SamH

I'd do a write up but it's 1:30am :yaw1: This is a decent post from TPT http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showp ... stcount=11

May I suggest reading a guide on aquascaping before starting your aquarium layout? Posting photos of the tank 'dry' with rocks in place in this thread will get you some helpful feedback. Hardscape is, after all, the most important decision you'll make when starting a planted tank.

Angels are at 2 weeks of age now and more than ready to move out of their nursery tank, looking for a decent sized tank if anyone in Auckland has one for sale!

Lower light = slower more compact growth Higher light = fast reaching growth You need to have the right balance of CO2 and light to get it to grow healthily, trimming it helps a lot too.

I recommend xmas moss.

Most browsers enable you to disable cookies, just enjoy less relevant information. I find it useful myself, not too paranoid that they follow my browsing habits.

Now based on the 37.5 cm of fish I can fit on my tank (I think I can have that much) I have 13.5 cm of fish left I can fit in. Is this true? I'm assuming you're using a stocking calculator to come up with those figures, making that plan highly inaccurate. There's no rule of thumb when it comes to stocking fish in an aquarium. If so can someone please recommend some fish to fill that space? I believe that your aquarium would be well suited to 15-20 small fish (tetras and rasboras) and a single gourami. A single bristlenose catfish (not a pleco) would be fine in your aquarium but half a dozen otto catfish or small corydoras would be much better suited. Also I think that the Gourami and Tetras prefer a well planted tank, do these have to be live plants? Because its my first tank I would prefer to go with plastic plants, but I am willing to give this a shot if I have too. Live plants aren't as hard to grow as they seem, you just need to ensure you have the correct plants for the job. Often plants sold in pet stores aren't true aquatics and will die within a week or two. Look on here or TradeMe for plants such as Java fern, Java moss, Xmas moss, hygrophila polysperma, crypts and indian fern. These plants are all really easy to care for. I think I need to keep the tank at 25 degrees celsius? Is that correct? The fish you've mentioned have a temperature range of 23-27 degrees. Also is the hardness / softness of water in Nelson suitable? What is the hardness of Nelson water? And finally are those fish compatible? The fish mentioned are compatible, unfortunately we do not have cherry shrimp available in NZ and our native equivalent is not suited to tropical aquariums.

Get a drop checker, they're cheap and far easier to use. Assuming your aquarium measures 600x300x300mm and you're not using pressurised CO2, yes 2x T5HO will be overkill.

Agreed, tank depth is far more important than the total volume. What is the CO2 saturation of your aquarium at the moment? I've used Power Glo and Aqua Glo with great success, will definitely be buying them in the future despite the high price.

How old is the bulb? I'm running a single 18w T8 on my 75x35x38 tank and everything is growing well, no CO2 or ferts added.

It's been almost two weeks since the eggs were laid, only lost about half a dozen fry so far, the rest are about the size of 3 day old guppy fry (5mm). Been feeding BBS 4 times a day and keeping up the 80% water changes, the question is where to from here? What are some other good foods I should introduce to them? I'm clearly going to need a bigger tank, what would be the ideal size tank to raise them from this size until they're ready for sale? Cheers guys 8)

Do you REALLY need 8 cylinders? There's far more attractive beamers, get an E46 M3 8)

I don't suppose that comes with complimentary insurance? Under 20 male license for less than 5 years turbo YEAH RIGHT :rolfl:

The boot isn't too small actually, if I put my sub behind the seats I could probably fit a 90x30x30 in the boot :thup: It's been repainted in NZ post red :lol:

I have an airline rig and an 8L water change takes around 20 minutes, I just pour it in more slowly now. Fry are doing very well, having 4-5 feeds of BBS per day they always have orange bellies full of food

The only thing I plan on doing to it is driving it! It's in very good, original condition. I was eying up the turbo MR2 but decided that a stock, non-turb would be far cheaper and more sensible.

Just bought a new car, picture very related:

"damp (dămp) adj. damp·er, damp·est 1. Slightly wet."

Agreed. Just stick with a 3-5cm layer of the aquatic mix capped with 3-5cm of sand.

They're back to normal this morning so I tried feeding them again, this time they were observed actively chasing and eating brine shrimp. Planning on feeding them 4 times a day for the first month or so. Does anyone have any tips on how to do a slower, more gentle water change to avoid scaring the fry?

Looks damp bro, I should drop by with some cuttings on Friday so you can try a bunch of stuff like this :thup:

Yeah I picked up on that, siphoned out all the brine shrimp and froze heaps from the early hatches. Keeping up the 80% daily water changes to maintain a high water quality. Came home from work around 5pm today and they were all free swimming in a group, now a few have "clumped" together in groups of 8-16, is this a defence mechanism?

No need for backups, shrimp hatching is easy! Might need to order more eggs but I'm freezing the excess. Definitely the cutest baby fish.

I'm up to my fourth brine shrimp hatch and the fry still aren't ready to eat yet. I'll feed them tonight or tomorrow depending on how much of their yolk sac they have left. Here's a still from a macro video I took:

Use the size of mouth rule here, if the larger fish can fit the smaller fish in it's mouth, then it will eat it.