Binkles

Is there really all that much point in using this in Christhurch? It's main use by the looks of it is to remove chlorine from the water - and Christchurch doesn't add chlorine? Any takers on this?

Now that is a cunning idea

paddy, I wouldn't say that either. We will probably go for the fish cycle, it looks rather silly a tank of water with nothing swimming around. I even considered buying a plastic fish to put in there until we get a real one Joys of being inpatient. Having said that, our 2 foot tank looks amazing since we put a spray bar on the Fluval filter. Now if only my fish didn't leave their trash laying around.....

Thanks Rob - you've given us some good insight there (as has everyone else). We were told that you would really want a minimum of 3 clowns - but in the shop they look like schooling so wouldn't mind getting 5~6. We'll do some looking at the other fish you've mentioned and see what we can come up with.

So if we get the guppies - they're pretty much going to be lunch once we get something like the knife. If the bichir grows to two feet we might give that one a miss. We saw them at Redwood, but unlike Animates they don't have information about the fish, and I hadn't looked them up, but I think Wifey did. As to the sucker, thanks for the info - and there are valid points about the amount of ground fish. If we do get guppies for example and later get the clowns - will the clowns likely be lunch to those others? As to the price - yeah, in a way that's good we don't have the money to stock them all at once

Wifey and I have picked up an Aqua One 4 foot tank and we're going to take it slower than we did the 2 foot (rest of the fish are ok - no more deaths in the family). So far in the tank we have the filter - lots of pretty stones, a few rocks, plants and a piece of wood with plenty of holes in it We have the heater - and a filter and 3 lights working as well. So as you can tell, not a lot there. We've been talking about what fish we want to put in it (not all at once) and these are what we would like - and because there are people who are smarter than us - we thought we would ask whether you think these would be ok. Pictus Catfish Red Tail Sharks Black Ghost Knifefish Clown Loach Oto (half the alphabet) catfish (suckers) Ornate Bichir Any idea whether these fellows would be ok together? We are thinking either the oto (half the alphabet) catfish or the clown loach (3) to start the tank cycling. Our biggest concern is whether the loachs would be ok in that unruly mob

Though I'm still worried about the power of the eheim. Is it possible to buy a too powerful one? I think we're about 100L and the eheim can do up to 200l - we're preparing for when we have a stand for our 3ft tank.

Yeah we had read that, that's why I tried to write as good a detail as we could. The Male one has just died as well, so we have removed him and we are back to our original 6 neons, glass and two cat fish.

We get our water checked once a week normally, though a couple of times twice a week. I don't have the exact readings for them - but as a guide. The amonia levels are light yellow, nitrate, and the other n one are pale purple. The water had been tested the morning of the last additions. The female siamese has just died. I'm pretty sure that we're going to lose the male as well. I'll try and post a pic of our tank later on today, as well as a little movie (if I find the camera and software) so you can see how swift the water is now moving. The plants are swaying quite rapidly, and I really think we shouldn't have bought the eheim now.

I'll start from the start - and then hopefully someone can help sort me out. My name is Laurence Merraine, my wife and I got a 60x30x30 tank just before Christmas, with two underwater filters, a crappy light, and stones and a heater. We set up the tank, brought two new lights (length of tank) and then set it up with a piece of wood, two rocks (all bought from Animates) and lots of plants - we subsequently removed the two red plants as the leaves kept dying. We filled her up with water - cycle and aqua plus as recommended by Animates, and left her to stew for a week. We then took a water sample in and it passed, so we bought 6 neon tetras and two catfish - albino (one male and one female). Things were humming along well, regular water changes of up to 1/3 and everything has been going well. Temperature is steady - around 26 most of the time - sometimes down to 25, and every now and again 27. We introduced 6 glass catfish and they swam around and all was merry in the tank, there were parties in the tank most nights, and huge hangovers in the morning. Monday we went out to Redwood Aquatics (having only dealt with Animates up to this point) and purchased 4 small neon tetras, and 2 siamese fighting fish - male and female. Next morning we found a dead neon - was one of the smaller ones. Yesterday 2 died, and today 1 - all from the 4 that we had bought. Yesterday, after being told that the siamese like calmer water we bought a eheim 2233 external filter, and that fired water around faster than the underwater one. We put in a spray bar this morning - but it still looks rather fast. We have now found that the male fighting fish has a couple of white spots, and we're worried that we're going to lose him. We're also worried that maybe we've made the wrong decision about the filter, or the choice of shop - as the dying fish have all come from there. Any hints, we realise there is so much to read, but sometimes there are so many different suggestions we nod our head and say "ummm what?" A good example is when to put in your first fish, we went to probably 6 different people and they all said different things Thanks