Dave+Amy

OMg...I'm not even going to comment on that last bit about driftwood hahaha...I've already acquired my driftwood

the whole beach won't fit in the back of my hatchback lol

haha yeah I've been really busy so haven't been on the forum much in the past few months - the blue diamond was my only surviving one (out of the 3 I originally bought). Well at the moment the tank's pretty bare apart from the filter intake pipes and the heaters - so they're been fighting over those for egg laying. I've noticed a few unconventional couples :happy1: got a male Yellow White trying to pair with my pigeonblood, then there's the red melon (pretty sure male but still very young) hanging around one of my albinos, one unpaired female turq that's still laying eggs on her own and my first pair (Alenquer male + LSS female) that's still going for gold....so altogether about 3 potential pairs and one loner female lol :roll: Can't wait to get the substrate and plants in - scoped out the beach I'll be sourcing it from, is it illegal to takefrom beaches does anybody know? If it is then I might have to purchase instead..

and how long does each bottle last? How do you know you've got too much OR not enough going into the tank?

where do you get the bottle from? and how do you top up the CO2?

Is a CO2 system hard to put together? I am technically challenged but if you give me a brief outline on what i'll need and what goes where I could get David to do it for me

Thanks - I just had a look at your tank on your link and that is impressive! Do you use CO2 at all? Or just fert balls and liquid fert?

Woah that's cheaper than the silica sand but I hope I don't need too many bags..worried about the weight of the tank (as unsure about the flooring supports)...

by propagating sand - you mean Daltons? Can you gravel vac or have you got it fully covered by plant growth? The grain size is perfect but it will get expensive to cover my tank bottom (thinking 1.5inches depth for substrate)

I'm a bit sketchy to take gravel from our local huge river as they've been having algae problems which killed dogs recently (Do i just boil and it should be fine to use??) - I could drive 30mins further up river which may be in better condition

bummer! what am I going to do with 60kgs of white sand :-? Where is the cheapest place to find fine pebbles? I contemplated Daltons but then remember a thread about how stuff builds up bad in Dalton substrate

Thanks @ myfishybusiness @ Sophia - I have 14 loaches all up so I'm guessing they'll dig up my plants? If I sprinkled the top layer with small pebbles wouldn't the pebbles eventually head down and end up below the sand?

Well..finally upgraded and new tank's dimensions are 160 x 70 x 70. Currently housing my 12 Discus (the loaches and catfishes are in a smaller 250LT holding tank) - I need a few suggestions in creating habitat: 1) I thought I'd use the silica sand Dave bought me - but is sand heavy enough to hold the plants down? 2) I'm going to source some massive (but skinny) driftwood from Makara hopefully tomorrow - if it's sunbleached do I still need to boil it? 3)I'm assuming silica sand is pH neutral - but when I did separate pH tests between a bucket with the sand and my tank the pH is off by like 0.2pH ? (or is my test kit reading a bit off?) 4) Any driftwood will lower pH? Or just specific driftwood types? Empty tank except for Discus: Discus shots:

I grew all my Albino strains out from 30/40mm and the five I kept myself are currently 100mm+ and only one smaller discus about 70/80mm but I did nightly 70% waterchanges, the same however did not go for the three blue diamonds where I lost two for no apparent reason. Bigger fish 60/70mm are slightly more but less hassles...definitely not as many waterchanges needed

Awesome, thanks for the tip! Did you notice anything with the pH? I wastold it's meant to be pH neutral but when I bucket tested and compared to my tank there was about a 0.2pH increase?