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Assuming those Geophagus get to a similar size to Jurupari and Surinamensis that I have a pair would be happy enough in a 150 liter. *I* think they're quite colorful, anyway. Not bright gaudy fish, though like some prefer.

Cichlids! South American cichlids...Even africans, but whatever you do, don't get discus! Discus are evil, horrible fish. *Runs and hides from discus owners* Animates in Wellington had a couple of interesting Geophaguses I wanted to buy when I was in there last, They were cheap too, only $5 each. I can't remember what species exactly they were, I hadn't actually heard of them before. I was very tempted but I'm pretty much full up. You might have a look at them, I love Geophaguses, probably my favorite genus? of tropicals. You didn't mention what size your tank is, though, so they might get a bit big.

So, they're complaining that it's basically 60%ish sand? Yah think? My fish is 50% water! I want a refund! Seriously, though. It's the other 30% that's important. The alternative is basically to have 100% send with none of that other 30% minerals and trace elements.

Nah, it's not that it has the right bacteria, it's just that the rotting releases ammonia which cycles the tank. My opinion, you're better off adding pure ammonia if you can find it for a fishless cycle or putting fish in the tank. Of course, best of all would be to swap media with a friend. What kind of filter do you have, Klatoo? I can swap whatever media you've got with some of mine if you like. That should be good enough to instantly cycle your tank.

Did they? No, I didn't see it.

Shouldn't be any residue in it. Only possible thing I can think of along those lines is that it used to be a running tank and I just took everything out, turned off the filter and everything and left it sitting to grow some snails and things that maybe while it was sitting basically empty except for water, a few snails and a handful of other little swimmy things...Maybe the water went really bad? But, then I'd have thought the snails and everything in it would have died.

I'm kinda surprised by it too, Caryl. I wouldn't be surprised if they just didn't do well and slowly diedoff after a few days. But I'm amazed they're dying off within 24 hours, except for a few tougher ones, I suppose. All the water in there is about 1/4 old water, 1/4 fresh water, 1/4 leftover from when I put a pinch of yeast and sugar in and 1/4 from the pond they were in. I think i'll give up for now with that, Right now I've got a bucket that I took out of the pond and put into a place that gets full sun, the pond only gets a few little spots of sun.

Haha, Easy to keep...Umm...I've given up trying to get them to survive in the tank inside. The second try died out too.

Summarize it for us? I'm assuming you've read it and you'd probably make more sense than google's translation.

I just went to Wellington's animates today and in one of their display tanks they had a fish I'd never seen before that reminded me of pictures of trimacs I've seen. Unfortunately, the pics don't quite match. It was a similar shape but had spotty pinkish coloring from its mouth down under and past its gills. MAY have been a trimac, but I can only say that's what it made me think of, I don't have a clue where to start looking for a better identification. I meant to ask what it was but of course got distracted and remembered as we were leaving. Anyone been there and found out what it is?

When they died I had the air pump going, so they definitely didn't suffocate. But I'm trying without it because the pond definitely doesn't have an airpump. I also don't have any green water...I don't think wifey would like me throwing blood and bone in a tank in the bird's bedroom.

Well, no daphnia survived the night. I think maybe I fed them too much so I took out half the water and replaced it with half fresh water and half water from the pond(Get daphnia and known good water at the same time:), I also turned off the heater in the tank because the pond is about 15° and the tank was at 26° AND turned off the air pump. Might as well simplify things. The instructions for feeding yeast are to add just enough to slightly cloud the water...Really vague.

I'd think there must be inexpensive RPM guages that you could connect to the turbine. Most complicated part would be getting the shaft from inside the hose to the guage without causing a leak. You could calibrate it just by pouring into a bucket and measuring it with a measuring cup, maybe make a little chart saying 100rpm=400 liters per hour, 200rpm=1000 or whatever.

I just turned one of my empty tanks into a daphnia breeding tank. Thought I'd give it a try since I've been reading about daphnia and a few things said you can do it by throwing an airstone in a tank and feeding them with yeast. So, we'll see how it goes. I threw some crushed shells in there too because they apparently grow better with some calcium added to the water.

I was thinking something similar just last night, John. That it'd be nice to have some kind of little guage on the outlet displaying how much the filter is flowing. Maybe something like a little turbine attached to a small dial.

Ughh...I'm horrible at guesstimating sizes. I'd say 5inches, somewhere around there.

I just got back from there, stopped by while I was at the mitre 10 next door. The tank the giant gourami is in is probably more like 3 feet wide by 3 feet tall by 1.5 feet wide. Still a fairly good sized tank. They've got a bigger one next to it that is empty now. I had a good look at the rest of their tanks. They had a pair of red devils with a few hundred fry. But, I'd say about 1/3rd of their tanks had at least 1 dead fish or the remnants of a dead fish. Quite sad since they do have a better variety than most. They had some bumble bee gobies, I've never seen them before, was tempted to buy them since they were only $6, but they were really tiny and in a tank with a couple skeletons laying on the bottom. There really doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the fish tanks that couldn't be fixed by having someone put an hour in the morning into the tanks, I think. At the very least have a quick look for dead fish once or twice a day and wipe any streaks off the front of the tanks.

Maybe it's kinda like jellyfish, you get a couple dozen gnats from one worm, hehee.

Gnats? Hmmm...The larvae are about 50 times the size of the adult.

Just judging from the sponge in my fluvals and scaling up, I'd say that sponge would still need cleaned far more than every few years. Every 6 months maximum, I'd say in a tank with more than a small bioload. Anyway, you're going through having this huge ugly sponge in your tank just to have a massive surplus of area for bacteria that isn't going to be used anyway. Kinda like towing around an empty 500 gallon fuel tank with your car even though you're filling up the cars tank whenever it gets down to 1/4 full.

They may be overrated, but they're also half the price. A few hundred dollars is a big incentive to go with slightly lower quality. But, this is the first real problem I've had with my 404, still no idea what was causing it though.

Hey, that's an idea. I hadn't thought of that. Next time I have one of the filters out to be cleaned I'll have to try and remember to try that.

I think bloodworms are the larvae of some type of fly, aren't they? So I'd bet they get there the same way mosquito larvae do.

A lot of venoms are harmless unless injected into the skin...But, I'm not sure if bees are like that. BUT, I'd assume they eat bees in the wild, so I doubt it hurts them...Well...Unless the bee objects and stings them. So, I wouldn't feed him a live bee, but if it's not killed by insecticide like Midas said and just buzzed at a window until it croaked, there's no harm trying it.

In that case, waiting 3 weeks is a ridiculous amount of time to wait before adding fish. I'd suggest putting the fish any time after the water clears up. Though, I doubt cloudy water just from poorly rinsed substrate would hurt the fish anyway. I don't know about the bacteria starter culture...If it's like a bottled culture I think they're basically a scam since any bacteria would die in a sealed bottle. I was baffled when a guy at Animates I'd thought was pretty knowledgable was surprised when I said I never have to dose my tank with extra bacteria.