the-obstacle

oh really? which park?

Seeing Chris Cornell at the ASB Theatre tonight. Sweeeet!

Lynfield vets are awesome for oddball pets that most vets won't look after. I take my birds there and I know others that have taken turtles and beardies too.

Watched American History X, Seven Pounds and 25th Hour today. Sick days rule! :thup: Sucks to be sick though. :sick:

It'll change depending on the bore itself but generally it's ground water so should be harder than rain water.

I like it too but I would like a couple of little bits of green in there. I've got some micro sword and a couple of bigger swords that will fit the bill. The heckelii don't need plants, and in a real biotope apparently wouldn't have any, but the panda cory that are going with them need plants to spawn on and the L140s need wood to chomp on. I'm aiming for tasteful minimalism I'll only be using root balls too as the aqua mix was a pain in the old setup.

as above - unless the fish are dropping dead just keep up daily 10% or so water changes and it'll come right. Maybe a little bit of prime in the new water to help counter any harmful ammonia.

Yeah, sand collected from Muriwai beach. I have the same amount again sitting in buckets ready to be added if this turns out to be too thin. I've got it in all my tanks now. The iron content doesn't seem to do anything bad to the water and I've got a ton of plants growing in it really happily. It's super fine but really heavy so there's no risk of it getting into filters/pumps.

I wondered about that. Sort of like broken off bits of the big tower? I'm assuming you meant left not right I've got heaps of rock left so I'll see if I can break some up into some cool shapes.

Continuing from this thread I've rebuilt the tank with rocks and caves galore for the school of 8 A. Heckelii I now have. I'm going to add smaller river pebbles and a few scattered plants but for now I'm happy with the rocks. Not sure about the big one on the far left but it was either that or a big open space, which may be the way I go in the end. If anybody has any root like branches I'm looking to make it look like they're intertwined into the rocks. The thermometer and the heater will be moved to the sump once the tanks up to temperature. Any suggestions of things to change/add/think about?

The first one is only a cartridge filter, not an RO filter. The second one has the RO membrane and looks good. The filler tank means you can leave it constantly plumbed in and it will fill the tank (very slowly) when it needs it.

NLS 12mm water stable wafers, flake, 1mm sinking pellets, bloodworms and whatever else I come up with. They're never fussy.

I feed my black neons, cardinals and lemons on NLS flake. I don't need to crush it and they actually go for the bigger bits generally.

Went there today. One word: Awesome! The aviaries area amazing and the kea and weka and walking/hoping/flying right where you walk. I was really impressed with the native fish tanks. The eel enclosure is huge but I didn't see any. The kiwi seem to be liking their new home too. I highly recommend going.

I'd say 10000k MH bulbs minimum. I tried 6500K at first and found it to be too yellow. At the end of the day it doesn't matter for plants though.

stink. I lost my male and female in the end.

you mention using aqua mix without sealing it - don't do that! You will have constant cloudy water and algae for Africa. It doesn't replace any ferts you would add to the water but it does make it easier for root feeders to get their ferts. You don't have to run aqua mix of any sort to have a healthy growing tank. It just helps with some types of plants. It will not help moss/ferns as these generally don't rely on roots for feeding.

At the end of the day it's all a balancing act. If you have lots of light you need lots of ferts and lots of co2 for the plants to use the light and ferts to their highest potential. If you have low light levels you can use less ferts and less co2 because the plants won't be able to use them with the least amount of light. Choose your plants, then the lights and substrate they need. Ferts can then be used to maximise the output of the plants.

I wouldn't use top soil as it's not designed to be kept wet and who knows what's in it. The daltons aqua mix is a clay that is designed to be kept wet but will mix with your water column if you don't seal it with a layer of sand. You can get it at bunnings for about $15 a bag. I've used it in all my planted tanks and it's great but you have to make sure there is always sand covering it or you'll have algae problems. Shame you sold the halides actually as those would have been slight overkill but awesome for plants.

ahh yes, that explains it.

Isn't there an Animates in Botany that's been there for years?

The dragons blood is really really nice. Very cool.

I fear they'd become dinner for the heckelii. The pandas are only just big enough and they haven't been introduced to the new male which is huge! I'd like them for the lounge tank but can't afford them at the moment.

Black sand with a big pile of rocks at one end and then a fair bit of open water and a couple of swords in the rocks. I've now got 8 heckelii so hopefully I get a pair or 2 breeding. I'll be incorporating some big caves in the rock pile to try to promote it.

kerosene and a lighter?