VinsonMassif

Please don't be too discouraged with certain peoples seemingly insensitive posts. They don't convey everyones thoughts and motives.

Spreading the weight on plywood is a great idea. I did it with my 225l tank with no troubles at all. I had it evenly placed over a couple of the joists.

IMO a 200L tank is not that heavy and should be fine upstairs if you placed it next to a supported wall.

IMHO the mulm from the fish is ok to settle in the gravel around the plants. Just GV the open spaces. Swords do better under med/high light, and are heavy feeders. They would benefit from root tabs if you want to put them in. They recommend you not OD the Excel because it may interfere with your bio-filter. Also the plants need the carbon for photosynthesis, so it would be better to dose when you turn the lights on IMO. Using a sump would slightly dilute any ferts you include, unless you factor in the total tank volume. But how big is your sump, I wouldn't think it would be that significant if you are dosing daily.

Kristof It is of Greek origin, and its meaning is "bearing Christ inside". From Khristophoros.

Here is the Seachem Planted products website Excel is a source of bio-available Carbon. For good all round plant health they recommend macronutrients such as Iron, Potassium and Phosphorus as well as Nitrogen. For an in depth website for aquatic plants and everything associated with it I recommend http://www.barrreport.com/ There is a fabulous article on dosing plants without test kits called the Estimative Index IMO if you have made the effort to have decent lights for your plants you will benefit from dosing macro nutrients for your plants. It is only a small effort in the scheme of things. But read around to see what the experts recommend

My 80g has been setup for two weeks. Without Dalton's, just beach sand, and ferts the swords and Apono's all sent out new roots within 3 days, and has new leaves growing 1/2" per day by weeks end. The 60g has been set up for 5 days. Wihtout Dalton's all plants have sent out new roots and shoots. The swords and Apono's have 1-2" leaves grown new this week. I have dosed Nitrates to 20ppm, Lights are 2wpg, and use Excel 1ml/40L. > In my last setup with Dalton's my swords send out a thick root mat that covered the entire 4'x2'x 4" media base in only a few months. They were very healthy plants.

All my plants were planted in Dalton's Aq. Mix and I found I still needed some ferts. I have read, and found that the if you have good lights the plants need ~15ppm Nitrates to keep on growing steadily. I haven't used the aquatic mix this time around as it created too many cloud storms for me. But it is a very good medium for Sword plants in particular. Post us some pics when you have all yours set up

You could try Massey Pets, maybe Jansens on Lincoln Rd. HFF sells it. Ring a couple of places to check before going

500mL around $39 2L around $118-130 the 500ml bottles are forsale on TM

From what I understand PMDD is a mix of nutrients and minerals in solution. Excel and CO2 are sources of available Carbon for plants and can be used along with PMDD.

It's west coast beach sand, no shells to speak of, just lost of stones

Did anyone else find this story from last Friday. Awesome. http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23 ... 21,00.html

Thanks. They are getting there. In another month they should be looking good. How are the famous Angels doing?

Yeah I have a school of dwarf chain loaches = Sids. So much fun to watch. Mine cleaned me out of snails completely. I will have to wait until I go to Chch.

David it is sand from the beach. It is powder fine. Half black sand and white. It is so nice, no coarseness at all. The loaches love it too. I would say that the average grain size is <0.2mm. So real small. It took twice as long to wash though. So much of that protein scum in it. Maybe if I had got wet sand from the wave line it would have been cleaner. But after I had washed the sand there was just a hint of cloudiness, and one water change cleared it.

Well they are a bit tattered from the move and a week without lights, ferts or a heater. But they are bouncing back well. Really it isn't that hard to get your plants growing well. 1.5-2 watts per gallon, Excel, and some plant supplements. Most people over feed so there is enough Nitrates in the water for the plants to utilize. Find plants that are not delicate or demanding and everything should fill up real quick as long as you don't have fish that are shredders

Picking off the leaves should trigger the plant to sent up more leaves. You can keep snipping them off just before they get to the surface. In a while the plant will 'get the message' and grow more submerged leaves. I recommend more regular Excel for the plants. Even if it is every second day. Dose 1mL per 40L of tank water as the bottle says. This will help the plants use more Nitrates from the water aswel

So here are my tanks newly set up. My 80g has the fish in it. My 60g is plants only. I got so sick of all the strands of moss EVERYWHERE. In the roots, the stems, the heaters, the cracks in the logs - everywhere. I must have thrown a bucket load out. With what was left I made a Moss Monster with the flat schist. I also discovered a little rhizome piece of Lotus with two tiny sprouting leaves. I hope it takes off, I had thought I had lost all of the 3 I brought down with me. Also I only added 3-4 cm of sand substrate instead of 4-5 inches. So much more swimming space. The cold water out of the bore has detectable copper ~ 0.25ppm, and the hot water has <2ppm. So the story that all of the pipes had been replaced was clearly bollocks. I am just using cold water from the tap for water changes. The fish are all alright with this. During the day my Sids are king of the tank. The alpha Sid takes on the Redline barbs. He swims onto one of the pectoral fins and harasses the fish for a few seconds. So funny. During the night the Barbs are king of the tank. It is awesome watching them under the moonlights with all their fins extended, on the prowl like a shark. As for the charcoal background on the 60g, the jury is still out. It is better than no background. I made it myself. Took about 10 minutes. I got a 10mm sheet of polystyrene, cut it to size, scratched the sheet with a half burned stick from the fire place, rubbed it with charcoal pieces, dusted it with ash, blew off the excess ash and stuck it to the back with some sticky tape. The ash doesn't stick to the poly, that is why I scratched it, so the ash stayed in the gaps. The 60g is going to be a 'species' tank with only one type of swimming fish. I have been tending towards a school of Serpae Tetra's, although Black skirts would go better with the background maybe. I don't want any cichlids, or anything requiring a strong current. I also don't want anything >2" TL. I would like a bottom dweller group too. Maybe pygmy cory's, no other cory's as I am not in love with the body form. I love my Khuli's so much, and would get some more of them if they didn't spend all their time hiding. Sid's are a remote possibility, but they swim too much for what I want from the tank community. I can't keep algae eater's alive so they are out too. Suggestions for bottom dwellers?

If you are thinking of buying fish from Origin's make sure you inspect the fish thoroughly to make sure it appears healthy.

HFF Roskill has more marine and is older. They have a large range of pretty much everything. HFF Albany is good for a look. I like their display tanks especially their fresh water with the big aro in it.

If the parent plant has put out pups you can pick one off once it has a couple of small leaves and some roots. Plant this in an open space under the lights. Let it grow submersed leaves, and pick off any tall leaves BEFORE they reach the surface. This will give you a good comparison. With your parent plant you can pick off the floating leaves to let more light in. Mine survived with 4 healthy floating leaves. This may encourage it to send off more pups. Also do you use Flourish Excel? It is a great product which adds bio-available carbon for plants to use in photosynthesis. It is a replacement for CO2 and works very well.

IME they are a high light plant. They send up more leaves if they don't think they are getting enough light. Also - the more surface leaves you allow it to have, the less submerged leaves it has. HTH

Thanks peoples

30 MB in an evening?! It's 8.45am and already I have used 250MB. That telecom plan is such a scam. And along with switching to Broadband a lot of people have no idea about upgrading and maintaining internet security. Just because you cannot see all the hackers/spammers/virus' doesn't not mean you are not at a big risk of losing valuable data stored on your computer.