matthewY

Will try and upload pictures of my setup tonight. so all parts required: Sodastream bottle (trademe, ~$10) Adaptor (ebay, approx ~$25, goto ebay.com.au and search sodastream adaptor or The Ultimate Home Brew in AUS sells them ) Regulator + solinoid setup (ebay.com: "UP Pierce Co2 Regulator Charming Aquarium A147") approx $100 ($50us + p&p : http://stores.ebay.com/Aquarium-HK sells them). if u want to use codastream bottle / adaptor, get a "upright" adaptor, not one that hangs off from the side as it will unbalance the bottle and make it hard to keep the bottle from falling over.... Also, my a147 regulator is suitable for both disposiable (unable to locate any approperate disposiable co2 bottles in nz, maybe airsource ones???) and normal size containers (need to confirm threading between US / UK but fits the sodastream adaptor from ebay so whatever thread that adaptor is) via its own removable adaptor. Ebay also has some A152, not sure of differance but looks like it would do the job too... Co2 tube (~$2/m) Bubble counter ~$12 needle valve - cant remmeber cost but was cheap Filter attachment/diy reactor for getting co2 desolved... free if you have parts around Amount of co2 in a bottle:270 gramms. Unsure how long this lasts but I drip about 1 bubble every 5 seconds (approx, hard to tell as it seems top change abit and dependent on heat and i've been tweeking it abit too) and lasts over a month when on a timer from 7am to 7pm. Someone else should be able to tell based on how big their co2 bottle is and how many bubbles they feed in.... The inverted filter tube to me seesm to be really good, no bubbles are visable comming out which means pretty much completely desolved. I found when using a propper disc defuser, I could see bubbles get to the surface (bad) Photos will come as soon as i find a host....

wow, thats a quick response. really good to know it wouldnt be a fire hazzard. When you suggest ballast, would replacing this with a more suitable one be a better option (and easy option) or is it a case of what u get is what u geta nd ur stuck with it? thanks

Keen to know abit more on the actual temperture of a bulb (not colour but how hot it can get). I've had an old t8 setup with 1 30W tube in it. Touching the case after 1/2 a day of it being on, it was very warm (you could leave hand on it with no problems but can feel how hot it was). I have since grabed a cheap atman PL from trademe, 2x 36W. Even using just 1 bulb for 2 or so hours, the case itself is boiling hot, much hotter then what the 30W case... so, afew questions around this, 1: is this normal to be so hot (hard to describe how hot hot really is but pretty hot that you could but prob wouldnt want to leave your hand on it for more then 5 / 10 secs and after taking hand off, u can still feal a burn for the next min or so) 2: is it better to be hot? is this a sign that the heat from the lamp is actually being dispursed correctly (I'm thinking like a heat sink or something, where if the ehat wasnt hot, its not conducting heat well and therefore not good)\ 3: fire hazard risk? the bulbs are used in plasic hoods so cant be too bad right? My hood is wodden (or mdf possibly???? propper manufacture stuff with a layer of black) and has a 10cm gap seperating teh hood roof from tank roof. I have the light unit pretty much directly directly on the glass with about 1/2 cm gap below (scared it woudl crack glass otherwise). 4: if the tubes are all the same in different units then the tube should produce the same heat? therefore could the heat be from the coals/ starter stuff and indicate a need for replacing them? 5: diffeerent type of bulbs (t5 vs t8 vs pl etc) cause different heat levels at same wattage?

Found this picture and thought it was pretty impressive. http://showcase.aquatic-gardeners.org/2 ... l=0&id=175 The guy says he thinks he used woodstone for rocks but havent been able to find any references on trademe or google from nz sites. Does it exsist in nz and if so, can it be picked up from river or hill somewhere? :-)

When I looked at co2 systems, afew options: Paying for the hire of a bottle owning a normal canister... the price of a xkg bottle (roughly 300 or so for a basic system) and the testing / LAB requirements.... paintball systems... means I had to worry about where in town I could easily get it fulled + still may require LAB testing / certs, from memory anything over ~300Grams requires LAB to refull it right. sodastream..... Ended up using sodastream bottle, can get attachments for regulators off ebay. One guy sells them for about $25AUS + postage. Sodastream bottles are dirt cheap from trademe and cost about $10 for a refull from many supermarkets where they just swap out bottle, Found it worth paying afew $$$ extra then having to go to a painball place for refulls. Sodastream bottles are roughly 250 - 300 gramms of co2. Setup would still require regulator and ideally a solenoid switch system. I picked up my "up aqua" one from Hong Kong when I was over, approx $100NZD which included regulator for mini disposiable bottles, adaptor to be used on normal bottles and 110 - 240V solenoid. Guys from the HK fish markets have online stores on ebay and sell them for not too much more then u would pay if you went to the physical store urself. for injecting the co2, i hacked a Venturi injrctor into end of my filter output spraybar and have a clear undergravel uplift pipe connented upside down so the co2 mixes and leaves the bottom of the tube. heaps of options but i figure this one works aswell as most reactors....

About 2 weeks ago I put my smaller discus into a small 5L container with tank water. Left him there floating and slowiy added water from another tank which was going to be his new home. During the day when I was out, he managed to jump out of the container and back into the tank. I noticed he was a bit scratched up on the side (afew mising scales), nothing major and looked like it would take care of itself. Yesterday night I noticed that teh scratched up area was abit whiter and today i noticed that hes actually started to fungus. He's been hiding behind teh air stone for 2 weeks too :-( Ive seperated him from the other guys in the tank (its a small tank but he wasnt ment to be here for so long and he woudl have been in the main tank if he didnt jump out of the container back into the small tank). I've added some aqua salt into the water change for now but looking for teh best way to fix him up, would hate to loose him. The other side of this bosy seems fine, no fungus, just teh side the picture was taken on. http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~syscon_/sickdiscus.jpg also temp is at 30 deg 60L tank, hes been shup of to about 25L of that using the devider. Thanks Matt

Looking at using a basic cup for discus breeding. Anyone know if this is safe? Its a standard clay style mug with the glossy paint finish both in side of cup and out. Is this aqua safe? better to use a pot plant?

good news and bad news. The good news is I dont have to worry about the 3rd discus for afew more weeks. bad news, no more babies The eggs started hatching last night and both parents were very attentive to them, picking the newly hatched fry's off the ground and blowing them back onto the wall. this morning, they were all gone.... The 3rd discus was in the floating tub so def wasnt him, one of the parents bust had gotten sick of picking up the babies all night (it looked very much like a loosing battle cos when they blow the baby back to the wall, 3 more would fall off....). Good start and now that i know they are a pair, I will move the non paired discus into the main tank (once it heats up) and try again with a propper breeding cone. so who knows how long before I would expect another bunch of eggs? :-)

oh yeah, dont have much in terms of test kits.... Can test ph (got liquid bottle as well as a digital meter) and conductivity only. if i get concerned, i usually rely on the petshop to do some tests for me :-) Did have one of the amonia hanging things a while back but it kept getting dirty to teh point where I didnt trust it (it had algee on it)

ha, by the looks of it, theres quite afew others here with discus laying eggs :-) I've started upoing the temp on the main tank, figure it will take 1/2 a week or so to get it to the right temp without disturbing its current occupants. The blue discus will def go into the main tank judging by everyones comments. Ha, change 10L of water in the small tank aday, I already do that and been doing so for over 2 years now :-) Don’t mind giving time to the baby discus (assuming they hatch and all) but i'll need to figure a way to feed them when i'm out at work. Do BBS live long in fresh water As for the "trial" aspect, I somewhat agree, I def dont want to get my hopes up but I do want to get the eggs as far up the chain as I can. If they hatch and grow, that would be awesome, if they turn out stunted, crap but at least i tried and better luck next time.... Parents, photo 4 in auction below: http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing ... =234387848 If you know what the white one is.... (maybe butterfly???)

Just saw this post, abit concerned cos I purchased 5KG off this guy.... umm, will check when i get home and do some testing.... I have seen the same looking noodles all over the Hong Kong fish markets for really good (cheap) prices and can only assume he got his from the same sources as the markets (as opposed to gettign non aqua ones at even cheaper prices???) A good side note is that the noodles have been in use for over a month in a small discus tank with no ill effects. Oh yeah, did I mention there are discus eggs in that tank??? (cound be a sign they are ok to use??)

i put 2 gba's in about 1 week ago. The tank has been running by itself with filter and plants (but no fish) for 2 or 3 weeks now. The temp is 25 or so degrees in the large tank (with the 2 gba's) and about 31 in teh discus tank

running a 1200lh which i attached about 2 monsth ago. Its flow rate has been reduced to approx 600lh. The internal was one which I ran the tank off when I only had 1 discus. Its 200lh and was left in cos of its cycled media filter so didnt want to disturbe it durign teh cycling of the bigger canister..... The main tank which these were going to eventually go to is 300L and has its own trademe filter (says 2400lh but prob 1200 flow). Dont really have a suitable tank setup for now for the 3rd discus. i will try and move him in to the main tank as soon as its cycled (perhaps 2 weeks off still) :-( is it worth adding him in the big tank earlier? big tank has 2 gba's cycling it and its temp is only 25 degrees so will need to up it slowly for the gba's....

So picked up some discus locally off trademe. there was a hint from the seller that they could possibly be a pair.... turns out they are as I found the eggs last night against the backup internal filter. there’s currently 3 discus in a 60L tank (was just storing them there until the main tank is cycled and prepped). The 2 larger discus is the pair and they have now totally started picking on the 3rd one :-( Looking for ideas on what works, ie: could I use a clear divider to separate the tank (but the type that allows water to flow) to ensure the safety of the 3rd? When babies hatch, would they wonder through the divider? Also, looking at the eggs this morning, there’s possibly 50 - 100ish (maybe more????), most are orange, afew have turned white. Should i do anything to remove white eggs, should i add meth blue to help out (and would meth blue have bad effect on filter?). Finally, the tank has 2 filters, 1 is a 1200Lh external canister (I've set it up to run about 1/2 that but its still full of media). The other is a small internal 200L one which I was using as backup. The discus have laid eggs on the side of the internal filter. What should i do? should i turn off the internal (will they get sucked in after they hatch?), what about the main filter, do I need to add something on the intake to protect them? do I need to replace it completely with air driven one? do the kids wonder far from parents in the first few weeks? So far the parents are taking good care of the eggs, both have taken turns blowing onto the eggs. The eggs are only left unprotected during feeding time.... I have seperated the 3rd one into a floating container for now to ensure hes going to be on when i get home :-) Keen on any ideas, suggestions, comments…

I had used somethign similar, using an old benchtop filter attachment to teh tap and running some standard clear pvc hose to the tank. pretty sure the attachment is easy to find and comes with a leaver for notmal tap use and to switch to teh pvc hose. The setup is always atached and not as noticiable as the hose is not too thick and is clear. This setup also allows you to easily "run" water to get rid of the water sitting in your pipes before redirectign to teh tank. Regards to aging water.... I dont see why you cant use an old (maybe clear :-) container floating /attached to the insides of the tank to store water (hidden if possible), the new tapwater is hosed into this container and the water in there overflows out through a few drilled holes near the top of the container. This means that you are aging a portion of the water before it hits the tank... so say if you change 10L every night and assuming the floating container holds 5l then roughly 5L of the 10L entering the tank would have been left over from the night before... Just an idea....

Just did a quick google on deep sand beds (without reading much).... I woudl have thought the problem with that is you generate dead spots and that abd bateria will form unless you move the sand oftern. I'll research more tonight and see. All I'm really trying to do is create a bigger buffer between a healthy tank and a bad tank for my discus. Had afew die on me in the past and it really sucks :-(

I think that answers it well, i think the ones for freashwater uses a needle disk or something (as you emntioned, I too have never seen freshwater skimmers here) but then they keep saying how counterflow skimmers work so much better and the ones designed for koi's seem to add bioballs or noodles and say it helps increase the time air contacts with the water.... next pay day i might see if i can pick up a cheap one to try out out, do some diy to it (maybe add groves into the water pump blades???, some noodles...) I can always resell It for cheap if it fails guess :-) If I do end up giving it a try i'll post the outcome here :-)

I should add, I havent tested the co2 system out yet but my initial thoughts is that i would try and set it to the lowest rate it can go (10 or so bubbles / min) and put it through a diy reactor (inverted tube with water current going down adn co2 defuser at the bottom of tube)... I didnt like the idea of the tank dependent on co2 incase it goes wrong but I did like the idea of giving the plants an extra boost so maybe the co2 isnt a big factor??? but its currently in the plans.... Co2 system is based of sodastream bottle and a regulator with solidnoid which is attached to the timer for the lights....... maybe its the co2 system which woud end up doing nothing ;-)

Is it usually one or the other or do people get away with both and if so, is the issue around stibility of the water? I'm guessing spray bars etc are still get used in co2 setups??? also, how do reef tanks do it, i thought they use co2 injection to control the ph?

Did you end up picking one up, if so, what was your experiences with them? if I can avoid trial and error then it would be great (limited $$$ to try with :-) )

HI kiwiplymouth, the http://www.trademe.co.nz/Home-living/Pe ... 808115.htm looks pretty small :-( I woudlnt mind paying abit more for somethign abit bigger if efficiency of the skimmer is going to be better (again freshwater tank and all, bubbles need to be in the water long enough to get the organic stuff out or something????). the one I was thinking off was more like http://www.trademe.co.nz/Home-living/Pe ... 861361.htm Just dont wantn to spend that much money if its going to do nothing for the tank.... sounds like it could be worth a gamble if no one has tried it before....

paekakboyz, originally looking at the salt water style ones.... I have seen the ones which attach themselfs to the intake and thought it would be pretty good in general (allow for more o2 to mix with teh water to feed the bacteria in the filter.... read that one of the biggest drawbacks on canister filters is they dont get feed enough o2 for teh filter to "grow", wet/dry filters try to help out in thsis pace and I think one of these addons would help too), but my thought was that a salt water style skimmer (if it works in fresh water) will try and remove the bad stuff before it needs to get into the filter, therefore avoiding the whole cycling process and easing the bio load on the main filter.... wheres teh addon ones just make sure that teh floating organics make it into teh filter (filter still needs to break down the stuff). I dont know much about reef tanks but figure the sump would work much like a huge canister filter and that the skimmer would remove the stuff from tank again easing the load on the sump. I'm trying to apply the same process to fresh water tank if its possible, mainly cos if want to stock lost of discus and have them happy but also gbs'a create a big mess that discus dont like....

Main tank is going to be re setup in afew weeks time (once I finish painting the walls etc) and so i thought good opportunity to improve things while the tank is empty and theres space between teh wall and the tank.... So random question.... can a fresh water 300L tank be skimmed..... done some google research and theres afew skimmers designed for ponds etc and thye pictures of them show they work well in that situation.... has anyone had experience with skimming a fresh water tank and will there be benefits. In reality I cant afford a good skimmer so looking at the $150 or so range.... main setup will be (once cycled etc....) 300L - 350L planted tank 2400L canister filter (the cheap ones of trademe so prob perform less... but packed with bio noodles and some wool).... Discus (plan to add afew more to get to maybe 6 or so total) GBA's Cardinals co2 injection

As mentioned before by Bilbo, my understanding of upping the temp to 32 degrees is that parasites can not live / bread at such high tempertures. Ich in particular spread like crazzy at 28 degrees but compleetly die out at 30 - 32 (i'm sure I read that somewhere). I also read that if you cant get your hands on metro, having the temp slightly above 32 will achieve the same thing (can anyoen back this?).

The posts I have read are 8 years old, however... http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/CO2/dumping.html (google has more links but this one is pretty heavy) I dont understand it except the fact that the presure of the tank drops and the regulator "fails" at low presure and allowing the full low presure through... low presure still being heaps greater then what the regulator output would normally be...., so if normal regulator output is 20psi and the tanks normal presure is 800psi, the tanks low presure might be 200psi and the whole 200psi goes right through the regulator as it fails to regulator at this "low 200psi" level..... so yeah anyway, abit concerned wehn i read it but then i wonder if new regulators cope with it or if it still exists as a problem.... I dont know internals of regulators and how they work so hoping they have improved over the years. i think the actual issue may not be the co2 going into the fish tank (maybe ph drops and kills teh fish, not sure how much co2 needs to achieve thsi and how efficient the defuser needs to be) but assuming its too much to be absorbed by the water then the other issue is that it fulls that gap between the water level and the glass lid and removes o2 so fish cant breath and die....