tHEcONCH

Have you considered just buying a red Sea Max tank instead? When you consider the cost of the individual components they aren't too bad value, and seem to be OK for most corals.

There are only two fish in the tank, so there isn't too much competition. I started with a cup full of live sand full of all sorts of little bugs, I've introduced live Mysis shrimp, plus a few other creepy-crawlies have come in on corals that have established a population. I feed the tank a lot which keeps the populations up, and I also feed Reef Roids which the fish seems to eat - it has actually fattened up quite a bit and seems happy - it spends most of the day hovering around picking at things - its fun to watch

I hear rumours of a 4" version... unfortunately a tank with twice the volume would mean twice the cost for corals, and if you punch those numbers into the calculation for determining the amount of grief my Wife would give me Grief = RSM x (new tank volume to the power of length), Grief = RSM x 260 to the power of 4 Grief = The amount of grief I got for the RSM x 4,569,760,000 That's quite a bit of time in the doggy box! :lol:

So, I've had mixed results from Superglue (runs everywhere and Mushrooms seem to be able to escape at will, and AquaKnead-IT. Are there any other options, preferable with a bit more 'stick' than AquaKnead-it?

Yea, there is an unused vertical wall on the backside to the left. If you shut the door to the room, get down on your knees, and squeeze your nose up against the glass at the bottom corner you can just see it - what do you reckon - encrusting Monti frag or some sort of flat Favites?

Cheers - thanks for the compliments - I wasn't really too sure how my efforts would stack up, but its nice to know I'm on the right track. Now all I need is a really big tank...

So, a few other bits of info - I've taken out all the mechanical filtration (other than the bag the charcoal is in) because it just wouldn't allow enough water to flow through and the circulation pumps started cavitating. Along with some charcoal, I'm using half a jar of Seachem's phospate remover, both where the foam used to be. It is very difficult to get the temperature to drop below 28 degrees, but that is probably in part due to the tank being in a recess behind a door in the same room as a couple of Discus tanks. The lights' fan is very noisy (as in stuffed) and needs to be replaced - I'm hoping the distributor might come to the party on that shortly. I feed a lot, and change at least 15 litres a week using Red Sea Max Pro salt (the stuff with the red lid).

Two proprietary Red Sea white/blue 55 watt T5 power compacts (1 watt-liter/4 watt-gallon). Here's a link to all the specs: http://www.redseamax.com/redseamax/Red_ ... specs.html

Pics of my tank are up in a seperate thread...

No, its my first effort at Marine - the Acros and Montis were grown from frags generously donated by John at Organism... heres where it all began...

Its a fish - A Flame Angel named Thermal - refresh your screen - they are bigger now

So here are a few pics - I'm not entirely happy with it yet but its only been running about 5 months (since about 9pm on March 23, 2007), so its still to settle down. More pictures on page 5...

Or you can just come around and have a look, Wilson...

I'm afraid my digital camera's autofocus doesn't like low light - I was trying to get good pics of the Black Sun open. I'll get around to it at the weekend maybe...

Why not just buy a new tank locally? It would probably be cheaper than the petrol and a lot less hassle.

Tap water in the Cashmere area contains about 5ppm Phosphate - not too terrible in a planted tank if you keep the stocking level at an appropriate level. If you are using any sort of plant fertiliser, don't - and the plants will suck up the phosphate.

It looks like weathered Rhyolite off the Port Hills - If you wash it thoroughly it should be fine, but watch out for bits with redish patches - that's oxidised iron. You can always leave it in a bucket of water for a week and then measure the water parameters to see how its been affected.

Be aware that a healthy adult Oscar will eat just about every other fish you put in there - they are highly aggresive and predatory, and generate a lot of waste, and they will dig holes and uproot every plant they can - but they are really, really cool fish if you are prepared to look after them. I have a pair (male + female) in a large tank along with an adult Rusty Plec - even with the biggest filter I could get they still need 90% water changes every week to keep them happy. They are hilarious to watch digging holes and spitting stones at the Plec (who has some big twisty logs to hide in) and they spawn regularly. I say get rid of all the little fish and keep one big one in a good sized tank (or get more tanks :lol: )

Just get a couple of loaches to keep the population down if you don't like seeing them - they don't actually do much harm at all in small numbers, and help get rid of detritus trapped under logs etc.

Take some 'dirty' water from your other tank and put it in the new one to introduce some of the bacteria you need to start processing the ammonia etc - it sounds to me like your Oscar has Nitrite poisoning - lots of large water changes and seeding the filter with a starter culture are the only solution until you can rehome the Oscar. Good Luck.

Sorry Guys, I only have interwebby during work hours - I'll take some tonight

I'm reluctantly considering re-homing these two, both males (I think) - Check out the advert in the trade and exchange thread.

I've got one and its all good - I'm keeping everything from Xenias to Black Suns to Blue Acros in there - they all seem to be doing well and are growing like mad - then again I feed and do fairly large and regular water changes in there. They are a great all-in-one tank, but the light fan is NOISY. The only real problem is that like all tanks, its too small.

I know where it is...

It is just my opinion, of course, but I think that a lot of people tend to diagnose illness as the cause rather than the result of stress. I have enjoyed great success with Discus using a fairly simple but increasingly unfashionable formula - plenty of clean water and not succumbing to the temptation of 'adding one last fish' to my tank. TGWH says he has a planted community tank, so although some of the advice given here might be fine otherwise, its difficult to apply to a planted community tank without collateral damage. Plants will struggle and even begin to decline at temperatures above 28 degrees (so that will increase his phosphates again), and other fish (depending upon what they are, of course) might also struggle at that temperature. Medicines always have a negative effect on bacterial and microbial populations but their use can be easily avoided by not stressing the fish out in the first place. Just my 2cents.