Ice222

I agree. I loved feeding them when I had them and they were plenty fun to watch since they actually seem curious about you, but man are they mean fish. They'll attack other fish the first chance they'd get, or at least the 2 I had would, I even had to separate mine since one was being picked on heaps.

I have 6 pygmy cories, 5 CPDs, 3 otos, and one small Pearl Gourami in my 30L tank running on sponge filters only and I've had no problems.

Such haters . I actually like them. I reckon they're kinda cute. I have Ramshorns and MTS in my tanks, they don't bother my plants at all. Only time when they did nibble my plants was when they were dying leaves anyway. Just don't let them overload your tank (I suck up most of the ones you can see during a WCs to keep them in check), otherwise the only other annoyance I can think of is, if they die, they leave their shells in the gravel.

I have 2 tanks I mainly tend to at the moment. They're low tech, and there hasn't been much growth in the last 8 months since I started the tank, but I'm not really expecting much. I normally do a 50% WC every 2 weeks and 2 weeks ago after I added a few new plants, I noticed some older leaves turning yellow and getting holes. From what I could find, I think it sounds like nitrogen and/or phosphate deficiency. I don't have a phosphate test kit, so I tested the Nitrate (after no WC for 2 weeks) and it was at less than 5ppm. (Also tested Ammonia and Nitrite just to check that my cycle hadn't crashed) I upped the number of feedings for the last 2 weeks, and plant health and growth does seem to have improved a little (the fish are looking plumper too, not that they were skinny). I then tested ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, PH, GH and KH today. Readings are 0, 0, Nitrate 7ppm, PH 7.4, GH 60ppm, KH 30ppm for both tanks. I even tested the nitrate twice, and shook the 2nd bottle of the test for about 8mins beforehand to make sure it'd be correct. I'm a little confused, as both my tanks should be considered pretty overstocked: and the other has 18x 15mm young CPDs in there. I just want to know, are the plants actually absorbing all that nitrate?!? I would have expected a much higher reading in a tank like mine? I'll attach a pic with the 2 tanks so you can see the number of plants I have, and judge whether they are really making that big of a difference to the nitrate levels. Also, is it actually safe to 'over feed' the fish as long as ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels are fine and the filter is handling it? Plants in Left, Bare-bottom tank should be: - Christmas Moss - African Congo Fern - Anubias Nana Plants in the right tank should be: - Hairgrass - Twisted Val - Ambulia, - Rotala Rotundifolia? (it had pink leaves near the top when I bought it) Both tanks run on sponge filters only (as you can probably tell from the pic), and lighting is a "PL tube 2 X 24W for 3ft tanks" shared over the 2 tanks. I don't really do ferts except that the one on the right has a tiny layer of flourite black sand and I add about 1ml of flourish comprehensive during my fortnightly water changes, which probably does nothing much.

I'm not sure either, but I'd guess a landscaping company might have something similar?

Really well done! Looks amazing .

I love twisted val, I think it's awesome !

Sadly I won't be able to make it. It's my partner's mother's birthday so I have dinner arrangements with them. *fingers crossed* nothing comes up next month. Haven't done anything fishy related for awhile.

The wood you have is stunning! From the photos, it looks to be pretty center in the tank though, I think it would look a nicer if it's lightly more to one side.

On the bottle, stresscoat says it dechorinates water and helps fish build slime coating, I think the suggestion of stresscoat was meant for dechlorinating water? As water from the tap is usually chlorinated so I'd guess that some sort of dechlorinator is important, but I reckon Prime would probably be better. If you're not using water from the tap, then you shouldn't need stresscoat or prime. +1 for the mention of carbon though, I've always heard that carbon is good for removing chems and pollutants in the water. Maybe not all, but definitely should help. If you're worried about the filters not being able to handle the increased fishload, then stability or startsmart could be an option. Just be aware that a lot of cycling chems are a temporary fix, you either have to keep using them, or go through a cycle again when you stop using them.

What kind of puffer is the one pictured? Those teeth look like they'd chomp through things like a guillotine.

Oh Well, I've had no luck finding the master socket. So I suppose I'll just have to wait a week till my dad's back and check if he knows. Thanks anyway.

I'm around 300m from the local cabinet/exchange, would have though the connection would be better? It is now off peak time and this is the only computer running and the speed is still the same, I'm not downloading anything either. Any idea what I can do to find out where the problem is? Here is my Line Stats: I really don't know how to look at these numbers, so if anyone can give me a clue of what I can do I would really appreciate it. I am trying to avoid calling telecom, as every time I have called, it has taken me 1.5hours of repeating the same tests with a clueless support staff member, then waiting a day for a 'level 2' to call back and tell me what the problem 'might' be.

Central Auckland, and look at the dismal speeds =/. Did the test a few time and the Max I got was around 3Mb/s. Main reason why I can't play online games any more I reckon . I hope ADSL2+ will actually improve this, ETA June apparently. Don't think it should be any problems on my end since I used to get better speeds before they stopped the go large plan a few years back and I was basically forced to switch.

I'f you're talking about what I said, I wasn't talking about glofish. Just following up on what Adrienne was saying - suggesting other bright and colourful fishes that are legal.

Some rasboras are also quite colourful. I find mosquito rasboras more vibrant than ember tetras for example.

Was going to go, but after my trip to hamilton, I only have half a tank of petrol left to last me through until uni starts in 3 weeks. Think I'll save the trip this month but will hopefully be there for the next one.

Well from what I read, it is nicer for the fish to not go through the cycling process, especially in a small tank where water parameters can shift easily. I didn't want to buy hardy 'cycling fish' just to cycle the tank, when I have no intention of keeping them later, and all the fish I was going to stock are too delicate or pricey for the task. So I looked into alternate options. Using just fish food works, but I do think leaving uneaten food around is not that great of an idea, you get planaria which isn't a good look, and I hear that it's likely you'd get some algae problems? So if I can get ammonia nitrate for the job, why not? Also, ammonia nitrate is pretty much is 1 ammonia ion per 1 nitrate ion bonded together. Even if you add to 4ppm of ammonia, it makes sense that you'd only be getting an extra 4ppm of nitrate, which isn't all that much. Even if you are worried about the nitrate, it's nothing a decent w/c won't fix. I mean, nitrate is one of the main reasons we keep doing w/cs after cycling in the first place? Another reason I was quite happy with this method is that I could have made a very bad mistake if I had cycled with fish. I have 2 identical 30L tanks running with sponge filters, one had substrate, the other was bare-bottomed as I intend it to be a breeding tank. The first tank cycled quickly, in 4 days I was able to put fish in, but the other tank did not cycle for 2 weeks, at which point I went to the LFS where I was told that I had no media for the nitrifying bacteria to go in, I ended up putting some media in a pouch right next to the sponge filter and it cycled in 4 days. If I had just gone ahead and added fish slowly, it would have taken a lot longer to figure out why the tank wasn't cycling and could have killed the fish.

I'm not sure how good the stuff on trademe is, but considering that my friend got it from a chem lab I think it would be pretty pure (don't worry he checked that he was allowed since I only needed such a small amount). Still tested the water and did quite a large w/c before adding fish though. I'm also surprised at what they can sell on trademe. I've also looked up potassium permanganate on there and found it for sale. I looked it up because I read that it's good alternative to bleach for a plant dip, but apparently someone told me it could also be an ingredient for bombs .

Man I wish I had a cool school trips/experiments. All I got to do was dissect a cow's eyeball in 5th form and in 6th form, most of the other classes got to dissect rats except my class >. As for trips, I still remember a trip to a little creek near Auckland. We were supposed to catch water critters with nets and count how many of each time we can get, but the creek was so empty all my group got was one water boatman and a tiny shrimp like thing, I was so disappointed :'(.

I always read that cloudy ammonia is no good as it isn't pure. Contains some kind of soap or detergent I think, which would be pretty toxic to fish. I got some, but it wasn't that easy, I tried hammer hardware, bunnings, pak'n save, foodtown as well as life pharmacy and unichem in New Market with no luck, only cloudy ammonia. I only tired one branch of each store tho. Ended up getting mine from a friend who did chemistry. He was able to get me some ammonium nitrate (ammonia in salt form, which I'd assume form the name is ammonia bonded with nitrate ions). A bit of a odd way of getting it, but I find it handy, less messy than liquids and you can find it on trademe too.

I purchased 5, around 2 months ago still have 5. Maybe it's because they are in a small tank (30L) without too much cover, I get a good view of them and make sure they eat. They are quite slow eaters and constantly graze, somewhat similar otocats. I have designated food areas in my tank where I always drop the food. Some on each side of the tank, at set spots, and all my fish except the latest addition seems to understand where to find the food. if the CPDs are hogging one spot, the cories go to the other. I think it helps that none of the fish I eat are aggressive eaters though.

I haven't made any tanks myself, got one made by greg but I will most likely source my own glass through my old workplace if I need it again. The benefit of ordering the glass pieces separately is that they can machine polish the edges which look very very nice, I think any place that uses a local glass supplier such as balustrade or shower places if you are willing to do the drawings for the glass panels and let them have some margin. If you're not making the tank yourself though, I would say you should check with your tank maker first and see if they are willing to use your glass.

I have done the clove oil and vodka method and it sits quite well with me. I netted my fish and sat it in a small glass of tank water, add the clove oil as per the method I found online, and later added the vodka. I found that the fish seemed, from what I would see externally, to be suffering no pain. In fact it went pale from the stress of being netted, to it's usually vibrant colours as it fell into the clove oil induced sleep, and did not lose it's colour when the vodka was added. Maybe not a perfect gauge, but I still think it's one of the better methods.

Hmm surprisingly, mine wasn't shy at all! I only took about an hour to settle in. Now sparkling gouramis, those are shy. I never see them except at feeding time and they've been her for months.