David R

That's going to be the biggest thing, there's a bit of a learning curve and a few different concepts to understand if you want to design a good sump for your set up, but if you're not comfortable with measuring/cutting/gluing pipes then you're probably best to stick with canister filters. It's not really that difficult though, just remember the old adage of 'measure three times, cut once'! In it's simplest form, all you need is a suitable-sized old aquarium, a couple of filter socks, some ceramic media (or pond matrix is better again if you want to spend more) in laundry bags, and a suitable return pump.

3: 4 silver dollars, 6 clown loaches, 2 bristlenose, 2 red hump earth eaters, 1 flagtail prochilodus, and several smaller bichirs (just watch the size difference with the clowns). spiny eel of some sorts would be cool too!

I've been meaning to write an article on the subject for yonks now, but always seem to find something easier to do... :lol: If you want a sump, then; Is your tank already built, and is it drilled? How much noise can you tolerate? How much room do you have under/beside/behind the tank? Can you (or anyone you know) DIY stuff, like cutting, measuring and gluing pipes?

It would be ok, certainly better than having just one, but not as good as five, or 10, or 30! While they can do ok in smaller groups, you really are missing out on a lot of the interesting behaviours you see with a larger group. You've got a good sized tank for them, think hard about whether you want a couple of large predatory fish or a big community of smaller-medium peaceful ones.

Dats are cool, and would be good with silver dollars in a tank that size, but although they are slow-ish growing if you start with LFS-sized clowns and LFS-sized dats it won't be that long until the clowns are gone. Given that you already have larger silver dollars, maybe consider rehoming the solo clown to someone who has a group already and that would increase your options for keeping larger predatory fish.

Four silver dollars would be ok IMO, but certainly get more clowns. I had 30 in a tank that size, ranging from 4-8" and it was epic! Very entertaining to watch with all the antics, especially at feeding time. They're great fish and I wish more people would think of them as 'feature fish' rather than just a clean-up crew in the background. The limiting factor here will the the CL; if you get more (unless you can find and pay for some large ones) you will be stuck with some small fish that don't grow all that fast compared to other similar sized fish. You would probably want to rule out anything predatory and faster growing like an ornate bichir, oscar, knife fish etc. IMO good oddballs for your tank would be a fire eel, and/or smaller Polytperus species (delhezi, palmas, senegal).

Bugger!! Might be time to look into hard-plumbing it, if you trust your plumbing skills!

+1 for sump if you're willing to do the research into building it to suit your needs. Otherwise any of the above suggestions would work, two of the 2080 that Hovmoller suggested with the built-in heaters to reduce the clutter in your tank would be my pick, but you could set up a very good sump for a lot less...

If I took photos that nice I'd be putting a watermark somewhere it can't easily be chopped off, rather than just the bottom right corner.

That male is a beast! With those colours on both of them it would be hard to imagine the offspring not turning out nice.

Heat + dehumidifier is the way to go. Don't open any windows, in fact keep the area as enclosed as possible with the dehumidifier cranking.

Another vouch for Greg, does great work and is very flexible.

Festivum, angels, lemon tetras and 20 sterbai corys!!!

Bought my first fish in nearly two years today, feels good! Looking forward to adding them to the main tank once they're quarantined.

Good to see another person happy with the Satellite+. I still love mine, I have an "every day" preset and another brighter one I use when taking photos or showing off the tank to people. I'm happy with the amount of light they put out, running two rows (each made up of a 48" and 36" unit) on a 120cm wide 70cm deep tank. If I was trying to grow plants I'd certainly consider adding a third strip to get better coverage, but for fish only (and probably low light plants) they're great. I agree the lightening is a bit gimmicky, I found it really stressed out my arowana, but the complete adjustibility is awesome.

http://www.jehmco.com/html/float_valves_switches.html Not sure if they ship internationally?

Most likely none at the moment, they're not your usual "in stock" fish. After seeing Henwards not-yet fully grown ones in his 7' 1000L+ tank I think you should be looking at something a bit larger than 350L if you wish to keep them too.

They do come in occasionally, Henward used to have a couple, and they get considerably larger than a regular SD.

Greg said my 2000L 240x120x70cm tank was the largest glass tank he's made, but I'm sure there are other big glass tanks out there. I know of one ply/fibreglass tank built into the house that is ~3200L, which would have to be the biggest home aquarium I've personally seen in NZ.

Nice looking tank, but if you're getting detectable ammonia then your filter isn't "holding up ok", the bioload has exceeded its ability to convert ammonia into nitrate. I'd look at getting that new filter asap. I love the sand and rocks, jealous of the big rocky rivers down there! (you can keep the snow and earthquakes though)

Looks interesting, cheers for sharing!

Safety factor = 1.0, so you're rolling the dice if you fill it right up!

+1 hof half-full with wood and plants sticking out the top, could make for a great archerfish tank. How thick is the glass?

I agree with Alan, we ventured into Nepenthes a little at the nursery I used to work for and they were grown in a mix of coconut fibre and pumice, no fert whatsoever. So I think if you want something to suck nitrates Pothos/Epipremnum is your best bet (and if anyone is interested the woman I got mine off is selling them on TradeMe once again). IIRC, there are two main groups of Nepenthes, the highland and lowland species. The highland ones are more tolerant of cooler temperatures and generally easier to grow. The lowland ones require a fairly warm humid climate year-round to thrive. Not sure if there is a list of what is available, not sure if they're still growing them at Coromandel Cacti (could email him to find out) but we had 4-5 different varieties, some names some not. I have seen some very nice ones offered on trademe a few years back too. There is a carnivorous plant society, I'd suggest you look them up if you want more info.

I heard everyone whinging about the roads in Christchurch, but when I was down there over xmas I didn't think they were that much worse than Whangarei's... :-?