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Dave+Amy

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Posts posted by Dave+Amy

  1. New 700LT tank for Discus

    in Cichlids

    Posted

    NIIIIICE! and who said all discus are the same colour?! haha. sweet big tank.

    great job on growing them out..so big, healthy, and robust.. no wonder they're pairing up! are you going to set up some pairs after completing the aquascape?

    re the driftwood.. recently i heard of someone getting a bunch on the north island east coast and an older local maori came out and went off at them furiously and they had to throw it back. seems very stupid because i'm sure there's nothing in the law preventing it.

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

  3. New 700LT tank for Discus

    in Cichlids

    Posted

    How did I miss this post earlier,

    Your discus are looking fantastic Amy :)

    Wow big tank too,I love it

    they look so healthy!

    I see you got yourself a blue diamond?

    You must be seeing some pairing activity in there by now?

    All the best

    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..

  7. New 700LT tank for Discus

    in Cichlids

    Posted

    Yea it's Dalton's, and it's $5 for 20L down here, but that's from the place that supplies Bunnings. I have a 6x2x2 and I have 30L of aquatic mix (not enough) and I think 100L of prop sand (maybe more). If I gravel vac and have the tube on a lean the sand kinda sits in the tube and not much ends up sucked up. For the bigger pieces of crap on the bottom I just siphon with a piece of hose (gravel vac isn't strong enough to lift it).

    1.5" isn't really all that deep for plants, mine would be around 4" which is quite deep, but with the height of the tank it doesn't take anything away from the overall view (especially with yours since it's 70cm high).

    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?

  9. New 700LT tank for Discus

    in Cichlids

    Posted

    I have propagating sand in my planted tank and I think it looks nice. If you have enough plants you won't even be able to see it eventually :wink: . But I still think it's a nice natural colour. Those discus of yours are really nice.

    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)

  10. New 700LT tank for Discus

    in Cichlids

    Posted

    Discus are wonderful as always Amy!

    Why not use the gravel / stones / sand from a local creek or river?

    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

  11. New 700LT tank for Discus

    in Cichlids

    Posted

    Nice looking discus! I hope you can keep the silica sand white, it went a horrible brown colour for me and looked terrible..

    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

  13. New 700LT tank for Discus

    in Cichlids

    Posted

    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:

    395367433.jpg

    Discus shots:

    395367566.jpg

    395367460.jpg

  14. One discus is smaller...

    in Cichlids

    Posted

    This seems to be the norm,you will always get one or two that don't grow that well out of 5 or 6

    Buying 10 like fishplants did will tend to get you more that grow out better,but same thing applies some won't grow

    There is a higher risk when buying smaller discus under 75 mm or even 50 mm

    but this is weighed up with the cost of the discus being much less

    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 :)

  15. Help me choose catfish for my 800 litre amazon tank

    in Freshwater

    Posted

    Yeah, it's white silica and then some fine gravel sprinkled on top. I vacuum with something like this http://www.hollywoodfishfarm.co.nz/deta ... 5cm/m/980/ although I actually made it from a non-priming vacuum which I jammed into the end of a manually-priming hand pump that I got from Payless Plastics for $3.50. Never had a problem with sand getting sucked into it; once it's been in the water for a while it packs down pretty tight.

    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?

  17. Lost 2 blue diamond discus in the last week

    in Diseases

    Posted

    Also, with fish heaven - it used to be owned by a HE, i purchased fish from him and they were nice good fish. well taken care of.

    then she took over the operation, bought fish off her, some died, some wre sick got sick quckly etc.

    when i went back and HE was gone, SHE did nto maintain tanks, dirty, and old food in there.

    thast the problem.

    i think you purchased at a wrong time.

    yeah that's a real shame :(

  18. Guess who's getting a 700L for Christmas this year :)

    in Freshwater

    Posted

    I'm not really techno-savvy so won't know how to set up a drip sys - I'll get David to read over this thread and do it for me :D the funniest thing was when we were having a new kitchen put in and the plumber seeing how long it took me to do wc's he was trying to set up a pipe that went directly from my tank to kitchen sink - Lyndyloo I might get dave to do that so I no longer need to carry buckets for filling :)

    the good side about using buckets is gaining me strong biceps :P

  19. Guess who's getting a 700L for Christmas this year :)

    in Freshwater

    Posted

    Thanks David R :D I thought it would be very impractical doing large 50% waterchanges for a tank that size, however I don't have anywhere where I can put a barrel that size, this tank will be the focal point of the living room and it's carpeted so buckets don't sound safe, hanging the siphon out the window sounds like the best option - I'll be doing 20% waterchanges DAILY (instead of 50% every 2/3days), will it be too much water for the front lawn to absord? 'Cos I'll be in the crud with mum if I turned the front lawn into a mud pool...

    What size heaters do people use on large tanks? Will a single 500W do?

  22. Guess who's getting a 700L for Christmas this year :)

    in Freshwater

    Posted

    So thought it was about time to upgrade my discus to a larger home..getting a 6footer built, going to go for the seamless look (no hood) on top of a pine stand, wanting to have a couple of 3foot double light ballasts hanging above the top of the tank...decor will consist of white silica sand, lots of skinny driftwood in background (will attach java moss/xmas moss) and have big bold green swords (assorted). I have some questions concerning practicality issues etc:

    1. can anyone suggest how I can have these ballasts hanging without drilling holes in the roof (don't think mum will approve...)

    2. is it necessary to have lids? Are discus prone to jumping?

    3. how do people manage frequent waterchanges in a tank this size?

    Suggestions would be greatly appreciated :bow:

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