Rob

The assorted suckermouth cats that I currently have are: 12 Brazilian butterfly plecs (L168?) 6 Spotted Clown plecs (Peckoltia brevis) 2 Clown plecs (Panaque maccus) 2 Rubber lipped plecs (Chaetostoma cf. thomsoni) 2 Pitbull plecs (Parotocinclus jumbo) 5 Columbian plecs (Loricaria sp "Colombia") + about eight 1cm fry 1 Royal whiptail (Sturisoma panamense) 2 Lance whiptails (Rineloricaria lanceolata) 4 Eigenman's(?) whiptails (Rineloricaria cf eigenmanni) 2 Twig cats (Farlowella vittata) There are also assorted other catfish, but since the question was only about pleco/sucker mouth types I'll leave it there.

I personally would leave it 2 full days - longer if you're tweaking the heaterstat during that time (because it would take longer for the temperature to stabilise if you're changing it) - most new heaterstats with the set temperature scale on them aren't too bad, it's the older type where there is no temperature guide just a screw or knob to turn that can take a while to get set to the correct temperature. I'd also suggest that you check on the pH before you transfer the fish or snail. Sorry I can't comment about the internal filter - I don't have enough experience with the different brands.

@ Phillz: You could add the three snails over time but I wouldn't add all three initially - they still count as bio-load so may over-extend your new tanks biological filtration (just like adding too many fish in one go). I'd probably just add one of them to start off with to clean up after the WCMM (particularly if you aren't able to catch the bristlenoses ). I assume the fish you intend to cycle with are coming from the tank that had whitespot? If yes I'd probably still use some of the water from the old tank (perhaps only one or two buckets full - depends on what % of the new tank this represents) - but I wouldn't use any gravel or filter gunk from the old tank though. The reasoning is that the whitespot parasite is said to remain dorment in the gravel (and quite likely the sediment that builds up in filters) and will then infect fish during periods of stress - so better not to use that. You would also want to minimise any stress the fish are under - ie make sure that the temperature and pH of the new tank are as close as possible to the old tanks, not have any strong lighting on the tank initially (I don't mean total darkness though). If the fish are coming from some other place then I wouldn't use anything from the old tank - your new tank will still cycle, it will just take a little longer or as Dawn says - you could buy some Cycle (or other similar bacteria in a bottle product) but somepeople dispute how useful these things are. @ Dawn: IMO it's better to do minimal water changes during cycling rather than none. Keep an eye on the ammonia level, if it's getting into the danger zone then do a small water change to drop it back to a safer level (so you've reduced the risk of fish deaths but still have some ammonia to encourage the expansion of the bacterial colony on the filter media). I personally don't subscribe to the school of thought that it's acceptable for the cycling fish to die.

Phillz - since you already have another tank use some of the water from it to set up the new tank (ie for the new tank maybe 50% water from other tank + 50% new water, even if getting half the water from the old tank isn't feasible atleast put a couple of buckets full in). The reason for doing this is to introduce a population bacteria to your new tank - they would have established regardless but this helps things along. If you were going to have gravel in the new tank you could have taken a handful of gravel from the old tank to seed it. Other things that you can do is set up the new filter ahead of time in an existing tank so that it starts estabilishing its bacterial colony before hand. You could also squeeze some of the gunk from the filter wool/pad (not sure what sort of filtration you current tank has) of the old filter onto the new sponge filter. I'd setup the heater straight away, IMO the waiting time often recommended when setting up a tank is usually to get the temperature stable and for any murk from setting up the tank to settle/be filtered out. The nitrogen cycle isn't going to properly start until you have fish in there producing waste for the bacteria to feed on (or you have some other form of nitrogen being added). Once the temperature is stable at the desired temperature (I'd leave it a couple of days, measuring the temperature during those days) introduce your first few hardy fish. WCMM should be OK, as they will feed from the bottom (atleast my ones will) - why do I mention feeding from the bottom? If you cycle a tank with fish that only eat at the surface or in the mid-water area any uneaten food just settles onto the bottom of the tank and rots - not good; this means the fish you choose for cycling should be willing to eat off the bottom of the tank (I often recommend bristlenose or a common type of cory). As far as adding rocks afterwards - that should be fine providing they're not a type of rock that will influence the pH and hardness and you don't squash any fish when you put them in . Adding gravel after the tank is setup is often problematic (causing a lot of clouding) unless it has been extremely well washed before hand).

I've also used flourish excel to get rid of black beard algae - it was only the first step in the plan though - the next was to get black line flying foxes (aka Siamese algae eaters) to keep it under control (they just couldn't deal with the amount already in the tank - hence using flourish excel to tame it first). No black algae problems now.

I also had to get my bolbitis ordered in (I've only had it a little while so it hasn't grown enough that I can give any away). Shops don't tend to stock it because it's expensive ($20 a pot) and often doesn't last long in their tanks. The most common comment I see about it is that it prefers to have some current - so I've set mine up adjacent to the bubble curtain and there is also an internal filter (that I had in the tank anyway) pointed in its general direction (not blasting it though).

@ Caryl - I also think the plant in the middle of your last picture is most likely C. pontideriifolia. Here's a pic of one of my tanks, it's the 5' discus tank, has been set up almost 3 months now. I'll see about getting better photos and also pics of the other tanks over the christmas break.

Just a brief comment - please note that Flourish is a general plant fertiliser with the required micro-nutrients/trace elements. Flourish excel is an organic carbon source to simulate CO2 and has the side effect of getting rid of black brush algae. As far as root feeding is concerned - if the root fert includes nitrogen then there _may_ be possible problems. The hope is that most of the nitrogen will be trapped in the gravel rather than making it into the water column - for many tanks this is reasonable, but if you've got substrate heating or are using a heat pad to heat the tank then there is a greater likelyhood that the extra nitrogen would make it into the water column. Two possible items to provide the macronutrients are the Plant Tabs you mention or sheep pellets (get them from the garden centre). I've also heard mention of people using some sort of fertiliser stick designed for palms and ferns - but I have no experience with this. If you're wanting to get the micro nutrients/trace elements to the root zone then perhaps have a look at a product from JBL - 7-balls. These are balls about the size of a marble that contain the trace elements, they get pushed into the gravel at the base of the plant needing them. If your swords are doing fine then I wouldn't worry too much, if their growth appears to be slowing or leaves are starting to yellow then consider root fertilisation.

I can't ID all of the plants at the moment but #2 Ludwigia peruensis (Red Ludwigia), #7 one of the Bacopa genus, probably Bacopa caroliniana (giant baby tears), #8 Hygrophila polysperma (usually just called Polysperma), #9 Hygrophila difformis (Water wisteria)

Just don't get confused with the common names, Gold spot and Gold nugget are definitely different fish (and as Catbrat pointed out Gold nugget gets applied to a number of different species). IMO the gold spots would be better labelled as copper spots.

Rare in NZ - not sure about availability down your neck of the woods. But to the best of my knowledge their not around at the moment.

While the currently valid scientific name for Honey Gourami's is Trichogaster chuna (not sota) many people still use Colisa chuna (or sota) - doesn't really matter - we're all talking about the same fish. I not sure of the reasons for shifting it to the Trichogaster genus - but the reason for the sota/chuna mix up is because the males and females are so different in colouring - the males got called one species and the females a different one. Honey gouramis seem to come in two main colour forms - the natural one and one that gets called golden (a selectively bred xanthistic form). As has been mentioned already they are a different species from the Dwarf Gourami (Colisa lalia) - the dwarf gourami comes in a range of selectively bred colour forms (eg Sunset, Neon blue, Peacock) with the natural colouration not commonly seen now. There also seems to be a range of dwarf gouramis that look to be the result of crossbreeding between T. chuna and C. lalia - these often seem to have browny/red browny/orange colouring and be larger than the Honey gouramis, sometimes as large as dwarf gouramis.

I personally like the ring of Severcon

Convicts seem to be a common culprit for cross-breeding. I know for sure that they've cross breed with blue acaras (producing conacaras) and texas cichlids (making texacons).

As Alan said for the Emerald eyes the fat and slim difference is one of the main ones, but also the males get a bit of rusty/gold colouration on their caudal peduncle (the bit of the body the tail attaches to).

Just leave the temperature at the 28dC as the whitespot live cycle will be ticking through rapidly already.

Try for a swap if they actually have females. IMO (for dwarf gouramis) if they're having to peer at dorsal fins then they're probably trying to sex a tank full of males - the colour difference is a very obvious difference in this type of gourami.

From the pictures they all appear to be male. Female dwarf gouramis (Colisa lalia) are pretty well colourless (ie plain silver/silvery brown) - this means that many wholesalers will bring in male only shipments.

:-? Why do you say we don't support the sale of this whole species due to GE reasons? I guess that means you also don't support the sale of zebra danios because SOME of them have been GE'd overseas to glow in the dark.

The reason I think that it's not T. vittata (yeah I stuffed up the species name a little) is that all the ones that I've seen have been quite brown in colour on the body but had an intense red ring around the eye. Also I'm not sure where benlee is (NZ, overseas?) - if it's North Island then I haven't seen any vittata available for years (but I don't visit every shop - so I'm not prepared to totally rule it out). No I haven't bred them but they are supposed to be bubble nest builders like many of the other gouramis.

If it's T. pumila then max size is about 3.5cm, if it's T. schalleri then max size is 6cm. You can see a picture of my gouramis here

It's one of the 'croaking' gourami family. The colouring seems to be too bright of the actual croaking gourami (Trichopsis vittata). It could be the small Sparkling gourami (Trichopsis pumila) - how big is it? Where abouts did you get it from? I've got some similar to this that I picked up from Hollywoods (Auckland) a while ago and based on their size and colour have determined that they're the Three-stripe gourami (Trichopsis schalleri) - they were getting sold as Blue-lace gouramis.

The tank with the eggs should have very subdued lighting as intense lighting can damage the eggs - some people will totally cover the tank to exclude all light - I assume in nature the eggs would get laid in shaded parts of the stream - hence the subdued lighting suggestion.

I'm sure I could find a few spare plants for you Brian - PM me to arrange a time.

Are you wanting a true black or just a dark substrate. If you just want a dark substrate then the Goldfish Bowl have brightwater gravel which looks pretty much like the stuff in Ballistics tanks. If your wanting BLACK then I've heard of people using granulated coal.