Sunbird73

*sigh* good in theory... they are not so good at being my slaves tho (tho I work away at this goal ). Too busy looking at fish themselves (or in the case of my 3yo) singing Mamma mia to the shop assistants!! So much quieter browsing at home!

Awesome news, even tho I live close to a HFF , I have 3 kids so sometimes it is just easier to order stuff online, or at the very least browse prices & compare products first and plan what I am getting so I can be in and out in 5min

LOL I need some clown loaches then, shame the kids love those blardy snails so much! They keep laying eggs but pretty sure they are infertile anyway (eggs still pink after 3 wks). Plastic plants it is then *sigh* .... messy plant eating snails grumble grumble

Weird - me too! I just changed all fb settings yesterday and disabled the "share with other websites feature".... Grrr facebook privacy....

A little off topic - but phoenix44 - are those golden apple snails in the top pic? If so, do they leave those plants alone? I have a (constantly mating :roll: ) pair, and would love a plant that they leave alone (if there are any!).

I am not a seasoned expert like some here but in my limited experience the thermostat on heaters is not exactly accurate ( I am guessing this may be different for different brands) and you need to adjust it to get it maintaining the right temperature for your tank. For example, in my little (22L) tank, if I set the heater to 20 degrees it maintains the tank at 24 degrees. If I set it to 22 degrees it maintains it at 28 degrees. I think this is because the light on the tank contributes to the temperature of the water as well as the heater. Similarly the other heaters in the bigger tanks settings are slightly different to the *actual* temperatures of the tank. I have also discovered that the type of thermometer you use can alter things too - I have two cheap mercury-type ones that read 2 whole degrees different to each other for the same position in the tank (I checked them side by side). Because of this I switched to a digital one, which seems more accurate. So it may just be you need to adjust your heater down a little to get the temp you want. (obviously an ideal situation would have been to check the working of the heater without fish in the tank).

I am just a newbie too, but I used some Seachem Clarity with mine, and it worked fabulously. Turned the water tea coloured for about 12 hrs then crystal clear.

:lol: Reminds me - my mother went into her LFS last week and was checking out their blood parrot fish tank, that were labelled as $15 each. She asked about them and saleperson said "what parrot fish?" 3 salespeople later (none who knew what a parrotfish was) and then the manager came out... who agreed that yes they were parrotfish and raised the price to $75 :roll: I used to work with animals in australia, and constantly saw foreign students living in one bedroom apartments buying large breed puppies with no idea how to care for them or train them, and then left them behind when they went home So I think its great that pet shops in NZ are a bit more responsible. It isn't hard for a well informed kid to show up with a parent, tho I agree that 16yrs would be more reasonable.

Electrical knowledge fairly nil, tho the husband has reasonable knowledge I am not sure I am comfortable with him home wiring around water. (he has made his own printed circuit boards for wiring his 1980's spacies machine in the garage, so I am sure he is capable - I am just not comfortable IYKWIM) Was hoping there was a simple solution (ie. just buy some new tubes higher wattage)

SamH, yours looks like a sheetweb. Kind of reddish brown with huge fangs? We got a few at our house. Husband found a big one as big as my palm *next to our bed* (must have come in the window over where I sleep - hopefully not via my pillow!).... anyway released it at the top of our long driveway. They are nocturnal - I found him very slowly plodding his way down to our garage a few hours later :lol: So we had to rehome 20min walk into bush after that!! They are very cool spiders, quite gentle despite 4mm fangs! We found a dead one, pinned out its legs and my son took him to school - kids loved it. (well, one parent didn't. Little bit of a freak out happened LOL). Tho I would rather they didn't come in my bedroom window at night!

Have just acquired a secondhand AR510 :bounce: Have been thinking about my plans for this tank and I would quite like to have a well planted tank. Is the AR510 lighting good enough for this as I checked out the lights and they are the same as the AR126 (22L) but two of them, so double the lights for about 3.5 times the litres So 22 Watts of light for a 75L Tank? That is roughly 50cm deep? Just wondering if the lights for the AR620 might be better and fit the same fittings as the 510? ie. put in 2 of the 18W tubes for the AR620 - or are there better options to pimp the lighting on this tank without spending a huge amount of dolleros? (we are single income family!) The guy that sold it says the tank was 2-3yrs old but it is possible it is older than that so may need new tubes soon anyhow? He gave me an extra starter, so am assuming one of the starters has been replaced already (bought as a two pack).

Cool spider - is it a nurseryweb spider? If I was a frog I would stay well away

Yes, well I was vy surprised to say the least! He is more of an enabler of my MTS than at risk of contracting for himself - but he only has himself to blame now, he can't harrass me! I think his crafty brain has worked out if he keeps me occupied with fish things he can buy all the computer gear he wants Smart man! We have gone from one tank to three in the space of three weeks :oops: I blame the guppies.... Now I get to plan the new tank.... been looking at the aquascaping website - very inspiring!

LOL - it seems the husband who only last week told me that getting a bigger tank was a ridiculous idea ... just bid on an AR510 on TM and won it for me So looks like an all-in-one it is for me yay!

:lol: I have some for sale, called a 10yr old boy.

pH 7.2 - not alkaline enough??

Nope, it wasn't a hole in the shell, more like a dent in his tissue going in and under the shell KWIM? It was in the same place where the fleshy tubular bit from the other snail had gone in. I dunno tho, honestly never had a chance to look at him before that in that area as he closed up when picked up, maybe that dent is normal ?

Well poor old Gum-Gum (named by a 3yo) looks dead, no signs of life for the last 24hrs and no signs of life when I took him out of the water and touched him, his little shell door was not closed He was (I believe) a blue mystery snail. A few days ago we put a golden apple snail in the tank, and within minutes it had attached itself to Gum-Gum's shell and appeared to be trying to mate... stayed like this for 2 days -would this have killed him? There was definitely a dent/hole left behind where the Apple Snails reproductive bits were poking into him. Now I have to go out and get a "new" Gum-Gum but don't want to put one back in with the other snail if it is a murdering sexual deviant. Tho I am pretty sure I saw both these types in the same tank at the LFS?? Water showed no signs of ammonia when I tested yesterday evening (ie. at first signs of him not looking well). I did do a fairly decent water change yesterday morning (40%) - he was moving about then and tried to go for a ride on the gravel vaccuum thing and I put him on top of our coconut cave (maybe it was the coconut??) We are sad

I agree, she is making the baby "feed me" sound - she is still young. VERY pretty bird

Sorry to hear about your cat, its hard to say goodbye to an old friend. *hugs* You could have easily spent hundreds of dollars and arrived at the same conclusion, I think I would have done the same thing. Agree with the above - it is possible for a lucky cat with no disease issues to live to 20+ years. The oldest cat I ever saw was 23yrs old! She was pretty ancient looking tho.

Thanks, never thought about getting a tank made at a glazier. Will keep my eye out over the next few months for a good filter (eheim & fluval are ok??). Perhaps I can DIY myself a lid/hood from ply and paint it. My husband made the last tank stand but it is now a tv stand (tho he wants to upgrade to LCD ... maybe I can do some bargaining ) If I collect things quietly on TM etc over the next couple months before I get the actual tank part then maybe the husband won't notice the cost so much :lol: That 620 thread really gave me the willies :-?

Just been doing some reading, thinking and daydreaming about a larger tank in the future than DD's AR380 There seems to be opinions that the all-in-ones (aquaone etc - I read the thread on 620T's cracking ) are not the greatest quality. The attraction of these types for me is that they come with a hood, and look great. I have a fluoro light already from when we had a tank years ago, so don't need to buy that.... What is the best option - all in ones or buying separately? What is the best quality tank to get ideally (looking at a 70L-90L maybe). If you experienced peoples were going to set up a new tank of this size, what would you go for (incl filter type) Thanks!

Firstly I googled - DIY brine shrimp hatchery and watched it on you tube... I used a 750ml h2go bottle with the bottom cut off cos I got a sachet of brine shrimp eggs that needed 500ml of water. Cut the bottom off, get some tubing (I couldn't fine hard tubing, so cut a 5 cm section from my gravel vaccuum tubing and put my softer tubing through that, gets it to the bottom easier without curling up). ONce you put your salt/bicarb/water/brine shrimp mix in, just attach the tubing to the air pump and set it going. Leave it under light for 24hrs and wait I attached some tubing to a 5ml syringe to suck out the brine shrimp the next day from the bottom. I needed to float mine inside the tank to maintain the temperature. I got some polystyrene (from behind harvey normans on link drive, they have a rubbish bin out the back for their cardboard and stuff from tvs) and cut a circle out just big enough to fit my water bottle through, and floated that inside the tank. I had to push the tubing through one corner to anchor it or it kept floating away and threatening to tip. I think tho, next time I might get some wire and jack up some way to hook the bottle over the lip of the tank instead of the polystyrene float. I found that my brine shrimp all died after 12-24hrs after hatching so don't think I need to hatch bigger batches until I figure how to keep them alive for longer! Just received 30g BS eggs from a guy from TM, will see how they go (cheaper than the sachets, just have to mix the salt & bicarb into the water) If you want a quarter tspn BS eggs to have a play I can give you some, pm me and will give you my addy Adodge - all my other fish seem very robust ATM!! Ammonia still zero cross fingers. Now I have to set up the little AR126 I bought off TM today for the guppy fry so DH doesn't get all snippy about heating 75L for 15 fry in our cold garage :roll: What he doesn't know is I have seeds of an idea growing of upgrading to a 90L tank later this year haha - will have to work on that for a few months!!!

This thread is a couple months old - but just wanted to say hi, am newbie from sunnynook/totaravale too Have a aquaone 380, posted on the beginners thread (prior to introing myself :oops: ) with a similar story to yours. Am hoping the crisis time is over now.... Have 3 kids, technically the fish and tank are my 7 yo daughters but I seem to have developed an obsession over the last 2wks!!

Glowlight was dead this morning I have microworms on porridge. They are quite revolting - they are all over the surface but none up the sides yet. The brine shrimp hatched well, fish loved them