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F15hguy

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Posts posted by F15hguy

  1. awww... shes as cute as you said she is :P

    Nice hoplo, they are my favorite fish, and I have 3 of them in my tank, not sure about there sex's.

    Personally they seem to do better in groups, so you might want to get your 'Hover' some play mates some time in the future.

    easy to sex, males have a thicker and longer front ray to their pectoral fins, it goes orange when they are in the mood, and when larger they curl upwards when horney as well

    male

    hoplomale.th.jpg

    female

    hoplofemale.th.jpg

  2. Next time you drop by an Animates store, try to see if they've left the back door of their fish department open lol.

    I've sneaked a peek before (without trespassing inside the restricted area) and it seems like they just have piping from multiple tanks into massive bins of filter wool which are then pumped through some other tubs of media and back into the tanks.

    Looks relatively inexpensive to set up and it would be the easiest way to filter massive amounts of water with minimal maintenance.

    pretty much all it is, has a few bio balls as well, each block of tanks is connected to a seperate UV steriliser as well as taps to block off any infected tanks (by the time you know its infected its probably already spread imo) adn the quarantined tank is given either a hang on filter or a canister filter (normally not aged =P)

    anyway, thats how it works in the animates setup I saw.

    used to make good filters by using a bucket filled with gravel with an inlet in the top and a few holes in the bottom

  3. It still surprises me how few people insulate their tanks. I have always glued a layer of poly or closed cell foam to the sides of my home tanks (even cold water ones). the guy who taught me this saved $50 a month on his power bills for only 20 tanks doing this on 3 sides of all of them. with cold water tanks it will keep your tanks a couple of degrees cooler during summer.

    if your lucky enough to have a dedicated fish room you can insulate it and heat it all through a heat pump, WAY more efficient than heating the water, plus it helps during power outs as well.

  4. it was the aqua one silica, its extremely sharp (had a customer return it as it was cutting her fingers) plus my plants would not grow in it (except for one very good crypt) replaced it with 4-6mm river gravel and no more dead plecos (do miss my 15cm albino tho) and exceptional plant growth (ambulia up to 2cm per day and Twisted val about the same)

    also there is reports of a red slime 'Algae' frequently overtaking tanks with it (not every one but quite a few) and have been told by a local pet store that uses it that you can get an antibacterial from the vet to combat it.

  5. I don't think it's the impeller, it seems to be the motor itself which is very loud.

    impossible, the 'motor' is an electromagnet, there are no moving parts to make noise. the only moving part is the impeller.

    also check to see if any grit/stones have somehow got inside it, sounds to me that the cover is not fitting right, it should be easy to remove but should hold itself there. if its a hissing sort of noise then the it might be the venturi, and removing that attachment should fix it.

  6. only noisy if they have air in the impeller or the impeller shaft is broken.

    open it up and check to see if the plastic plate covering the impeller is fitted in correctly.

    have used the hailea before and found that there is a small gap at the base of the motor that doesn't seal properly (untill you silicone it) and has extremely strong suction, lost 4 danios to it before i realised where they were going.

    personally don't like any of those filters except as current generators

  7. What sort of gravel do you have? Could it just be fine sand, silt. Its not ammonia- you cant see that. Fish waste is the colour of your fish food. Dont stir your gravel up so much. Do you have a gravel cleaner? Just work your way around the tank plunging it into the gravel and giving it a little wiggle ull see the waste free up and get siphoned out.

    Fully cleaning your gravel (thus giving your good bacteria a hard time) could have killed your cat fish with the subsequent ammonia spike as you have upset the balance in your tank by killing your bacteria. A test kit would help monitor ammonia, nitrites after you have given it a good clean. A nitrate test would be handy if you dont feel like cleaning your tank but want to check if you have too much waste in there.

    Easiest way is to stay on top of the maintenance, depending on your bio load, every 2-3 weeksish.

    I've always beleived that syphoning the gravel does not affect the bacteria much, running 60+ undergravel filters and never had an ammonia spike even when the tank is at full capacity

  8. I was living in the hope someone would ID them for me as the wholesaler does not have a species ID, and also I know most of the LFS's in NZ are on here so someone would have had them before.

    another question, is the common pond snail (Lymnaia) ok for food as well as we have 10 ponds here and most have some in them.

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