David R

Great write-up, and beautiful fish too!

^ Nailed it. It mainly depends on how your overflow and drains are set up, but you need to make sure the return pipe also doesn't siphon too much back into the sump. IMO it's critical to design the sump large enough to hold the "skim" when the pump switches off, even if it does have an overflow. Otherwise if the tank is unattended and the pump stops (eg power cut) you're not going to have enough water in the system for when the pump restarts.

I've seen some of the videos, it's a neat set up alright! Could maybe chuck in another 20 red tailed sharks too...

He's a neat fish, always out and about, kinda wishing I'd bought half a dozen of them.

This little guy [the shark] is possibly my favourite fish at the moment! He's had a good growth spurt since being added to the big tank, and filled out and coloured up really nicely. So far he's just cruising around completely ignoring every other fish, long may the relaxed attitude last.

Thomas the first time I've seen the angels spawn was about four days ago! Since adding the clowns I've been doing ~200L water changes every other day (just opening the valve on the sump drain and putting the hose into the tank to run for 112-15 minutes) and I think maybe that's kicked them into action. I've had the festivums a few years, around the time I switched from big fish to small fish. TBH their colours are really drab and they've been pretty uninteresting to keep. Not good quality stock I think, there are some beautiful examples of the genus out there.

Two weeks in the big tank and they've already had a bit of a growth spurt!

Captive bred Altums seem to be getting more common, bring it on! How old are your big Peru scalare now Hovmoller? Might pay to breed another generation before they're past it?

The loaches are in!! I think some of them are a little confused, when I opened the curtains this morning there was a group of about a dozen of the smaller ones swimming around mid-level in the water column schooling with the Lemon Tetras (who are a similar size)! The tank is certainly a lot busier now, the loaches are pretty active already, I was a bit worried they'd vanish into the wood pile and never be seen again but that hasn't happened.

My most recent FTS.

Someone is obviously still keen on them, one sold for over $700 on TradeMe recently!!

Hope so! The tank looks surprisingly full with all those fish hanging out around the front, I should try take another pic today to show how empty it can look too.

Couple more pics, the Uaru were hungry after being left for the weekend...

Bingo. Thanks!