Jennifer

!drool:

I seriously want this tank. Stocked with Tinwini danios... !drool: Neeeed rocks like thaaat.... they go so well with the substrate too.....

A shoal of smaller rainbows...you won't look back. But I am biased. :yawnn:

A guy contacted me recently saying that their company was manufacturing acrylic tanks. Here are his details. Please let him know you got the info here so that he knows that is outreach has been effective. :thup: Falcon Manufacturing Group Ltd. Steel, Stainless, Ali fabrications, LED Lighting, Signage and now designer Aquariums Phone 03 384 3139 Fax 03 982 3143 http://www.fmgch.com Attn: Andrew

Well, I personally find this a fascinating discussion. There is no doubt that cats are companion animals and are dearly loved by a lot of people, responsible or not. Being in the veterinary industry for 20 years pretty much ensures I cannot possibly fail to see the value that these animals offer to human companionship. I personally have had cats almost all of my life. At the same time, I also see the damage that their lifestyle with humans has had on their own health, not to mention the well being of others. I have seen and treated thousands of cats hit by cars, injured by dog bites, abscesses from cat fight wounds, inflicted with parasites, broken bones from falls, poisoned, trapped, abandoned, feral, you name it. Is this fair to the cats themselves? I personally do not think so. The risks to the cat's health are so very high. When combined with the risks to wildlife, children in sand pits, our vegie gardens, it seems logical to start examining the issue and I think that is what Morgan is doing. He cannot possibly believe he will eradicate one of the top three pets in the world, but he can raise the issue. (I should be clear that I actually haven't looked at what he has to say, nor have I visited any sites that discuss these issues, or seen the Campbell Live show, these are just my opinions based on my experiences). The one and only reason I don't have a cat now is because I can't keep it on my property and I am not in a position to build a cat enclosure at my current house. I know many other vets, techs and nurses who keep their cats in enclosures for the same reasons. Google cat enclosure and you will see some fantastic ways to keep cats happy and entertained while also keeping them safe, and ensuring the safety of wildlife.* *The University of Georgia and National Geographic published results of a study last year that estimated that free-roaming house cats kill an estimated 4 billion wild animals across the U.S. every year, including birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians. http://www.abcbirds.org/newsandreports/ ... 20806.html

Original source of the article: http://crooksandliars.com/nonny-mouse/g ... th-isnt-us Love it :bggrn:

Apologies Sam, I don't check the forum more than about once weekly. You could order the monopotassium nitrate and the potassium phosphate as well as the aquatic trace mix and get some epsom salts. Once you get that, send me an email and I can help you sort out a dose rate for your tank. You will need to get some carbon in there though, either by pressurised CO2 or by a liquid carbon supplement like Seachem Flourish Excel. The alternative is that you can go low tech. The distance of your light source to the plants in your tank is ideal for this. It would mean a lot less work. A low tech tank can be maintained with Flourish Comprehensive and Excel (along with some small additions of things like magnesium).

Lucky for you, this algae is a sign that your tank is doing relatively well! From here, you can help plant growth to out-compete the algae by doing the following: Make sure you are adding enough ferts. For low tech tanks like this I use: Excel approx 5mls per 40L, Comprehensive 1ml/40L daily (or 6mls/40L once weekly). If you are dosing ferts, you need to do water changes, 50% once weekly. Remove all visible algae. Remove all affected leaves/plants - they will not recover. Ensure your filter is clean/flowing well. The current should be enough to keep the leaves moving gently to and fro. Slowly (over a week or two) bump the light up to 5-6 hours a day. :thup:

Aviverm is a 24% w/v solution of Levamisole hydrochloride (24 grams per 100mls). However, the manufacturer says that it contains between 20 - 30 grams per 100 millilitre of levamisole. This is 200-300 milligrams per millilitre of Aviverm solution. At a dose of 2mg per litre of tank water* this is 1ml per 100L of tank water, rounding up (in other words assuming the medication is a minimum of 200mg/ml, so the maximum dose would be 2.5mg/L). That is about 0.1ml per 10 litres of tank water so for a 200 litre tank, you would add 2mls of Aviverm doing a large water change after 12-24 hours (or add activated carbon to the filter). Repeat for three treatments. If I were you, I would treat with praziquantel and levamisole. I would not treat with a drug that has them premixed for other species since the dosage of each is different for fish. * Carpenter, J.W., Exotic Animal Formulary 3rd ed. Levamisole: Internal nematodes 1-2mg/L x 24 hr bath; or, 10mg/kg PO q7d x 3 treatments. Wear gloves when handling. External treamatodes 50mg/L x 2 hr bath; or, 4 g/kg feed q7d x 3 treatments. Wear gloves when handling. Praziquantel: 5-10mg/L x 3-6 hr bath, repeat in 7 days. Take care when treating Corydoras catfish.

I can't really see what you are referring to in the photo above. You could try increasing the surface agitation. I wouldn't be to worried though. There are all sorts of things that happen in a tank and most are pretty harmless as long as your water conditions and husbandry are good. :thup: One thing to keep in mind with a new planted tank is the volume of plants that you have. If you have a densely planted tank with plants that have been well established for some time, they will establish equilibrium and not require much in the way of extra care/special lights/fertilisers/CO2. If you have just planted, replanted, trimmed heavily or changed your lighting/fertiliser dosing, then your plants may not be growing optimally and that is when algae can take hold. The best solution is to either plant very heavily at the start, or initially go slow and bring your doing/lights/carbon up at the same rate as your plant growth.

As you don't have any fish in there yet, this is a good time to get your CO2 right. You've got all the makings of a high tech system and if you go with MH lighting, it will most certainly be high tech so you may find yourself spending more time than you think each week trimming and pruning. Like the others said, the depth of the tank and your current lighting aren't ideal for high demand plants like glosso. On the other hand, it is a great configuration for a lower tech tank. If you are doing EI dosing of ferts, your key will be in getting enough CO2 to keep up with the demand from the lighting. A high tech tank will usually require daily dosing alternating with macros (KNO3, KH2PO4, K2SO4) and micros (trace, magnesium) plus water changes once a week. Dry ferts from a hydroponics supplier is fine but there are some commercial preparations that are excellent if you want to go pre made. The ideal situation is always doing the substrate and the water so you are nearly there. You should get your circulation and CO2 up high enough that you get pearling after the lights have been on for a while. You probably won't see pearling on the deeper plants, but you should see some on the plants closer to the light source.

Looking at the structure of glutaraldehyde (the main ingredient of Excel), it could adsorb to carbon. So the answer is yes, carbon will affect/remove Excel.

I agree with the above. I'd do the following: 1. Turn off the lights and put some blankets over the tank for three days. Don't be tempted to look in during this time. The fish will be fine. 2. Once the three days are up, go in and rub the algae off the affected plants and remove any leaves that look damaged. Then do a very large water change and suck up all the algae residue. I personally would do close to 90% water change, but do what you feel comfortable with and make sure the replacement water is the same temperature and treated if you have chlorine in your area. 3. Add ferts. I personally would also add something like Flourish Comprehensive at 1ml/40L daily as well as Excel at 5ml/40L once weekly after a 50% water change. Also add some magnesium salts about 1tsp per 100L. 4. Turn the photoperiod down to 6 hours 5. Add more plants if you can. 6. Wait about 2 weeks at which point you should see some big improvement.

Lovely to see it all come together guys!!! It looks amazing. Keep doing what you are doing and whatever you do, don't remove too many plants at once. Slow and easy. :thup:

Yay rainbows!! I need some of those for my new tank. 8)

Good one. Do you have any ferts in the substrate? You will benefit from dosing both water and substrate if you are doing everything else right. Even fert balls will help.

It was 12mm low-iron glass David. Of course it is nice, but I am not really sure it is worth the cost for what I can see (that's just me of course). I had heard the same thing about the black silicon, but my structural engineer friends said that is rubbish, so I went with black silicon. I'd be interested to hear if you have more information than that (so I know whether or not I have to start worrying about my tank...). Barnacle, can you run that simulation with full Euro bracing around the long edges top and bottom going all the way from one end of the tank to the other? I personally feel bracing is a waste of time unless it is done properly and these simulations are proving that point so nicely! Loving it!!

I love that simulation. Was that using Euro bracing though? I guess we all need to decide on where we are willing to cut corners and its a preference thing really. If it were me, I would go taller, at least 750mm with 15mm glass, polished machine-cut edges, black silicon, full Euro bracing (the minimal cost for that is worth it in terms of structural safety...but I do live in a quake zone... :facepalm: ). With an Aro, all that extra room up top and those refined edges will make the tank so much nicer... !drool: I also wouldn't bother with low-iron glass. I have one tank with some low iron glass - it was a lot of money for a small difference. The glass is really smooth though. :slfg:

I have a 406 running a 200L tank and a 405 running an 80L tank.

I have several of these, they are great and you won't have any trouble with the flow. You can adjust it to be lower flow if you need to.

It sounds like there is antibacterial resistance; not uncommon with OTC medications like Furan. I guess you won't know what to treat it with unless you do a culture and sensitivity, but it will likely be Aeromonas, Pseudomonas or Cytophga. At this stage, and without a C&S I would say Enrofloxacin is your best bet. The dose rate is: Bath: 10mg/L for 5 hours. Repeat every 24 hours for 5-7 days. If you want to try oral or parenteral dosing, there are dose rates for those routes as well. If you happen to go to the vet to get the Enrofloxacin, you can get some metacam as well and dose it at 1 small drop PO every 24 hours. Adding 3-5mg/L of salt to the water will help with osmoregulatory stress. You can also try some levamisole as an immune stimulant as well as topical antiseptics like povidine iodine for 30-60 seconds followed by topical antibiotic cream (such as Panalog) for 30-60 seconds. Sealing the wounds with dental gel is also really helpful if you have access to that.

Theoretically the Hikari should be fine but I have had loaches for about 20 years and I just think they do better with some proper algae wafers as well. Agreed about the Novo Pleco wafers, I also like the Omega One shrimp pellets. That with the Hikari you are feeding should be a good combination. Again though, there is no promise that will cure your guy, he may have a virus or something.

If you can pull the plant out (and the wood it is attached to) you can soak it in dilute bleach (1:20 for 15 minutes) and it will come up brad new. Bleach will kill off moss though, so take care. Just give it a good rinse after the soak and pop it back in the tank. You can dip it in a bucket with dechlorinator first if you are really worried. Btw, green spot algae is often caused by insufficient phosphate so you can try adding some plant fertiliser. It wont kill the existing bits, but it will prevent more from growing.

Try not to overworm if you can help it. As long as the worms aren't causing disease, they can be beneficial for immune stimulation. On the other hand, if a fish is already unwell, a worm burden can kill. Also, if there is a high worm burden, deworming can cause a big die-off and could also kill the fish... Also, you might think about offering your loaches some algae wafers (not just spirulina tabs). They have big guts designed for vegetation in their omnivorous diet. It might take weeks to see a difference since the beneficial bacteria in their gut will be adapting to the change, but it should help in the long run to keep them from wasting away. Hopefully not too late for the sick ones though.

Sorry Sam, I misspelled it. Should be Reed Tetras (Hyphessobrycon Elachys). Joe got some a few months back and when I picked them up to send them, they were spectacular in a big group. Much more impressive than their online photos. They are somewhat small and their white spots would show up beautifully against those green plants. I am not sure if they are on the list anymore. Try asking John at Organism, that's where Joe got his. Btw, I am so impressed with how good your tank looks, you have done a great job!