Dr A

He's definitely an elephant. *edit* - Oh yeah it's a halfmoon rather than a crowntail. Don't know why I got them mixed up as they're not even remotely similar. Color (inadvertently) matches the pink & white moth orchid I've got beside the tank.

http://imgur.com/a/t1aAy/ They're quite big and the color is quite average (using my mobile). Anyway correct me if I'm wrong but he's a crowntail elephant ear. Pretty chuffed with him to be honest.

Oh.

Well it's a free market and there isn't any law against it right?

Need to go on a freshwater shrimp mission. $5 a head off trademe seems way too high.

Yeah, I've already got some pallets, they don't sink straight away however. I'm hampered by the 2 floating Indian Ferns I've got, they effectively cover most of the surface area of the tank, and while the betta seems quite good swimming in and around them snuffing out food, the minnows really require direct line of sight to newly dropped foods. Can't blame them I suppose, their brains are probably only 1/4 of the size of the betta. Early days yet though so I'll see how they're progressing. A day or two without much food shouldn't phase the minnows, in my experience with them outdoors they actually do fine without being actively fed so long as their isn't thousands of them (which incidentally isn't hard to achieve), which should mean they can fast a while... While I'm on the subject of food... some sort of bottom feeder would probably be quite advantageous, especially as I can re home the minnows to keep a lid on the waste load.

Oh and more importantly I picked up a betta yesterday. He's a pretty cool customer. No sign of aggression when I put him in with the minnows in the tank (I removed a rouge super aggressive golden one earlier in the day). However I noticed feeding him last night and again this morning he's proving territorial towards them when feeding. No actual nipping but every time one swims close to where the food is floating he'll turn and give them a full fin/gill display, scaring them off. Hopefully I can effectively feed both, don't want the minnows starving. They're not very good at all at at bottom-scavenging.

$5 (iirc), bottle was pretty vague, think I've put it out in the trash/recycling now.

Ha, good point.

Good idea, I did suggest using some water from outside, but there was concern it would introduce various nasties from outdoors?

I see... What's the point of selling them then? do they just "tide over" the tank until the better bacteria get established?

Was a throw-in so not fussed.

I thought the instant liquid stuff would do the trick?

RIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT, so after reading so much I thought my head would explode I finally got myself a little tank. I wanted something bigger, but after being given the hard word from the woman about not wanting a large, loud, smelly (!?) fish tank in her lounge she finally eased off and said I could maybe get one at some point in the future. Went to the Pupuke Aquarium center and ended up getting a really small tank - Hailea E15 (has a compartment at the rear for a filter and heater). The guy there (Ron?) is really easy to talk with and the service was impeccable. I also grabbed a bunch of plants and small bit of driftwood with fern attached, along with all the other bits and pieces bar fish. My knowledge of aquascaping is limited to what I'd read online, so I figured tall plants to hide the back and small ones at the front was the general idea. I'd also read that floating plants were good for bettas/small fish. The drift wood turned out to be only just small enough to fit in at all... Setup. Complete. (note the floating Indian fern getting caught up in the spray bar, I've adjusted it's position since but it does seem like the mountain minnows enjoyed playing in the flow) Lotus leaf thing escaped the gravel during the move. In position (needs a nice orchid or something beside it to offset the whole thing - cables aren't tidy yet) Not 100% happy with how it's turned out, I think the sharp rock on the LHS of the tank is wasted there and could go all together (that said it's probably the most interesting looking of all of rocks). I'd like a few more tall plants at the back of the tank, or perhaps the ones in there will fill out a bit. Also the front of the tank looks bare in comparison, some small grass or something might sort that out. Need to adjust the sword on the front left too. That along with replanting the RHS rear plant can come when I'm doing a water change. I see you can buy long tweezers to make things easier, but I think kitchen tongs (or even chopsticks) will work. The guy at Pupuke gave me a small bottle of stuff to help cycle the tank right away, but I've popped in a few mountain minnows from my pond/pot in the interim anyway, and have been slowing increasing the temperature in the tank (I left the heater off on Sunday evening and suddenly remembered the plants were all tropical in the morning). Plan now is to go and get a Betta next Sunday (water quality dependent). The only other real question is what to stock along with him... nothing at all, some mountain minnows or something else?

Right, my fluid mechanics /thermodynamics is a bit dodgy. I would have assumed hot-water from the tap is a no-go (for the same reason you don't drink from a hot water tap?). The other option would be to boil some water. That may denature it though I suppose...

Slight dredge/off topic post: Do you guys pre-heat the new water going into a tropical fish tank? I'm sure it probably doesn't matter for big tanks, but if you did say a 20% change on a small tank, you'd presumably cool the overall tank temperature noticeably... which in turn presumably would be stressful for your fish, and be less efficient (aka take longer/be more expensive in theory) for your tank heater to heat back up to it's desired temperature. I'm by no means an expert and this ins't conclusive but I just measured the cold water coming out of the tap in my workshop (14 degrees Celsius) with my multimeter... that's along way off 25. I realise that temp would be subject to much fluctuation over the course of a year, but in winter it'd be worth considering right? Wouldn't it be better to put the "new" water into a bucket and use a/another cheap low watt heater to pre-heat the water to close to the existing tank's temperature... ... or am I just being a little OTT?

Ah ha, I was fooled by the "trickle" part of trickle filter... There appear to be cheap ones w/ overhead filters. One or two mention flow control though. I could just follow this Walstad method (or some of the other "low tech") guides online - possibly doing away with my filter, but I like the idea of walking before I run.

You are correct. I did weigh up those Edges - I've decided they look classy but also appear to be ruthlessly impractical. There's also some debate about how good they are for Bettas (which I've more or less decided to go for, although I could be swayed towards a group of females). For that same $200+ I could buy a tank (conventional, but still elegant) which while perhaps isn't so avant garde has almost double the volume. Again if it was $70 it'd be a different story. Final consideration is that my house is too small to fit more than one tank in it (single story villa split in half, Ponsonby), so I might as well buy a larger one now. I also don't pay for power (!). *edit: also unsold on those LEO tanks on trademe due to again, comparatively low volume per dollar, and a complete lack of anyone online having one. I even ran the image through TinEye to no avail.

Ha, after carefully thinking about it all I'm doing is paying more for less. Flagging the minimalistic tank for the time being for a more conventional one, which will hold more water (and therefore, fish/stuff) and be cheaper.

Roger that, I'll call in the boss and ask her which of the available options is the most pretty. Stand by.

So a go-er provided I could manually restrict the outflow of the filter (or not run it at all, however that may mean no heat?) Edit: or just buy one of these - not as clean looking but perhaps more readily pressed into service..?

Cheers guys. What questions should I be asking the seller for those tanks on trademe...? I need to figure out how fast the outflow of the filter is right? if it's adjustable, and if the thermometer is adjustable (can't image it's not but you never know...)

Indeed, upon reflection however It'd be a very easy process to fashion a thin lid out of a pane of glass. You could even drill holes in it for air circulation...

Hi there, Been lurking for a bit so thought I'd say hello - it's nice to see a local forum that's got lots of active members... I've kept fish as a child, and have some outdoors at the moment (mixed gold/white Mountian Minnows in a large Chinese glazed fish bowl). I'd like to get a small and manageable indoor tropical fish tank set up. Key things here being ease of use/maintenance, low cost and a smallish footprint. The whole process is quite daunting, which is actually how I found you guys. Evidently Betta(s) seem like a good entry point, in terms of being some what user friendly and stable, although I'm not set on this. I seem to like "planted" tanks too, evidently you can set them up to be "low tech". The plan was/is to get something from TradeMe second hand and set it up: I've found these on around, they look nice and elegant but I'm not sure that it'll be suitable (no lid, no mention of how fast the flow of the filters is, no mention of the thermostat on the heater...) Does anyone have any experience with this brand? I can't find any mention of them online. One would assume they're comming out of a factory in China somewhere and someone in NZ is importing and distributing them. Discounting said style, I'll be in the market for a second hand tank... I'd like to have it large enough to plant and get a few compatible fish, kuhli loach's seem a good bet assuming they're available. 10Gal/40L should be large enough for a combination tank with a few Kuhli's?