Cricketman

+1 to the "anything that can fit in thier mouths" and they have rather large "trapdoor" hinged mouths! saw one in a LPS in with neons... watched it gorge itself for awhile before someone noticed.... :roll:

propagating mix, bought 2 big bags for 8 bux each... plus funny looks when i told them i was growing hydroponic plants for a laugh.... not that they found it funny... took my name and number... :lol: makes for the best substrate ive used in years! plants anchor to it in days

depends on a number of factors, how big it is to start(which you know), size of tank, temperature, age of the fish , other tank mates, feeding etc. All in all, you should try find how big they are expected to grow to at full adult maturity, and then decide if you can cater for that fish when it gets to that size, so it wont matter if it takes 5 years or 1 year, cos youll be prepared to keep it happy healthy and not crowded. There probably wont be much call for a big sev if he out-grows your tank, and if it does get to that stage that you have to sell him/her and cant, its not really fair on the fish in the meantime to be living in cramped conditions, if you know what i mean? do your research, and try not buy things that are going to be too big for what you can offer them. thats my advice

very very similair to L083 / L165, which i have seen 3 this month, 1 of which io bought (thanks mark) 1 at marks again, and 1 at animal antics LPS. not sure if your particular species is on the books, maybe pheonix can check? being that he works in a petshop... lol

what fish have you got? i imagine that there would be little to no problem feeding them the various insects crawing out of it, maybe try them with one or two to see if they eat them, you dont wanna put something in your tank that they wont eat and might end up causing problems (like how i got my snails when i was starting out!) A picture/pictures might be usefull to work out an ID for you even!

oooooo.... ok, mean, thanks for that mate! i was always told it was to help melt is and keep it flexible, but you learn something every day!

id be worried that "lead solder" isnt just lead, it is solder(a type of amalgum of things) that is high in lead. also there is flux in solder that helps keep it flexible, and helps it melt the first time. (if youve ever noticed a brown/yellow oily residue when soldering, thats the flux) anyone who has tried re-soldering something will have realised that stuff thats been melted and cooled is alot harder to melt than fresh out-of-the-tube solder. i just always keep my little lead weight thingies when i buy plants, usefull if you get enough of them! the problem with buying lead these days is that the price of transport has skyrocketted with the price of deisel, this has affected many industries, including one close to me, diving. lead dive weights used to be between 5-7 bux, now expect 10-14!! doubled in price! a option for you may be to go for a snorkell around some fishing rocks and grab all the weights you can find, and there will be! melt them down in an old pot and have a flat surface (that you know is flat!!) ready (baking tin etc might work well) pour out your lead and shift the pan around to get it flat, then turn out once cool and take to it with tin snips... if you measure out how much lead you have you should be able to guage how thick you want to get it. or you could just fork out the dosh for some shiny new leads at teh pet shop... :lol:

http://www.hach.com/hc/view.knowledge.b ... 3BL+to+ppm I was right! :bounce: but again there are some who say that fish shouldnt be exposed to levels above 0.003ppm. which i think is too far, but that is my opinion. mature tanks have organic carbons that "mop up" the free chlorines, so if your adding water to a mature tank ie water change, it is safer than if you were to add fish straight to a new tank filled with tap water (as i said, new tanks are exceptions) though most of us are not going to do that anyway (cycling etc). O, and to further my own discussion on the SA/volume ratios, that means that a hexagonal tank or fish bowl, or any tank with a small surface area/volume ratio, if you have one, is probably the only time i would highly recommend almost to the point of insisting bucket changes with high aeration before adding to your tank, or using the chemicals. darn my useless spelling... re-edited

depends on the species of fish. at 0.92mg/l that is < 1ppm (parts per million), i think if my maths isnt terrible, which it may be... and, that will probably straight out a tap and analysed, if not under a running tap... given time to waft off and some aeration i expect that to drop considerably. so it is neglagible to start with, before gas transfer! which like i said, in a well aerated aquarium, with good SA to volume ratio (ie 90% of your average tanks) chlorine will be all but dissapated in moments,

it is, how you say it is...

just for clarification... most chlorine should be well and truely out of the water by the time it gets to your house, unless your municipal supplier happens to overdose on chlorine for awhile. and even then, an tank with good aeration should rid itself of chlorine fairly quickly, the ill effects of the negligible amount that may get into a filter and cause damage to the benificial bacteria would be exactly that, negligable, its not going to kill your filter completely, and if you go by some schools of thought, filter disturbance is a good way to keep benificial bacteria fresh and growing. which is why i change my filter media quite often, though not all at the same time. the amount of copper that comes out of your pipe fittings is negligable too, unless the water has been sitting in contact with the copper for extended periods of time, which it wouldnt be seeing how water is always flowing through the average home when you think about it. i only ever use a de-chlorinator type additive when starting a new tank or in breeding tanks when i want it to be perfect. for your average community, i wouldnt bother too much. any problems, read the disclaimer...

SAE's are great! so are big plecos! my leopard sailfin i got from mark has been great at cleaning the glass in my tank! and he demolishes peices of cucumber. between them my tank never looked better

wouldnt think htat cclimatisatioin would be neccesarry for feeders... more of a now you see it, now you dont i thought... lol

i got a couple peices too long to boil, all i did was boil a kettle and pour it over them in the bath, then run the bath to submerge it as it cooled again, it gets heaps of the bubbles out youll hear it fizz with the hot water. good luck to ya!

the problem with those tanks is that fish usually are more aware of bottom area than height, but you could try something like a school of rosy tetras, maybe some dwarf gouramis (not cobalts as in my experience they have been really agro) even pearl gouramis as they are very peaceful and dont really move around heaps, but are gorgeous fish too. nice tall plants like acorus rush or valliselaria (sp?), maybe a really twisted peice of long driftwood with some java moss/fern comming off it you wont want fast torpedo sort fish as they will dart around andvrun out of space quickly. thats what id do! good luck and enjoy!

they are the idiots of the fish world. IMO anyway... mine drowned in some loose java moss... :roll: and marks freak out and smack into the side of the tank whenever the light is turned on. make sure you have a vary good lid onthe tank, as you probably know already anyway, but to be sure,to be sure....

was that leopard or leotard mark?? seeing you in a leotard would scare anyone into submission! as for the flatmates, it might be easier for you to try find somewhere else mate, a pain in the jaxie i know, but for the sake of peace of mind etc, you cant live a hostage in your own house to a cat...

where bouts do you live? you get used to it when i used to live in the vale

probably cos you are...ish? :lol:

the king of over-extrapolation has spoken... im just going to drop it, it seems that different opinions and view points are not welcomed anymore... lets all jsut move to north korea and be done with it...

shhhh mark... youll scare him away again...

dont think anyone knows what theyre on about.... even themselves.. :lol:

yea boy.... and my head will be fine... might not be able to find it for awhile but itl be fine!!!

AND! you made it on my birthday!!! thanks Mark!!! :lol:

i mearely am saying, that there is no need for them to be on whilst i eat my dinner... there is a time and place for discussion and advertising for certain products, i just have the belief that it should be at a time where the parents of a child decide to tell them about the workings of the world. the reaction of "ban toilet paper adds from tv aswell" is an over-reaction, toilet paper is not something that you have to explain to your 6 year old daughter or son when they say "whats that for!!??" and especially when they run around saying "did you see that beaver on t.v!" there is no need for it. that is my point. its not going to stop, but is merely my p.o.v also being the fact that i come from a different culture, and such my belies and values are shaped justly. the needless over-reaction is just that. needless.