malevolentsparkle

if its 100% silicone it will be safe. but it doesn't always stick very well.

how big do they get?

not really fair, livingart posted a link to that factsheet. that outlines some very reasonable things to object to. you seem to know a lot about the issue and that is great. all we had was the original article.

how exactly do you hold fish in cages?.....

saw a nice discus at silverdale animates the other day no idea if it was a 'wild' type but it had nice clear stripes

that would make it hard for the overflow to work wouldn't it?

nice! that butterfly is incredible. nice photos too

at least she got some shots in good luck for next time

I would of said HWFF Mt Roskil up until my visit to HWFF Albany the other week. amazing store. excellent coldwater section (hardly a goldfish to be seen) including natives. amazing display tank right in the middle (good warning: this little fish will turn into that monster!). surprisingly different stock to mt roskil.

lol nice first tank! the oscar seems to obvious one to leave out, they do best more or less on there own. other than that it sounds ok. It's a lot of single fish though. i think less species, more fish would look better and probably be easier to maintain in the long run.

got a fluval in my tank, got it as a end of line before they bought out the mirrored ones. been really good so far, but all this talk of heaters sticking on has got me paranoid

never kept oscars but my trusty book says (paraphrasing): + grow to 38cm long + best kept singly or in pairs in a single species tank + absolute minimum tank size 100x40cm for a single fish, 120x40cm for a pair + Totally unsexable so a group of fry should be grown on to obtain a pair + Everything but the gravel rendered unmovable The ultimate aquarium, ©1995 Mary Bailey and Gina Standford, Pg 134 The book has never steered me wrong before, but given the eventual length of these fish a would say that the minimum tank size is very very conservative.

burnt wood won't ever sink, but I don't see any reason why it would be dangerous as long as it's not flaking off. so if you still want to use the wood trim off the burnt part, or weigh it down permanently.

that is bizarre! no idea either sorry.

true but only a good idea if the fish he plans on getting like a low pH.

more light and more plants is my recommendation. brown algae doesn't do the whole photosynthesis thing and so more light will help the plants out grow the algae. if you have a problem with fish eating the plants (which surprises me, my golden barbs don't touch the plants) then things like amazon swords and crypts are pretty resilient.

not really true, plants comsume oxygen and give out CO2 ALL the time, not just at night. at night they just stop turning CO2 back into oxygen, but they never use much oxygen, even at night.

the printscreen button on your keyboard will take a copy of your whole screen to the clipboard. just crl-p to paste into an imaging programme

the point is that the nitrogen cycle is continuous...

he seems to be saying that they will be ok with guppies...

I recon stick to one schooling fish, more effective that way esp. in a smaller tank. I know it's tempting to get a big 'centrepiece' fish but in a tank your size it will look better if you stick with smaller fish. small fish make a small tank look bigger thought about dwarf flags? they are good dwarf cichlids for a budget. apistos can get pretty pricey. If you feel the need for some surface dwellers hatchet fish are awesome but expensive ($30-40 each x 6+) and pencilfish are cool and cheap ($6-8 each x 6+) tank looks good. plants should cover the facilities pretty good soon

hmmm dosent sound likely. what you will end up with is a video of a slideshow. no discrete photos. the only thing i can think of is to 'print screen' each photo one at a time and paste into a image programme. but that coould take a long time and you may loose quality. have you asked the shop were you are getting it put on CD? they may have some ideas. good luck

the bigger the tank the less the tank seems to cycle (in my experience) I checked parameters in my tank every couple of days when I was setting it up and never got any ammonia/nitrate/nitrite spikes. I had loads of plants but it was a fishless cycle using the 'feed the tank' method. So here is my advice (somebody feel free to shoot me down!) get the tank set up and plant it out with lots of plants. don't matter if you don't want the plants in the long run, think of them as nitrogen sponges if you want. chuck a bit of fish food (get some cheep flake) every day. after a couple of weeks you should be sweet to add some fish (not too many of course) with no risk to the fish (then just feed the fish). enjoy!

saw a new one (to me anyway) the other day: black tailed whiptail. sandy brown body with dark tail. also I have seen lancalots, blacks, reds, the odd twig, and royals, but never a 'common whiptail'

the short answer is yes. the long answer is that they will eat whatever they like. some will eat only algae but some will mostly eat prepared foods and anything in between the two extremes. they are very cool fish though, I love watching mine. watch out for jumping.