Romeo

Condolences

My favourite part is the very end when I've got competition. I like to drag out the entire process as much as possible and try and wear down the other bidders. I've got some special techniques that allow me to reliably bid within the last few seconds, so I take full advantage of that. Just the other day I stretched out an auction by 45 minutes by bidding this way. Won the watch for much less than it was worth - easy as!

Here's one I prepared earlier, 2 years earlier! Sorry for the poor quality, bad camera. That was Yabbowitz when she was young, poor lil' Yabbo...

If you're a fan of Doodle Jump, I strongly recommend Mega Jump. I'm totally addicted to this game, it's totally awesome. My other favourites are: Planets - for identifying stars and such, very cool. Stair Dismount Universal - throw the ragdoll man down the stairs, aim for a high score! Decibels - an accurate Decibel meter, cool. The Glowing Void - good little game. TVNZ - for news, weather and sport. Yellow - good for getting addresses and stuff.

In Akaroa they are :-?, the sign strictly states no flora, fauna or natural materials to be taken. The stream there is very cool, it's full of Inanga and Bullies. You can see them all just cruising around in the sun.

If you want some Takashi Amano style black volcanic rocks you can score some over towards Akaroa ways. Just make sure don't take any from Akaroa proper, as it's a "wildlife reserve".

I'm not too familiar with PMDD, but I had the same problems with my Java Ferns in my AR380 and the Flourish Comprehensive turned them around within a month.

Sounds like a Micro Nutrient deficiency, may be a good idea to invest in some Flourish Comprehensive.

Personally I found Leaf Zone to be pretty ineffective, it's only got Iron and Potassium, but Flourish Comprehensive has heaps of stuff in it, and apparently it's the "Micro Nutrients" that are important for plant health - ie: holes in leaves, brown spots, yellow leaves etc.

Well according to Alanmin it takes the plants 2-4 hours to realise that the lights are even turned on, from memory he uses very high lighting for up to 18 hours a day on some of his tanks. So just whatever you can afford and feel comfortable with, the longer the better in other words. But 12 hours should be about right. If you can keep the water parameters in balance and use the correct amount of Flourish Excel with the correct redosing periods, thus keeping ontop of algae, you could use even more light hours. Note: Flourish Excel isn't a magic bullet for "algae", there are many types all with different weaknesses and required parameters, but in my experience if you keep ontop of water changes and Flourish dosing, and have a good plant cover, the algae will slowly deminish over time. It's a balance between 1) Carbon [eg], 2) Lighting, and 3) Nutrients [eg]. If you combine these three with the correct type of plant then you should be able to grow them easily. As long as these three are in blanace you'll be in control of the algae, if one's out, then some types of algae will grow rapidly.

Don't know what the PH is, we've never checked it. I'd imagine it's quite acidic as we've got a huge bit of driftwood in there. Never lost a fish in over a year and never had any disease, so there's no problems there. We do check the big three every 2 weeks or so, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate. Ammonia & Nitrite always come back 0, and we've never seen Nitrate over 0.20ppm. Haven't added any reflectors, though it would be a great idea to do so. Would also be a good idea to have a long light period, 12+ hours because of the low lights. I'd strongly recommend Flourish Excel, it helps keep ontop of any algae as well as providing excellent growth.

Here's our tank, it grows Crypts and Java fern great! JBL aquabasis under the crypts. 5ml Flourish Excel & 2ml Flourish Comprehensive every 3rd day. 2 Lace Gouramis 2 Mother of Peal Gouramis 2 Sparkling Gouramis 2 Female Bristlenose plecos 5 Chain Loaches Monthly water changes - for real...

If you really want them out we've found that using a siphon tube is a great way to suck out small fry :].

I've got a 2006 and 2010, had a 2008 at one stage. Bloody good internal filters, especially the 2010 on my 80L Koura tank - gets a pretty good swirl on!

Have you tried Dyers Road Landscape Supplies? http://www.dyersroadlandscape.co.nz/ That's where we got our gravel from, there's some great stuff in 1kg bags inside. Great if you're doing a small tank.