David R

I feed my fire eel prawn, beefheart, bloodworms, etc. Eats like a pig, but I've never seen him be aggressive towards other fish.

Are you able to get other species of bichir, ornate and/or delhezi?

Mine is about 7-8" and I've had it for 2 years, bought it at about 2". I think they'd be a bit slower growing than clown knives, but haven't kept them so can't really comment. They can get over 18" eventually, but 12-14" in a few years is about normal.

I just checked mine now as I was doing a water change, 14C after a fairly mild day. I'll be interested to see how much colder it gets as the temperature drops. I did around a 40% change, temp dropped from 25C to 21-22C. Fish don't seem to be bothered either, maybe with something really delicate like discus or rays I'd be a little more concerned, but I've never had a problem with it keeping uarus, eels, loaches, black aro, etc. Pre-heating the water would be the best option, but if you're doing a weekly water change of around 50% on anything bigger than a couple of hundred litres and you're going to need a lot of containers and heaters [or one big one].

How long is a piece of string? Look at the size of the oscars mouth, look at the diameter of the fire eel, remember that oscars grow a whole lot faster and ate stupid enough to try to eat anything they think can fit in their mouth, then make a decision.

Did you measure that with a thermometer of fingerometer? :roll: Just for an interesting comparrison, I'll go outside on the next cold morning we get and measure the water from the garden hose and see how cold it is. Hopefully someone from Christchurch can do the same so we can see the difference. I used to do the same thing when I lived in hamilton [which is a lot colder than auckland] and still didn't notice a huge drop in temperature.

Ornate will be fine, so would any of the larger lower-jaw species (if you ever get lucky enough to find one!!!). Smaller species like palmas and senegal might not be big enough in the long run. Dats would work great, come from the same area, similar diet etc.

Which species of bichir?

The guy I got my large one off had a 17" and a 14" one together. IMO a group would probably be better than two.

Really, how much colder can water get? You don't fill your tank up with ice do you? I usually do my water changes in the morning before work, so in the middle of winter I doubt if our water is much over 5C, meaning you could only get a few degrees colder without it freezing. A 3C reduction in temperature for a 30% waterchange is hardly going to make a huge difference. Do you also adjust the pH to perfectly match your tank before adding it?

I do ~30-50% water changes, and even in winter filling it up with the hose from outside I've never seen the temp drop by more than 4-5 degrees.

Hans, I agree it's immiture, but I believe it was you who said it could be done for under $100... Millet, bigger = better. More water is always a good thing, and having a large capacity for bio media is what makes sumps great. However, You don't need a 5' sump. The sump should have space to hold at least 30-50L of water when the pump is switched off. I'd say go for something around 3'x15"x15", it also depends on the design of the stand, maybe you'll need something shorter and wider/taller.

So you're going to build the sump and plumbing for 0.10c?? :roll: Also, with a head of around 1.5M (from the bottom of the sump to the top of the tank) the flow would be around 3000LPH [taking a very rough stab in the dark], which isn't even turning it over 5x per hour. I'd want more for the kind of fish I'd be keeping in a 6'x2'x2' tank.

800L per hour isn't even turning over the volume of a 6'x2'x2' tank twice per hour, and I bet that flow rate isn't with a 1M+ head as you usually would have with a sump set up. The minimum I'd want for that size tank would be two of these, maybe even two of these if you're keeping big messy fish, and/or the sump is much more than 1M below the top of the tank. I'm also interested as to how you make the box for the bio media in the plastic bin? On a tank that size I'd be going for a big sump, ideally around 3-4' to give a good increase in volume and have plenty of space and I guess I'd rather save/spend a bit more to get something purpose-built thats going to do the job well. Ghetto home-built stuff can work well, and is great if you're on a really tight budget (arent we all?), but IMO it's not every day you set up a tank this big, so why not do it once and do it properly.

Not likely, unless you've got pumps and a spare tank at home. Here's my rough costing: Sump $140 Media ~$50? [can't remember, been so long since I bought any bio balls] Plumbing $50-100 depending on how complicated you make it and how many bends you use Pump $100 and up depending on the size of the tank. Still cheaper than a big canister. Potentially has more bio media, more waterflow, increases the total system volume, can keep the heaters etc out of the main tank, and its easy to add/remove things like crushed shell or peat for buffering water. If noise is an issue you could possibly set it up so a second pump on a timer comes on during the day to increase the flow, and turns off at night while you're sleeping.

Meh, huge gushing noise = airation!!! You guys need to harden up! I used to have a 5'x2'x2' in my bedroom with an open 4x2 stand running a big noisy sump with two large pumps. The sound of watre is supposed to be relaxing isn't it? :lol: It can be done, a big sponge in the overflow and a spraybar that restricts the flow of water to the point where the pipe is full of water helps. So does having the whole thing in an enclosed cabinet. It just takes a big of thinking and playing around.

Still confused? They're dead easy to set up.

Me too!!!!!!! For a tank that big a sump is the only way to go!!

Yeah, thats the one I liked the look of, although I haven't had a good close up look at either. I'm not going to do it now, its not the first time someone stole "my" colour, tofu did the urban green on his old eg (and did an absolutely terrible job of it too!). Maybe I should just stick with red....

Haha well it was going to be a brownish gunmetal colour (a BMW colour) that now looks far too similar to yours!!! Hope the knives grow quickly...

Nothing definate yet, but there was a bit of talk about it over the weekend. I'll almost certainly be bringing my car down for that, should try to get it resprayed before then so it doesn't look so embarrassing parked next to yours!!!! Anyway, back on topic... How big is '25' and how big are the new knives?

One would assume you have bought new filters for the larger tank. What I would do is run the new filters on the established tank, while doing regular water changes to fill up the larger tank. When the new tank is half-full with 'old' water (keep it circulating with an airstone and/or small filter) and the new filters have been running for 3-4 weeks on the old tank, you can transfer the fish, filters, gravel etc, and total water from the 40L into the 200L, top up with tap water and you should be right.

Damn Phil! I should have spent a bit more time in christchurch and checked out your fish!! Oh well, bring on SIMM Feb 08!!

Yup! You could try make one, but unless you value your time at under $10/hour it may be 'cheaper' to buy one. The only time I would use a weir is if I had an established tank that I didn't want to pull apart to set up with a sump. Most big tanks have bracing across the front/back which could make it difficult to use one.

And they'll probably call them something stuped like 'Siamese Tiger fish', even tho theyre Indo's not Siamese. God I hate common names, why are shops/people too ignorant to use latin.....