David R

Good to see them gradually working thru the mass of undescribed fish!

When I went a few years ago they were down to 1-2 in that funny shaped tank they've been in for years. I was kinda wondering if they ere a one-off import that they couldn't be bothered replacing, but if there were 30 they must have got some more in.

fish don't live for ever?

That is why I suspect most tap water I've encountered has had a high pH but a low hardness. I'm not sure what they use to adjust the pH up (do you know Alan?) but it doesn't seem to last or create much hardness.

I think you've got it round the wrong way, a change in hardness would be far more likely to alter the pH, but a change in pH isn't going to do anything to the hardness (though it could be a symptom of a change in hardness). If your tap water has a very low hardness (GH=0 you said?) then the pH will easily fluctuate due to any number of factors, and as long as the extremes are avoided it doesn't really matter. My old east Auckland tap water was very soft yet would come out of the tap off-the-scale blue (pH), after 24 hours in a barrel with an air stone, a heater and some prime it was back down to mid-sevens.

viewtopic.php?f=23&t=62969

Cheers, they look like very nice units!

What sort of LEDs are you using?

I checked the TDS of my dehumidifier water a while ago and it was ~7-10ppm (can't remember the exact number), I'm not sure where those dissolved solids come from but I don't know if I'd trust it in my aquarium.

shame enough people [me included] weren't keen to fork out for the ornate pims they were looking at bringing in a few years back...

You're forgetting how racist I am! If anything it would be pictus.

Quite likely, I think there are four males and two females after watching their display yesterday. I might need a few predatory catfish to help pick off the excess fry...

It probably would, but it would require me to go swimming to plant them!!

Yeah I was surprised I had a hard time selling it, kinda glad no one wanted him!! Couple of full tank shots, the plecs have disappeared and the tank looks nice and empty...

Cheers, I'm surprised at how much some of them have grown. The whiptail is about 3-4 years old, it didn't take that long to get to that size too, don't think it has grown much in the past 18 months. Old tank is 140x65x48cm, so not quite 5', and its going to be up gor sale in the not-too-distant future.

Yeah mostly fun, the clean up is starting to drag though... Cool, give me a call/text, or a pm/email if you've lost my number.

PM'd

Today is the day!! Just spent the past two hours emptying the 400L and catching the fish to transfer them to the 2000L. I moved the aro first, caught it in a large plastic bag and carried it downstairs to acclimatise. Then it was the plecs, damn they can make a mess!! The big Panaques have also been doing some serious wood-eating, this once thick and interesting piece had been chewed down to paper-thin in the middle and snapped when I picked it up. All caught and ready to be acclimatised Of course I had a very attentive helper through-out the entire process... Transferring to the big tank, one of the smaller L14 Biggest L190 This was him exactly 13 months ago, grown from about 6cm to a solid ~20cm Same fish Thin striped L190 My favourite of the four L190, ex Jamosfish Last of the L190, this one doesn't have great patterns but it does look like they could be getting kinda spotty (L330-ish?), and I love the fact that it's a short but stocky little tank. Largest of the three L14 L81 Sadly I didn't get any of the L128, they didn't seem to like sitting still! Now for the fun part, cleaning up the mess! I'll take shots of the tank later tonight when it has settled down. Now the 400L has no fish I can use it to soak the bigger pieces of wood I'll eventually add to the big tank.

That is a good idea, our tank went from under 1/4 full to overflowing with one good night of rain, so if you drained it right down at this time of year it shouldn't take long to fill back up. Might be a good chance to give it a clean if there is much sediment in the bottom.

Maybe we should stop using the term "wild" by itself and differentiate between "wild caught" and "wild type", as there is quite a difference between the two. Ron and Hovmollers discus are "wild caught", meaning they were fished out of the Amazon somewhere and imported into New Zealand. When they breed them (note 'when', not 'if'.. 8) ) their offspring will be "wild type", meaning they are captive bred wild strains as opposed to most captive bred discus which are selectively bred "fancy" strains. I have seen some on TradeMe listed as F1 captive bred from wild parents. How true this is I'm not sure as I haven't seen the fish or met the breeder, though I gather he does have a pretty serious set up and a good reputation with discus?

Obviously, but relative to the height it is a small consideration. As with the examples in my last post, an extra 40cm length lead to a reduction of 0.2 in the safety factor, compared to an increase in height of even half that it's almost nothing. And of course the width doesn't become a factor until it exceeds the length.

Yep, but you could achieve all that without running the 1000L tank as part of the system simply by having a drain at the lowest point of the sump which you open while pumping the new water into the tank. If you did it that way you would only need one 1000L tank in your room, and wouldn't have the extra cost/trouble of heating/treating/circulating an additional 1000L. I have exactly that with my new tank, and just changed a hundred or so litres tonight in ~5 minutes, simply by putting the hose into the tank and opening the drain in the sump (certainly a lot easier than mixing salt and matching trace elements!!).

Here's a good calculator for glass thickness, based on Warrens calculations and presented in an easy to use format that also tells you the approximate weight of the tank. http://www.theaquatools.com/building-your-aquarium 15mm glass is by no means overkill for a 70cm high tank, you would have a safety factor of around 3.7 with your dimensions. You could get away with 12mm and have a safety factor of around 2.4, which is still pretty good. Just be warned that there is a big jump in price from 12mm to 15mm, due to the way it has to be cut. Just for comparison, my 240x120x70cm tank with 15mm glass has a safety factor of 3.5 according to the calculator, the only difference being the slight difference in length. As the_obstacle said, increase the width change things until you start reaching the extremes.

Nothing wrong with that, but it can be noisy if sucking in air, and don't under-estimate the size of pipe you'll need to handle the flow. How come you want to have the tank that stores the salt water for water changes running as part of the system? Are you going to use NSW or salt mix, or both? I understand you'll need RO water of topping up evaporation (and diluting the NSW if you use it), and if you're using salt mix for the water changes you'll want to be able to accumulate enough RO for a 10-20% water change and have somewhere to pre-mix and heat the water, but why run that extra 1000L of volume to heat/treat/dose/move just for the sake of it?

All part of the fun with eartheaters! I think I'm going to need some sort of long plastic rake for this tank.