Dr A

Flourish or Flourish Excel?

To be fair, some proponents of the Walstad methodology essentially don't do "regular" water changes, mostly top off's to account for evaporation.

If you're looking for a low-tech fertilizer - (a SMALL amount of) Osmocote in the substrate can help; some people like to pop it into gelatin capsules (purchasable off trademe). Otherwise premade root tabs can be found.

Hydrogen peroxide as a spot treatment works well too.

Hate to be a nit picker but the Pygmy Cories would appreciate sand; they spend all day sifting around in it.

For that price I was expecting Mr Amano himself....

Sure. Although the lack of science is a little off putting. I hope your shrimp research doesn't involve an Australian and a BBQ.

Some mad scientist needs to figure out how to make our native ones breed in fresh water and enjoy higher temperatures.

I guess if you're allowed to keep you know, lions, tigers and elephants - koi aren't such a problem. Unlike the aforementioned though, people might think seeing them in a public setting is "normalizing" behavior, encouraging the keeping of them in private ponds. Perhaps they should do a "Koi are bad" exhibit with smelly green water next to a nice clear pond with native wildlife. Auckland Zoo used to have them as well; although I haven't been for ages.

This maybe a bit of a long shot, but have a read of this website. The guy lives in Wisconsin which gets cold. He's some sort of engineer who does the whole aquaponics thing in his spare time so the problem he faces is the opposite of the one you face (he needs to keep his fish warm in winter). Along with several articles about thermal mass, entropy etc etc, he's basically come up with a plan to keep his fish warm: convert old unused/dead chest freezers into fish-tanks. The idea being they're free or very cheap, already watertight and very well insulated. Because he eats the fish he coats them in something on the inside, but it's not too big of a stretch to maybe do the same thing to keep a body of water cold rather than warm. Food for thought anyway. I appreciate a chest freezer doesn't look as pretty as a glass sided fish tank, but one stuck under your house, or a shady spot in general may work perfectly to prevent your water getting warm. Since you only have small tanks you could maybe turn a bar fridge/freezer into a mini summer home for your guys?

The ones I've played around with went more pink with heat. I recall reading the blueish ones were female too. Not that I did very well with them...

An order of magnitude too small.

What's the name of the little catfish that buries it's self with sand?

Surely it's got to be removing some. How much is the question.

Yeah you're leaving most of them a bit late to re-pot most species, although I've had to do it in both spring and summer before and been okay. Now's the time to re-pot nepenthes though... All my outdoor CP's have got new growth coming through.