David R

So some of the legs are just on the floorboards? I'd rather be safe than hopeful with that many litres of water and dollars of fish....

Good free advertising... http://www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/ne ... unt-canned Kinda saddening that a wholesaler/supplier would be willing to sell that many small [presumably?] goldfish for that intended purpose...

:-? Are the feet sitting squarely on top of the joists? Say ~550L water (550kg), 100kg tank, 30kg gravel, 50kg stand + other, thats 730kg, loaded on 6 feet is over 100kg on each of those small points. Pretty risky IMHO, if the feet are directly over a joist its probably not so bad, but it would be a pretty lucky fluke if they all lined up! Compromise is good but hard (I've been trying to figure out my compromise for my fishroom, changed my mind countless times this week!!), but you're going to have to do it. A festae might be a bit risky in that tank, I've been doing a lot of reading on them (trying to figure out a plan for all my fish, that bloody compromise thing again!) and I'm going to devote an entire 6x2.5x2' to my pair. You'll have a lot of bottom dwellers that in my experiences are pretty ignorant when it comes to respecting territories, and that is likely to piss off a big angry cichlid trying to defend his corner of the tank. Most CA cichlids have good teeth, the best example being P. dovii. click for pic

I'm not sold on carbon being the only way to clear water. I think a well designed sump with several layers of mechanical filtration (starting with coarse foam or filter bags and going down to something like 50micron floss) would work pretty well. I guess it really depends what is making your water unclear...

Thats because you didn't help Henward move his 1200L. Looks good, will be a good grow out for all those monster fish...

YES! I knew I'd seen it used somewhere other than aquariums, thats it!!! Jeez I was staring straight at it for 40 minutes at the dentist the other day and didn't even click. Cheers

Only time I'll walk away from a filling tank is when its being pumped out of my 200L barrel and there is more than 200L of free space in the tank! I know it takes a little over 20 minutes (cheap slow pump!) so I usually set a timer as I'm guaranteed to forget if I just walk off. Glad to head someones insurance sorted it out in the end and you're not left with a big bill!!

Where did you get the white "egg crate" stuff?? The yanks are always going onabout it and I can't seem to find where to buy it from here!

Posted this countless times before, but might as well show it again: http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k186/ ... /Sump2.jpg (and as with every other time I'll grumble about the stupid size restriction on the images...) Thats how both the sumps on my 5' and 6' tanks are set up. I'll try to take some pics soon. I'm nearly ready to buy another big tank, and I've been designing a completely different sump with a massive amount of submerged media, a trickle tower fed by its own pump and a chamber at the start under the mechanical media for fine particles to settle in. Will post pics of that when I finalise the plan.

Depends if you want a stunted fish or not. Assuming its 4" at the least, I would want to upgrade within 12 months. They can (and should) grow quickly if fed and housed properly.

Spotted metynnis would be even better!!!

Whats the Latin name for those varieties? Checkout this video if you want to see how pacus should be kept: http://www.aquanet.tv/Video/247 Its in German, but a picture is worth a thousand words...

What varieties of pacu are there? AFAIK Colossoma macropomum is the only species in the genus. :-?

Doesn't work as canisters aren't designed to pump water uphill, and thats another topic..... Adodge; I am leaning more towards an expensive pump for my next set up, although being somewhere in the range of 800-1200+ litres its going to be an expensive exercise! I have heard nothing but praise for Eheims though, and similarly my old Sicce pumps went for years without missing a beat or being cleaned.

Good or bad, lets hear them! Are the expensive Eheims worth the money, or are the cheapo pond pumps working for you?

In a big enough tank, starting with adult angels and small oscars then there's no reason why it shouldn't work.

Good idea. I'd suggest adding the cichlids all at once if possible, otherwise some may become established and dominate any later additions. Amazing looking first tank too!!! Its rare to see such control and planning in people new to the hobby, most first tanks (mine included) featured pretty much one of everything that looked cool at the LFS..... :lol:

Its amazing what they can do when they're hungry (or even when they're not!). My big one polished off a few reasonable sized clown loaches that it had lived with for nearly a year when I went on holiday and didn't feed it for a week. Pete you might be surprised at how slow a sleepy silver shark might be in the middle of the night, thats when the bichirs do their hunting...

Neither do I, but I do know that if you're adding CO2 the last thing you want to be doing is adding a sump that is going to aerate the water and add more oxygen. It may be possible to set it up so there is minimal disturbance, but IMO its not worth the hassle for a planted tank.

What do you mean by "the same"? They are the same in that they are both hybrids of the genus Pterophyllum, but from the sounds of it they are different strains or varieties.

I take it this is a planted tank because you're running CO2? In that case forget the sump, the extra aeration is not what you want.

L25's looking good!! Would be nice if someone here was able to breed them, I finally got around to reading the article on planetcatfish. One day I'll have to commission you to take some pics of my fish... :lol:

Wow, you said you're new to the forum, but is that your first tank?? Looks great!!

Saw half a dosen or so at HFF Mt Roskill the other day if anyone is interested, reasonably priced too.

Hopefully it doesn't end up like the tortoise/reptile situation, at least fish are a little harder to steal. I've never even added up the total cost of livestock in my fishroom, but it would be well into the thousands. Might have to talk to the insurance company....