David R

Good thing they put it straight after top gear or I would have missed it!! And I wanted an early night last night too....

I feed raw shrimp, cooking it apparently takes away some of the goodness. There's no fat so it doesn't need to be trimmed like beef heart does, just chop it up straight out of the freezer and put it in the tank. I've read things similar to what Ryan posted about animal fats and proteins aren't as easy for fish to break down, and going by how long the bulging stomach lasts on my big ornate after feeding beef heart I'd say its true.

Trim the fat and cut it into chunks, freeze in a plastic container spread out with pieces of tinfoil in between the layers so its easy to separate the pieces when frozen. I hate it too, which is generally why I feed shrimp 95% of the time. Its better for them too.

Depending on the size and number of tanks, I would go with multiple tanks plumbed into a sump. Not your entire fish room on one system, but 2 to 6-8 tanks depending on size all running as one. Quarantine all new arrivals to minimise the risk, and make sure you steralise nets, hoses etc when moving them between systems. That, plus a well insulated room heated by a heatpump, is how I'd do it. But if you're renting you WILL have to move at some point, so don't get too carried away. As someone suggested, talk to your landlord about how long you can stay, maybe even sign a 2-3 year fixed-term agreement.

I have used cold water in the past with no problems, and during summer when its not that cold I will use it straight out of the tap. In winter I tend to add some warm water to help make it closer to the tank temperature. For my new 5' I'm going to invest in a 300L plastic drum so I can leave the water to sit instead of using dechlorinator, and I'll put a heater in there to help get it up to temperature too.

Lucky it wasn't expensive.

What matters is the amount of ammonia the fish are producing in relation to the amount of filter media you are trying to establish, so two tetras might cycle a 10g no worries, but won't do much for a big tank.

Because the only options I have for the first fish to add is a 15" ornate bichir who eats loads of meaty food and makes a lot of waste, or a redhead severum who I don't want to add first as he might get the idea its his tank [already gets pretty grumpy with the uarus]. Don't want to add the uarus as they're prone to whitespot, and I don't want to add the clown loaches for obvious reasons. If anyone has a big common pleco I could borrow for a few weeks it would be much appreciated...

Got GF to bring home a bottle of "cloudy ammonia" from the supy tonight, its the Home Brand stuff from countdown, looks like it froths a little though. Not safe to use?

uaru?

Good stuff!! Hollywood Mt Roskill have a few small ones, I was pretty tempted to get some but the 5' is consuming all my money at the moment... Hope they do it for you!

Put some additional filtration in there, a powerhead with a sponge on it, or something similar with high turn-over. Make sure it doesn't clog your other filtration.

Could try some of those red lined torpedo barbs, or maybe some geophagus?

Red Aro. :lol:

The red around the gills is a worry, have you tested the ammonia etc yet?

I'm going to run the water level in the sump a bit lower than that once its up and running, but I thought I'd have it a bit higher while the fish are in there. The tetra has managed to find its way out [or further into the media] during the night.

The zebras sound like a good idea.

Not until they get massive (5-6+ years at a guess) and by that stage they probably will have messed up your plants to the point where you'll either sell them or fall in love with them and forget about the plants.

South American style. But with clown loaches. And an ornate bichir. And the odd central american...

My GF's the same, loves the juvi's but not the adults... :-?

Go to Bunnings and buy a power meter for $19.95, multiply the KWH used by the KWH cost on your bill. Sorted.

I had planned on doing a progress report type thread for the set-up of this tank but never really got around to it. I swear I have never stressed so much or had so many problems setting up a tank. I want to be young and ignorant again because things seemed a lot easier then, the more you know the more you have to worry about! Here's the story up until now, I'll update it as things progress... Back in about April (I think!) I had Greg/Tanks2U build me the tank, 1500 long, 700 wide and 600 tall, he also built a new taller tower for the sump and modified the sump tank a bit. His work was great, but the guy he recommended to build the steel stand wasn't so hot. The top of the stand was really uneven, it had a slight twist and to top it off there were runs in the paint. I pretty much put it in the too-hard basket up until about a month ago when I finally decided to bite the bullet and trust the stand. Barrie kindly helped out with his josters and we lifted the tank onto the stand after putting down ply on a bead of liquid nails to absorb the unevenness. A few weeks later it was full of water and looking level enough. I had last Thursday and Friday off work so I plumbed the sump up, washed all the media and put in about 250L of water from my other tanks. I decided to get some cheap tetras to make ammonia to get the filter running, and also for live food to help my big ornate settle in once its cycled. More problems. I went to Hollywood Mt Roskill and purchased a bunch of tetras, along with some assorted freebies a customer didn't want. I soon learned that tetras aren't smart and had a bad habit of going over the overflow in the corner of the tank. I started catching them to transfer them to the sump, but before I had managed to catch the second one the first one had been sucked through the pump and returned to the tank as burly. Oh well I thought, its all good ammonia. I covered the intake of the pump with a sponge and put the rest of the tetras in there. I now have another problem... It seems they can swim under the grate holding the media up and up through the media, but not back down. I have decided that although it seems a little cruel, it is now a case of the survival of the fittest (or smartest) and I not going to pull all the media out of the sump to catch it, or any others that find their way in there. Anyway. Tonight I put a light on the top and a few big pieces of wood in there to soak, and it is finally starting to look like an aquarium instead of a big glass money-sucking box of problems. There's probably not going to be much of interest for the next few weeks (other than how many stupid tetras manage to get stuck in the media), but on the 18th I'm meeting a friend in Taupo who is bringing me up some white sand from Christchurch. The plan is to have white sand substrate, a couple of big pieces of wood, and some round river rocks. The fish will be added gradually, starting with the big ornate, then the uarus, severum, heckeliis, and lastly my 8 largest clown loaches. As my 14 smaller clowns get big enough to avoid being eaten by the ornate I'll add them too. I'm also growing out a S. leucosticta ["juripari"], surinamensis, two male sajicas, and a group of G. balzani. I'll probably add the first three when they're large enough, but I'm thinking of doing a proper amazon-themed set up in my 4' with the balzanis, corys, tetras, maybe some other dwarfs, and possibly altum angels. Sorry for the epic post, its been a long time coming and I needed to vent/show off. :lol:

Temp seems a little cool for loaches, try raise it to 27+. Check ammonia nitrates and nitrites ASAP.

What is there that I could put in my sump underneath the filter wool to filter out the finer particles??

Skaffen do you do it with the spoon and sugar cube?