A sponge filter is a good option. It's basically a lump of sponge with an airstone in the middle. The bubbles rising from it draw the water through the sponge to provide the filtering. The bubbles provide water movement and aeration to the tank in general. Not as efficient as a power filter, but cheap and effective. It's good enough for a small tank with a couple of fish and doesn't create a strong current that sucks up the new hatched fry. An airstone is just a diffuser that goes on the end of an airhose to make small bubbles. Looks pretty, gives a bit of current and aeration, but doesn't help with the filtering. It doesn't hurt the tank to have some in there, but it's 90% cosmetic, the bubbles look cool Cheers Ian

The bristlenoses have the best chance I reckon. Might take 6 months for them to mature enough, but providing they have some good caves and plenty of cover a lot of the young will make it in the community tank. Plecos aren't as aggressive when spawning as the cichlids, many cichlids will be able to rear young in the tank, but will beat up anything that comes near while they are doing it. Most other fish just scatter eggs or fry to take their chances on their own, the cichlids and plecos actually make the effort to look after the eggs and young for a while. Set up some clay pots for the plecs and see what happens Of course the first sign that they have bred may be noticing that there are more of them :lol: Cheers Ian

Even though your new tank is 'cycled' it will only have a bacteria population that matches the fish that are in there now. Suddenly putting in 5 times that amount of fish might cause an ammonia problem if the bacteria dont multiply fast enough to keep up. Of course it depends how many fish you are talking about, a full population in the smaller tank might only 1/2 fill the big tank, so it could just be considered one stage of stocking the big tank. If you do move all the fish, you could bring the working filter from the small tank with them and run both filters in the big tank for a couple of weeks. If in doubt, transfer the fish in stages over a couple of weeks, it will be safer. Cheers Ian