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Fruju

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Posts posted by Fruju

  1. Hey everyone! Share your FTS (full tank shot), let's see what NZ'rs are keeping.

    I'll start.

    My tank is a 450L home to 3 species of polypterus, 1 convict cichlid, 1 red oscar, and 1 Cuban cichlid.

    Tank will eventually be a dedicated setup to a breeding pair of Cuban cichlids once I grow a suitable male to maturity.

    I recently re-scaped it by removing a large piece of wood, adding the twiggy bits and getting a greater size range of stones to make it more naturalistic.

    Keen to see other people's stuff!

    img_20170717_110532.jpg

    img_20170717_110456.jpg

    img_20170717_110552.jpg

  2. 3 hours ago, nays said:

    I started a 165l planted freshwater aquarium with a fish-in cycle in January.  I tested daily for ages for the dreaded ammonia spike - it never came.  To this day I've never seen ammonia or nitrite registering, and nitrate only shows up when I add it myself.  Gotta love those plants :-)

    To be honest you don't always have to expect to see an ammonia spike, especially in medium to large tanks or tanks with below average stocking earlier on. Using some established media in the filter is also a good way of avoiding ammonia spikes. Plants definitely have a good effect! Hard to quantify though.

  3. No worries, cycling fish tanks is the toughest part of fishkeeping, the rest is easy...everything is relatively straightforward.

    Critical things are ammonia and nitrite, that will end your fish quickly. Some signs of ammonia/nitrite poisoning is clamped fins, loss of slime coat and gasping at the surface (ammonia inhibits oxygen transport across the gills).

  4. Hi, welcome to the forum.

    I doubt you would have any nitrate readings after 7 weeks with that few fish in it, usually takes a bit longer for you to see any. More fish will of course increase the amount of nitrate that will be present in the system. Plants also extract nitrate, so you do have some removal there. You didn't mention water changes? Water changes are the best way to keep nitrates low and if you have been doing them since the tank has been set up then it's one more reason why you haven't seen nitrates.

    Nitrate isn't harmful in small amounts, I would consider anything over 20 ppm detrimental to fish health though. Nitrate can stunt growth and may lead to some health issues in fish, I think lateral line erosion (HLE) is caused by this.

    You should mainly be concerned with ammonia and nitrite, if those are zero then great. Nitrate is more of something to keep in check, but is unlikely to outright kill your fish swiftly. Your tank should be cycled in 7 weeks for sure, you can always use stresszyme and stability to supplement the bacteria. Having ceramic or other high surface area media is going to help bacteria establish.

    Keep doing water you're doing, keep checking the nitrogen levels, especially when adding new fish.

  5. 22 hours ago, Colour_genes said:

    Wow, that is a super cool looking fish! What size is he?

    The only thing I have that is even slightly rare is one little Hara jerdoni. It hangs out in my sub-tropical tank, very rarely seen hiding in the plants, would love to find a few more and might be tempted then to give them their own tank.

    Any pics of the catfish?

    I was thinking about getting a group of banjo catfish, each time I'm about to get them I think about how I will pretty much never see them haha

  6. In the future I'd like to keep carpets with some other native marines. What are some interesting husbandry tips you have picked up? What sex ratio do you have?

    What other species are in there? Is that a bluenose?

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