Brennos

Awesome thanks for the tips. I am going to try and score me a small (20l) tank to raise ramshorns, and I already have the blood worms, and will buy a few packs of the others you mentioned. I have been looking into breeding my own live food, but I think buying it frozen is just as convenient for me.

Breakaway also had 3 DP in his 380, I think it was 2 females, and 1 male. I haven't even got to the fish yet, ill start with 2 and go from there. Might look for a couple of otos as well if I can, to serve as cleaners. That's at least 2 weeks away. I have added Ramshorn snails today, and some Indian fern. Plants are Indian Fern, Hair grass, Twisted Val, and some other random grass Might actually be hair grass I'm not sure. I also picked up some blood worms and brine shrimp for my other tank, and will feed the puffers on blood worms as well.

interesting, one of the staff at hff has a 380 with 5 DP's and some guppies, and has no issues. I might start with 2 and see.

Currently I have some hair grass up the back of the tank, and some smaller grass up the front. and a Twisted val. I might pm you about some ambulia, if i don't see anything at HFF i like.

I'm a few weeks from actually getting puffers yet. I need to re-cycle the tank, and get the plants established. and I need to decide on caves etc. Does anyone know if I can cycle the tank with snails? I'd prefer not to buy some cycling fish, if I can just use snails to cycle, as the puffers will take care of the snails later on.

Hey guys, I thought I would share my ideas, and hopefully get some tips from those who have kept puffers before. I have a 38l tank that has had 3 Bristlenose babies in it for 6 months, and now they are big enough to put in my community tank. I was thinking of converting my 38l into a puffer tank. All I need to do is add some more gravel, and plant some new plants, and add some snails and ill be ready for some puffers. Today I'm off to Hollywood Fish Farm Mt Roskill, to get some more black gravel, and some nice plants for the puffers to play in, the next "decoration" will be some caves to serve as hidey holes for them, and then I can actually look at adding a couple of puffers. I was thinking 3 puffers might be enough, and hopefully wont be too much aggression in the tank. Currently in the tank, is some clumps of hair grass, some Java fern, and some sick looking twisted Val, which I might remove. Any recommendations for plants for puffers? I was thinking Ambulia, but It never grows nice for me, it always grows on angles, and just looks rough.

Apart from the Red Melon, I can't see how the Blue Rams, and Cardinals with the blue stripe and the blue discus don't go together. The Melon actually looks really good against the red of the ludwigia Repens, but yeah. This isn't a permanent tank for these guys.

Yeah he's pretty epic. I got him off a member of this forum. He dwarfs the adult female I have.

Just some pics for those of you who might be interested. So I ended up buying a couple of juvinile Discus, I intend on upgrading the tank in the next 6 months, so the size of my tank isn't an issue at this stage. I also added a large male Bristlenose. He is so ugly, but yeah he's also pretty cool. PIC DUMP:

I did what Jennifer said, and it has pretty much cleared up. I still had a bit between plants and the glass (no flow), so I removed some of the sag from the front of the tank, and left a 2cm buffer zone, so far so good.

I prefer root tabs, as the api balls are quite large, and don't really get down deep enough for my plants and substrate due to them being rather round as opposed to the flat disc like api root tabs. I've used both, and neither seem to be any better than each other in my tanks.

I use PMDD off trademe as well. So far so good. I'm still using Flourish Excell though for the co2.

I've been using PMDD from a guy in Howick off trade me. $26 for roughly 6 months supply. I switched from Flourish Comp, to the PMDD, and everything is doing just as well, and my Ludwigia Repens seems to be doing better now. It has grown about 3 cm since the weekend, and the tops of the plant are getting very red. The colours due to the light, but the growth has to be due in part to the ferts. A lot of people use PMDD, so there must be something good about it. EDIT: I also added 2 lots of API root tabs, so that might also be responsible for the growth. I don't know. I was getting a little annoyed with spending $20 on flourish every 2 months, when I can buy PMDD for $26 and have it last at least 6 months.

This is what I did, I still have my 380, I keep a male fighter and 3 bn baby's in it.

UPDATE: I got me some POWER-GLO Tubes as P44 recommended, and also got my hands on some PMDD, and some more root tabs for later. I'm going to add a second DIY CO2 setup this weekend, and also added the baby discus. Man Discus are one of the coolest looking fish (in my opinion). They are about 4-5 cm at present, so still a lot of growing, and colouring to do yet. My mission this weekend is to trim back some of the dying leaves from the sword, and clean up the sag, and as I mentioned add a second diy co2. we will see how it goes from there.

Yep some baby ones. Time to upgrade tank soon.

Yeah, I was testing incorrectly, my Nitrates are around 10-15ppm. I might invest in a power head or two, and see how that goes. I have been inspecting today, and there isn't much cyano now, a little between the sag, and the glass. I'll manually remove that tomorrow night when I do a water change in prep for my new discus..

Whys that?

Yeah I'm not sure either. Unless its completely charred, in which case it would make the water dirty if it dissolved??

Update: The Uraguaensis has sprouted some new leaves., 2 new lush green leaves out of the centre, I hope that's a sign of good things. The Sag is looking a little shabby, due to the cyano choking it i think. The Cyano is not nearly as bad as it has been, but not totally gone yet. I'm about ready to get some furan, and nuke it from orbit.

Could be the slime mentioned earlier, but its out of reach of the clean up crew, it could be accumulated in all the cracks and crevices of the wood.

Plecos, lots of plecos. And maybe some really epic discus. That's what I would do with a MASSIVE tank, Either that, or I would create a monster planted tank, and add tons of cardinals, (as said earlier)

I turfed the trickle ages ago, that's where the 2x 20w t8 tubes are. they are fairly new, so I don't want to replace them with powerglo just yet, but I can. I have considered replacing the stock 18w pl tubes with a t5 (like the one I posted above. But then I loose the lid and look of the ar620. I guess I could hack up the stock light hood and retrofit some tubes in there. but that seems like lots of effort.

Yeah. Maybe http://www.hollywoodfishfarm.co.nz/prod ... hp?id=1135

What sort of lighting would you recommend, wattage and tube style. Remembering my tank is 570mm deep.