vippy

Behind an internal filter or the top part of the heater (if the loach is small)?

I found that my loaches preferred eating the bubba snails, or at least the smaller ones.

A lot of it will come down to having a zoo licence (which covers the other issues).

Animals for zoo collections these days aren't purchased. I'm not 100% sure of their origin but I think they came from Auckland Zoo after they received a tortoise that was confiscated at customs.

They're Leopard tortoises that arrived about May 2006ish

AMMOFREE (TECHNO CARBON) Absorbs Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate (1.5mg/g), Suitable for Fresh and Salt Water, Suitable for Tanks and Ponds, Does not absorb medication, Does not re-release ammonia after absorption. Recommended to be place close to filter, Improves the COLOURS in fish as stress is reduced (pollution in water),treats 100 litres of water and last 2-3 months, Does not need rinsing before introduction, will not cloud the water, All natural (natural carbonised material NH-X) Balls are not refillable, Absorption of Ammonia most effective after 24 hours From http://www.vetproductsdirect.com.au/gbp ... AMF100.htm which is also on http://www.aquariumproducts.com.au/cata ... 87&catID=9 Hope it helps

That or those re-freezable ice-packs so that what goes in the tank melts and all comes back out (looks a bit dinky though). T'would cause less evaporation than a fan blowing over the top too I'd guess..?

Yeah, I just like to hammer nails into bits of wood. I'm too easily distracted to spend time on making a stand, let alone making it look like a decent job.

That enclosure looks awesome! And the stand too - very nice

Nice looking tank! I don't know if anyone will agree with it, coz I can see a few problems with it, but with my smaller tank and high output on the filter, I aimed the output along the shorter wall of the tank (over the heater) so it soon hit a wall and then moved along the long edge of the tank. The currents were wreaking less havoc on the plants. Does that make sense? I would guess that the water circulation isnt at it's best when doing this.

Yeah totally. Just bought another tank (3foot) last night which brinks me to 4 tanks but only one up and running. Thanks for the warm welcome!

Oh bugger. Was it still heating up your water with no problems?

mmm yeah I probably shoulda thought about that one before posting, haha

If you topped from from the hose but with a low flow rate, would the heater compensate and overall end up with less of a temp drop?

I've only had glowlights so I can't compare them to a group of neons, but my group of glowlights (have eight) are a good bunch to watch and are playful - you might not see it at the moment with 2 (and it helps that they're realtively cheap and a bit easier to breed if you get into that sorta thing). I swear by them

Hi everyone! I've been lurking around here for a wee while now and figured out the decent thing for me to do was introduce myself! The name's Vimal and have been with tank for a year or so now. I only have a 2foot tank that's been through a few changes.. from a platy-ful tank (wasn't counting on them breeding so much, d'oh) to a tank that was pretty much a snail tank with a few fish in the background.. but I think I've got it somewhat sorted out now (fingers crossed). This is what my tank currently looks like, sorry its a bit dark: There are 3 small clown loaches and 2 khulis, 6 glass ghost cats, 5 rasboras and 8 glowlights. There's a bristlenose in there too that I'm babysitting, but may hold onto it I've got some driftwood imbibing at the moment and when that's ready I'll try to work out a nice layout for the tank - I've been looking at all your photos and taken advice from your posts and hope my tank comes out looking similarly nice Am also reading up on all the info here about Discus tanks and am hoping to get a second set up going. Thanks for all the info you've posted and hope to learn a lot more from this forum

Ah yeah, good point. I found that, when I had gouramis, hardly any pet shops sold female dwarves as they didn't look as pretty and apparently didn't sell. That, or they got snatched up quick when they did have them.

I had a similar combination (dwarf gouramis, guppies and glowlight tetras) in my first tank and had no problems. On the occasions where one of my gouramis was aggressive, it was only towards the one other gourami, not the smaller fish. I didn't have issues with gouramis eating fry (that I could see..) - I had some plant cover for the fry. Seemed to be okay.

Yeah like the others have said, it only says whether something is acidic or alkali and generally aren't sensitive enough for the range of pH found in tanks.