Dr A

So. It begins. Turning my entrance way (dumping ground) into a small display. I removed the rim off my old hospital tank (wish I'd done a better job - oh well). (doing a water test here) Floor Standing Lamp/Light fitting. DIY CO2 Drift wood dominated Main planting will be clumps of Windelov Java fern, a bit of anubias and one or two crypts Rest of the tank to be bare substrate, probably of black sand or grit - not bothering with a dirted setup as I don't really want heavy root feeders. Will try incorporate a bit of moss. Heater at least needs to be hidden. Ideally filter as well. Like this! Stocking: Either, 1x Fighter (Solid red etc) OR a small school of fish. Bit worried about jumping and the fact that it's essentially in a walkway. Roughly 27L (still tiny!). No bowing or deflection to note!

Looking good - you putting on hold your plans to go bigger?

Right! Update: After much internal agonizing over what to do I've come up with some conclusions 1) I don't want to give up fish keeping 2) I have to be very creative with space So looks as though I may shut this tank down at some point, or give it to the musses to take to work. I've rimmed my hospital tank (badly, but still looks better than it did prior), and according to my ghetto (read: bad) calculations it'll be OK. I've found some drift wood in appealing shapes, and I'm going to cook it in the weekend, I got some windelov java fern which I am going to build a new tank with (bear in mind, we're still talking less than 30L of water here) that. Stocking will either be a Betta or maybe some mini fishes - it's going to be rimless/lidless... I'd also really like to build a little nano reef, which seems do-able, and I've read loads on the subject. That's something to work towards anyway. In the mean time I've got to take some photos of some ponds outside, which look amazing. I'll make a new thread for all that though. Onwards and upwards! H.

I planted a water lilly this summer by drilling a bunch (lots) of holes into a plastic pot, filling it with Dalton's aquatic mix and capping it off with a bit of gravel. Bit of dirt floated off when I submerged it but on the whole worked pretty well...

Curious that they have a $2.10 cold fresh water mussel. Native?

Yeah the way they went about it was very odd, their premises was used as a site office for construction going on next door, but they didn't strip down any of the branding outside, or have any signs saying they had closed. I think now it's been completely gutted and the signs taken down.

Hate to break the news to you, but Murder burger has been gone for the last ~6 months, and I don't think it's coming back.

I'm envious of that too, however it looks as though it may be fresh?

This is actually a good idea, but in practical terms how long is it going to last (or rather: how much is it going to COST to get it to last for a long time). I guess the other thing would be to warm the room the tank is in up to as much as possible, thus reducing the deltaT between the tank and ambient temperature.

The type of fish mightn't go astray.

Various fish sold as "Borneo Sucker"'s would fit the bill, although they tend to like hi-flow/hi-oxygen environments.

You could have worked that out yourself with a measuring jug, some water and some sand.

I'm not too sure to be honest, I'm torn about doing nothing and therefore letting the tank un-cycle it's self. However, if there is any bad juice flowing around in there perhaps popping something else inside may be a bad choice. I could always bring some WCMM's in from outside... but they're pond fish with all kinds of pond fish diseases (possiably a source of the issues to begin with). Ideally I'd break the tank down and build another myself, I'd love to make a 30CM(L) cube, which would let me control all aspects of design. Trying to convince the misses about that is a different story. I'd quite like to go fully hi-tech too...

Euthanasied. Clove oil followed by clove oil and vodka. Seemed to work well .

I was googling a while ago and heaps of reef people refer to "display sumps".

I've always thought it was something to do with the spine being severed and the the nerve spasms as a result of that.

Overseas it seems. Retail shops are expensive.

Pictars Hard to get good shots (as per). Last one shows the puffed out scales along the top of his back near the head. Can also see the rot beginning to eat away at the pectoral fins Suggestions?

What's the moral here? Kids need raw beef heart? or KFC should get onto mammalian protein?

Seems as though they have. Mostly by nano reef builders it seems.

You could use a peltier to cool small tanks, would be cheaper than an a expensive chiller. I bet people have built cheap setups with small fridges or air conditioners.

How much cheaper does it work as?

Unlike children the police don't mind if you eat them however.

I'm running a nominal 200LPH pump now (sounds tiny but that's over 10x volume per hour). The issue is that due to the shape of the tank (essentially a U shape) I either create a vortex or lots of dead spots. A 30L cube would be awesome as it would allow for a betta + ottos

Mmmm. I'll see what happens, I'd rather end his life than let him drag on miserably downwards. I'm not sure what to do about the tank either. I feel as though I've hit the wall with it at the moment, the lighting and flow issues are very frustrating.