the-obstacle

They don't look fertilised to me. My cory eggs are always brown. Could be wrong though.

Maybe If it's always been like that I wouldn't worry, if it's recently developed it you might get a leak soon. Just keen an eye on it. It looks to me like it got air in it when it was put together which happens really easily.

Can't remember but I can't seem to stay away...

water changes and/or uv will do the trick. Will just be a short lived outbreak.

Best move I ever made. I highly recommend it.

My nano has been neglected for a very long time. Hasn't had a water change or been topped up for about 2 months. I've killed an awesome coral that nymox sent me :facepalm: :tears:. I've just upgraded the standard 20W power compact light that comes with the blue planet classic to a nano LED unit. The photos show the algae outbreak I've currently got. I can't tell if the bubble things are corals or bubble algae as they're not green and they have a line down the middle of them. There's also a big black snail thing which must have tagged along with the live rock I got from nymox too. I'm off to collect some NSW this afternoon and will do daily 10% water changes for the rest of the week. What else should I do to clean up / control the green algae? I'm hoping the bubbles aren't algae but if they are please let me know.

Yes, paint the background black. Looks good so far

OK, I think we've found a major part of the issue. Stop cleaning the filters! They should only ever be cleaned in tank water and never tap water as, as others have pointed out, this will kill the good bacteria you're trying to cultivate. Give it a few weeks without touching the filters and see what happens. I suspect you'll find this is a case of over cleaning having the opposite effect to what you expected. In a planted tank you shouldn't have to clean the gravel as the fish waste will become a mulm which will in turn be good for the plants. Stop cleaning but keep up the 20% water change twice a week and see how it goes. I suspect you'll find the tank settles down after that.

Trademe and kiwibiker.co.nz are the 2 best places to sell a motorbike in NZ. I'd put it on Trademe first then promote the add on Kiwibiker.

Yeah, Flourish Excel is what I meant. Looks like you've got it under control though. If you're doing 2 water changes a week and you've still got 40ppm Nitrates you've got a much bigger problem than expected. How much water are you changing? Can you test your tap water for ammonia, nitrite and nitrates?

Dinner at Vivace with friends from the UK. Awesome.

Yeah, there's already a bit of that going on. Every rock in the pile on the right has enough room for them to swim under/behind it so there's a ton of caves in there. Otherwise they can hide behind the big rock at the other end and not be seen. I'll keep an eye on them though and can always pull them out if they start taking beatings. My garden There's been a pile of them on the side of hte lawn for about 8 years and nobody knows why they're there so I started using them.

If it's a fully planted tank with 40ppm nitrates you need to add co2 and light and let the plants use the nitrates as fertiliser. You can add Excel instead of co2 but basically you've got fertiliser (one part anyway) and need co2 and light to use it.

Interestingly it has slowly but surely killed all my twisted val too...

Nice size! I'm fighting off the urge to get him to make me an unbraced cube for a nano marine setup.

Have you got those nitrate levels in your planted tank or another one?

Yeah, ferts and co2 will save those. They're not dead, just unhealthy. It'll take about 3 weeks of ferts and co2 before they look like they're coming around again and in a month or so they'll be sweet.

Water changes should bring that level down but it's not going to kill your fish. If water changes aren't bringing it down you've probably got something rotting in the system and need to give everything a really good clean. Just keep an eye on it. From what I've experienced neons are extremely temperamental anyway. The nitrates probably aren't helping though.

If I get them to spawn or I just give up I'll give you first dibs

8 all up. Very happy to be able to get such a big group. Thanks! That's definitely what I was aiming for. They're loving the caves all through the rock work. Yeah, the bigger ones are 10cm+ at the moment and they've lost their juvenile markings completely so not sure how much bigger they'll get. The smallest is about 6cm so a little way to go to catch up. I made this one especially I'm actually really happy with how the DIY spraybar is working. There aren't any dead spots that I've found in the tank so far. I was happier when I only had the 2 overflow towers and the spraybar but I need to run one of the CF1200s for the UV so that's what the extra piping is. I might spray paint them black so they're less obvious. They really are. I took these photos just after the lights came on and about an hour later the 2 biggest males were squaring off against each other - they look amazing when they flare. I'll try to get a photo of them later this evening if they're still going.

now mit heckelii!

My one surviving shrimp seems happy enough after the 2 big water changes and a bag of carbon in the tank. I'd give it a week or so with a big water change or 2 and some carbon to be sure. I'm about to go and syphon all the shells off the substrate now. If anybody in Auckland wants some of this magic juice let me know

Most definitely.

The trumpet snails I previously said weren't out of control. It seems I tempted fate and they went mental straight after I made the claim. Found out how to kill them though :facepalm:

Sorry, I'm out too. One day I'll make it...