karlos

Ah thats a good point. I checked with my LFS for all the other T5s they had and none fit... Figures... :evil:

oops I forgot to check my post for replies! thanks for the info. I have a Juwel tank and would you believe it only Juwel T5 Hilite tubes are the right length to fit in the sockets! so no cheap alternatives unfortunately. My plants are still growing really well although I think that they have slowed down a bit recently. I will probably see how they go and change them if they start looking sad. Thanks Karlos

Hi I have a planted community tank with 4 54w T5 flourescent lights over it. I have read that you should replace them every 12months or so but they are about $50-$60 each! Thats going to cost me in the region of $220. ouch! Does anyone actually do this?? Thanks Karlos

Fantastic!!!!! Is that your tank????? Drool...

Welcome... there are some great people in here.... and always entertaining! Karlos

Amazing!....Well done

Hi Neons are a bit fragile for cycling IMHO. I would go for zebra danios... These guys are almost bulletrpoof! karlos

ttk. so sorry to hear about your little friend and I hope everything turns out well. I think I know how you must be feeling because a couple of months ago we had to put our 8 year old chocolate burmese Vincent Vega to sleep because he had kidney failure. I wish our pets could live as long as we do but sadly thats not the way life is. What ever happens you can always remember so many good times you have had together. Vincent still brings a smile to my face every day... good luck Karlos

No I had the same problems... and I double dosed it. In my experience Flourish Excel totally kills BBA but not Hair algae. I was told that it can even make it worse due to adding excess iron... Go figure... I am still trying to get rid of it while dosing excel.. Maybe I can try algae fix with an air pump but I'm wary of this. I figure that if I get my nutrient balance right it will be starved out...

Well adodge he had quite a long danio moustache Maybe he was the fish equivalent of an octagenarian...

Thanks Mitzy. Looks like I need to get a microscope...

Ok, I feel like a five year old asking this, but I every so often I get a fish that just seems to give up the ghost for no apparent reason and I am damned if I can work out why. Yesterday was one of those days. Everything in the tank was cool, ammonia, nitrites and nitrates non existent, all fish happy, plants producing lots of O2, no major upsets or fights. Then just after feeding I see my flame zebra danio zapping around the tank in a fit, struggling to keep upright and hanging in the plants in obvious distress. Although he was in pretty bad shape I got my Hospital tank out and siphoned some tank water in and transferred a filter and heater in. Then I go to rescue the little guy and do you think I can find him?! No way! He had gone to ground. :evil: I did find him a couple off hours later, hanging in the Java moss all pale with both eyes missing (tasty treats for the corys?) Anyway he looked perfectly normal (aside from the eye thing ) No marks, lesions bloat or anything so I am wondering what went wrong?! I realise that we all have to go sometime and I'm not getting all sentimental about it (really I'm not! ) but it would be nice to know why!!! Give me some closure here! I don't think it was water quality, I have rummies and Blue rams that are perfectly happy in the same tank. I was thinking about carrying out a wee fishy post mortem but I really wouldn't know what to look for. So what do you do in these circumstances? Karlos

Hi I have had two blue and two gold rams for the past few months and they are no hassle at all. (Except I came home one day and found both the golden rams sucking on bristlenose fry like they were lollypops!) :evil: The blues are my favourite fish. They are great entertainment. Always on the mooch for dinner and not shy at all. The one with the rose coloured tum is the female. the male will have a crest... good luck! Karlos

I took a look at AD Koning's Book Of Cichlids And All The Other Fishes Of Lake Malawi on Amazon too. It has maps and aerial photos of the areas of the lake! Wow now thats comprehensive.... still I might have to put a few more pennies in the piggy bank, (and accumulate some brownie points! :lol:), before I can afford to get that one... Thanks for the advice though. Maybe it can be a birthday+ xmas present rolled into one... Karlos

Wow thanks! Do you think its best to buy these off amazon. I checked but several that you mention are not available there.

Hi all I want to learn more about cichlids, particularly Malawis, so I thought that I would buy a book and bone up on it. Then I checked on Amazon and found that there are about 30! I'm totally confused about which one to pick. I'm looking for a book that describes the different species but also covers subjects like environment, best ways to set up a tank for different areas, compatability, plants, Breeding etc (so pretty much everything really ) So I thought who better to ask than the experts! Whats your favourite cichlid book and why? Thanks Karlos

Just an update on my tank problems. After a few days of battling with the algae I had an attack of green water. This is with Phospates and Nitrates still zero! So I blacked it out for 2 days and dropped the dosage of excel and pmdd in half. This helped but unfortunately when I lit up my tank again it was quickly getting murky. SO I read on fishgeeks that if you have very high light levels you have to get your nutrients exactly right. I calculated mine and realised the light intensity was 3.4watts/gallon UK!. So I took one of my T5 tubes out and hey presto within 3 days I have a lovely clear tank Happy day! :bounce: Even the thread algae has been eaten by the bristlenoses! so alls well that ends well. Karlos

Man you are all as wierd as me about your fish! :lol: OK here goes Swayback sam (banana shaped zebra danio) Fu man Chu Flame zebra danio (has a wee moustache) Mr and Mrs T Blue rams (I pity the fool that don't feed me!) Randy and Earl Golden rams (From My name is Earl) Marcelos Male Bristlenose ( from Pulp fiction) Mamacita Female bristlenose (shes the mama!) Sugar Ray Female GBA (shes a fighter (and the best algae eater in the tank)) Rudolph 1-6 Rummies (I love rummies! (my wife calls them the cartoon acme bombs )) OK I'm deluded. So sue me.... Karlos

holy crap Thats a horror story! sorry that it happened. Karlos

I'll give it a try but I can't get to the shops until the weekend. So where can you buy these sorts of things? Garden centers?

Thanks Warren increasing the PMDD will increase the nitrates without adding phospates so I might try that. So many variables though.

Got my phospate test kit today and did the test with anticipation.... phosphates =0! .....Now I'm really confused...

Hi Hans 20 drops PMDD per day 13mls Floush excel per day Manually controlled Co2 injection from cylinder. turned off at night. 260l heavily planted tank Juwel vision. dim approx 1200 x 46wide x 60 deep. Substrate: daltons aquatic mix with 1-2 inches 4mm gravel on top. 4 t5s 3X54W 1X38 =200W thats the best I could do. No room for more with T5s Filtration: Eheim 2026 external canister filter. Currently water changes 20% every 2 weeks. thinking of increasing to every week. I had BBA but excel cleared this up however thread algae took off from there. When I first started the excel my val lost all its leaves but has now come back. Not sure whether to increase, decrease or keep the dosing of the excel the same. I'm still hoping that the tank will stabilise with the PMDD. PH 6.8 nitrites, ammonia and nitrates read zero. haven't checked the hardness. Trying to get to the point when phosphates are the limiting factor to growth... fish: 8 zebra danios 4 rams 5 bristlenoses 3 corys 6 rummys (looking very healthy so h20 quality should be good) 8 cardinals 2 pearl gouramis Karlos

Well my tanks looking pretty murky today so I can't say much either... Co2 injection, lots of light, heaps of healthy plants, nitrites, ammonia and nitrates all zero and dosing PMDD and Flourish excel! And the thread algae is still growing! What else can I do!!!!! I bought a phosphate test kit and when it arrives I'm going to see what it says. I do think that my tank is overstocked so maybe there is just too much Poo in my tank... If I beat it I will keep you posted (after I do a jig on the dining room table) Karlos

Welcome to the world of Algae fighting! I'd say you have thread algae. I hear that this happens to most tanks at some point in their life. I wish I had an easy answer on how to beat it but I spend most of my time trying to get rid of it myself! Any plants in your tank rely on several factors to grow: light, CO2, Oxygen, Nutrients (nitrates, phosphates) and trace minerals. If there there is a balance of these, the plants grow well and compete with the algae for the nutrients. Algae needs nutrients to grow so is starved out. However if you don't have enough of one factor this limits plant growth. The algae will feed on the excess nutrients and away it goes. This stuff can grow FAST! To make it hard for the algae remove as much as you can by trimming plants that are covered in algae and clean your tank regularly. Frequent water changes also reduce the nutrients but can also reduce trace minerals... so may not be the whole answer. Adding plant fertilizer that has no phosphates also helps There are products like algae fix and Flourish excel which can kill algae however once you stop dosing unless you have fixed the original problem it will quickly return. Also I have found that excel works well on Black bearded algae but not on your thread algae...also some plants like Vals will also be killed by these. Heres a guide to the different algae types. http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/algae.htm heres an interesting article about algae control that I am trying on my tank at the moment. lets hope it works http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/Fertilizer/sears-conlin.html Good luck! Karlos