alexyay

It's overstocked but two more otos shouldn't add much more bioload just keep it clean and you should be all good - better to do an extra water change than to have a sad lone oto!

I've been told rosetails often end up with fins that are too heavy and therefore the rays can break (although one of the rays have broken on my HM too, I still want to breed him but I'll have to find myself a HMPK female as I was never really a longfin fan anyway). :nilly: it's impossible at times to find the fighters you want. Donm had some nice colours but not many seemed to actually be HMs - seems like sometimes you have the option of nice fins or nice colours! Over the next few months I'll be in the process of looking for a nice female (preferably yellow for now) to breed to my HM mustard gas dragon boy, but I have no doubt it'll be painful to find one lol. But yeah, try Pupuke Aquarium (discus guru on here I think?) - it's where I got my HM boy from, they've got some gorgeous fighters (I wish I had bought the gorgeous blue female import they had in there when I bought my boy )

I reckon you could sell the clump on the left for $45-$55, so half the right side and sell three clumps for about $50 each maybe? Idk, but it's worth a LOT!

Maybe if you lowered the temp you could house some native shrimp? It's just 6L isn't much space for a fighter D: Most sites consider 5 gallons the minimum, but I'd say 2.5gal is stretching it - yours is 1.5gallon which is even smaller. Tank is looking really nice though! I really like the driftwood placement. The Leo lights illuminate the tank quite nicely too! Were the crypts not liking the light because there was too much or because you changed it? Mine get grumpy when I change the light but I have some growing under 2x 39W T5HOs without any issues.

Okay so after a few weeks using the beamswork LEDs, my crypts are growing, the h polysperma is going crazy (as it does under any light), riccia moss is growing okay, but dwarf hairgrass is looking brown and sad. However I wasn't very happy with the light output (wouldn't penetrate well through the riccia moss and it wasn't very bright inside for viewing) and wanted something a bit stronger, so I bought Morc's green element and am way happier with the output on that (the colour is less horribly blue too). All in all, it's an okay unit for low light plants but I wasn't very impressed for viewing fish and didn't like the blue LEDs in it either (also if you have duckweed or moss covering the top you won't get much light through the plants). I now have it on top of my 21L killie tank which just had an LED down light-thing on it which was growing ambulia and crypts nicely but the rotala rotundifolia was looking really really sad. SO I have it as a top-up to add more light. Quick question - my crypts are constantly sending off new shoots giving me more and more crypts, but aren't really growing the old ones. They just keep on replicating lol - I was hoping for them to grow out & up before giving me new crypts. Any ideas as to why that is?

:nilly: I'm trying to convince Dad that they will work well but he doesn't really want to deal with the DIY of the ballast system/reflectors/adding feet and would prefer something that looks good and ready-made. Any suggestions?

So despite it not being long enough it should have enough output? We did look at them - I've just never seen them in person so figured I'd get some opinions first. Definitely an option!

The tank is about 26" deep, and will contain swords (E bathii, E horemanii, amazon sword, E uruguayensis), java fern, and probably a cover plant such as dwarf sag. We're looking at T5 units but can't find one long enough, will 2 smaller ones have strong enough light to penetrate to the bottom of the tank? I've been recommended LEDs but we're looking for a convenient purchase - No DIY (don't want to invest too much in something that may not be the best at the moment, so are looking for a premade well recommended unit). However if anyone knows of any LEDs strong enough we may consider them. Our budget is around $250-$300, but we *can* extend that to $500 (some links to see would be nice) but only if quality can be assured D: (big investment!) Thanks

I think you're spot on in your plans - double dose maybe for a few days, otherwise syringe any future Excel straight into the plants/wall/etc. It's easily scraped off with a razor (or even fingernails if you can be bothered enough). Our SAEs did a really good job eating BBA (only new tufts and they'd also eat any tufts we broke off - they had a feast when it was all cleaned off for them! It prevents any landing on other objects and just growing there instead), and they're probably one of my favourite additions to the tank.

So it doesn't go mushy when boiled and then frozen? Mine would go mushy when frozen but I haven't tried boiling it yet. :slfg: I just noticed the "SOON" dog in the background - what a cutie!

If the fish eat it, I won't eat it :sick: How do you stop it from going icky? A whole small courgette lasts me like 2-3 weeks but the courgette only lasts half a week before going mushy and gross D:

Ah yeah, I figured they wouldn't survive the winter temps I'm in Auckland but slightly rural. Considering breeding my American Flagfish outdoors but not sure how easy it is to find new lines to introduce.

Say, for example, you have a pond of minnows or guppies etc - how do you avoid constant inbreeding (for example, guppies when their spines start to bend) - do you constantly reintroduce new fish or do you just let them keep at it? Is it unacceptable to sell them at a certain point (so many generations down, but no physical defects)? Also, has anyone ever kept any killies at outdoor temps?

My Australe females aren't even giving off eggs :nilly: using java moss instead of mops though... been too lazy to make myself a mop yet lol

Other than longer life and power saving, the lumens output is a disadvantage of LEDs and it seems disappointing when you look at the price - however lumens is only based on what the human eye can see, as opposed to what the plants take in (usually based on a PAR rating). The Green Element doesn't seem to have a PAR rating available (most good plant growing LEDs will have info along the lines of spectrum/PAR but beamswork are cheap ones) and PAR meters are usually super expensive >< This could be total BS, but I've been told LEDs tend to lack green light which is more visible and adds more brightness for people, hence the lower lumens, but is actually preferable to plants as they don't require any green light.

I think she meant green hair algae (BBA isn't really caused so much by lighting changes)

I presume you checked the tank temperature and it didn't fluctuate at all? (perhaps a faulty heater?) I haven't had this on my Aqua One heater but ew, I'd be scraping it off daily :sick: (I love fish keeping but I hate some of the stuff that grows in tanks!)

Have you found the green element to be a lot brighter than the beamswork? If so I'm totally interested in buying it! Edit: The rays don't seem to be a bad price, have you got any reviews on them? (Looking at them for a future date, still interested in the green element).

My apologies if I came off rude at all - I made a bad assumption (when I saw 2 clown loaches, a goldfish and large pleco in a 170L I can come off as quite rude but I'm just being passionate and trying to educate - sometimes it's not done in the correct way and I'm sorry about that). It wasn't my intention to come off as holier-than-thou or as though I'm correct all the time. However I've read over my first post and I don't see it as rude, and got upset when called ignorant.

Now RE: OP, sure, your goldfish will probably do fine in a tank switch I've had fish go from different temps before without issue - just do a slow acclimation and take note if it's showing any sign of stress. I find irregular lighting times can make fish a bit iffy sometimes (depending on how irregular that is of course) - maybe get a timer? They're my saviors lol - really easy to use and saves me remembering especially if I want to sleep in If you skipped or were late on the WC the nitrate levels may have gotten a bit high and stressed them out, unless you notice any disease-like symptoms too. I think a check of the water parameters would be a really good idea (and can help determine why they're shy and stressed) Definitely up the loach school and they'll probably come out more, but like said above the tank will eventually need an upgrade.

Exactly - they will have to move the clown loaches. Considering they weren't aware they are a schooling fish I didn't think OP had planned to upgrade their tank, as upgrading to a 400L+ is a huge thing to do. Clown loaches will grow fast enough that they won't fit in a 170L tank for long (their grow does slow down after a while but they can get big quickly). Sales tanks are known to be temporary, but I hadn't had any indication that their setup was to be upgraded - better I say something rather than stay silent and think OP will upgrade eventually. It's not theoretical - those fish WILL get too big, and the bioload is also pretty big. We also own clown loaches and they got big enough within a year of owning them that I personally wouldn't have kept them in a 170L for very long. Not theoretical experience, practical experience. It's important to get input from everyone so feel free to let my ignorance influence your decisions if it's given you an idea of size and whether or not your tank is appropriate. I'm not saying OP has done anything wrong but they have been told before that the tank is probably too small for the bioload and I don't want to see their fish die. OP had fish frequently dying and getting sick based on their last thread, so it was a bit of a biological chaos.

That is an awesome amount of anubias!

Clown loaches eventually get to 30cm+, Liveaquaria recommends 100gallons and Seriouslyfish recommend 180x60cm base size. I've seen the fully grown one at HFF (and the partially grown in our 450L) and there's no way I'd put those in a 170L. imo I personally wouldn't put goldfish in anything less than a pond - but even the smallest growing ones get to 20cm+ which is pretty big for a 170L tank. The goldfish and pleco are huge bioload fish and unless it's got some pretty good filtration I don't know whether it'd be able to handle the load and keep the nitrates to an acceptable level without frequent water changes.

Yup, I imagine its PAR and light spectrum is way more extreme than the tank lighting too.

Picture doesn't seem to be working for me D: