JJWooble

The stand has been made for my 200 litre! My dad and younger brother spent a weekend on it for me and the result is an awesome Macrocarpa stand that is solid (approx 200 kgs) and can be dissasembled for easy moving. There's space underneath for the filtration to go and the stand itself is more than sturdy enough for the tank that will go on it. It's also much bigger than my last stand, being 1120 mm x 620mm x 750mm in dimensions. After inspecting my silicone seals on the 200 litre and noticing that there is an entire corner of glass where it has cracked off and is just holding on by the silicone as well as it generally looking a bit dodgy in other places, I have decided to get a new tank built. The new one will be 1000 mm x 500 mm x 500 mm so a slight upgrade to 250 litres and to hopefully a much tidier looking tank in general. It will be a bit smaller than the stand to allow it to be easily removed from the alcove the tank will sit in.

I hate to double post, but thought I'd also start adding updates of my Southern Bell frog vivarium in here as well. There is two male 1.5 year old frogs in the tank. They have 1 UVB bulb running 8 hrs a day and 1 heat lamp running an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening. They get fed with tinned crickets the majority of the time off tongs or a 'fishing rod' contraption which they've learnt to chase after, but also get any live insects I find outside. There is also a heater which keeps the water area from going below 23 degrees. They've had a rescape recently and I'm really happy with the 'land' area but am planning to change up the 'water' area in future to create more space and hiding places that are safer than having rocks, as well as reinstalling the water fountain which these two somehow managed to break. Any thoughts on how I could improve this tank is much appreciated. Plants are parlour palm, peace lily and spagnum moss.

Thanks gligor I'm enjoying keeping a log again as shows what sorts of progress I'm making on my tanks. I've done a few things to the 80L. Yesterday I added some moss caves from Alexyay which will hopefully be covered by moss in the next few months. :3 And today I added a bunch of anubias from camtang - way more than I was expecting to receive, so thank you!!! The main objective was to get them all out under some lighting in the water to recover from spending several days squished in a bag, so hopefully over the next few months there will be some improvements :3 I have had a fish fall ill - a female pygmy cory has started acting awfully a lot like she has dropsy or something similar. Her scales have turned out a bit but apart from this she has been acting normally so I've given her a few epsom baths and am mainly just keeping an eye on her. If she starts acting worse I'll have to think about alternatives to trying to save her, but I've had her for over a year now and would prefer not to lose her. In other news, the tank stand that I was commissioning for my 200l didn't get built due to a bunch of technicalities that wasn't anybody's fault so I've started a campaign for my family to assist in building our own It does mean that I don't have access to the 200 every day at the moment so it's getting a bunch of interesting algaes building up and the green tiger lotus is running riot and taking over. All fixable in the long run hopefully. Photos below of the 80L yesterday and today and the strange look that the cory has developed.

Awesome thread Learn something new every day. My kuhlis may be getting some rice from my breakfast tomorrow

An update on the upgrade! The move went smoothly as it could for the 80L and I've gotten it settled in with sand and planting. The dwarf hairgrass keeps getting pulled up by the kuhlis but hopefully after a few weeks it may start setting down roots so this doesn't happen... I can always hope. All in all I've moved with only one suspected casualty - a honey gourami female who seemed to have been stressed by the move and developed bloating issues. Apart from that everyone has been fine and I'm even seeing more of my pygmy corys!

I'll be very disappointing and have much the same scape for the 200L :P

And this is the upgrade for the 60L all set up, just waiting for me to get into my days off to move the fish over, though I couldn't resist putting the 'goldspot pleco' into it in the mean time

Few update photos These will both be moved round a bit while I change the locations of the tanks and the 60L is finally getting an upgrade to an 80L cube tank <3 So hopefully I don't ruin the scapes in the process of moving them. There's a bit of an algae issue I'm still to fix for both tanks but we shall get there

They more or less breed themselves As I think I've mentioned somewhere on the forum, 4 of them are a breeding group which originally belonged to Alexyay and the rest of the adults are babies from that breeding group. Then theres another random female I picked up somewhere and she bred with the breeding group to produce the bubs that I've raised Large cold water changes, the right time of year and frequent feedings of good food tend to trigger them to spawn and each female will breed pretty much once a week for a few months a year. Then you just remove the eggs from the nooks they put them into in the tank and raise the bubs in a fry tank

It was my favourite of the lot I also had a stage where the trio and duo were pushed together and I had a lot of plants coming out of the back, which was pretty cool also. But always worth giving a fighter a bit of space to strut their stuff

I liked to focus on live plants/rocks/driftwood more than ornaments as I found fighters were wonderfully talented at ripping their fins on anything that gave them a good enough excuse. They /love/ having plants near the surface to sleep etc and my last little guy would sleep in an offcut from my fluval 306 canister filter hose as it would float (hence the bits near the surface in the last picture of the previous post). Longfins in particular will also use these to rest in during the day. My first little guy, Momo, had a pothos leaf as a hammock (photo is of him just leaving it, the forum wouldn't let me post the photo of him actually sitting in it lol). I would change the scape regularly or with the trio, swap fighters between sections, so that there was always something new to explore. Having good lids is a must and they CAN jump through the gaps for the trio/duo lids so I would advise caution on this as thats how my last little guy went. Sanitychelle has some pretty stunning betta tanks.

I had various betta tanks at one stage - here are some photos, although some it woudn't let me upload. At various stages there was a duo, a trio, a fluval chi 21 litre, an aqua one 9 litre (would not recommend, I quickly upscaled this tank), and a 30 litre tank. I eventually ripped the dividers out of the trio which was where my last boy was happiest. Can also post up pictures of the fighters if you're interested. Ended up scaling down a lot since finishing uni and my last little guy decided to go for a skydive so I no longer keep fighters. Some variations on the 30 litre scape: The fluval chi: The Trio and duo at various stages:

Hi all, As the title suggests I am selling 7 emerald eye rasbora and have made a trademe auction for this. Further information for those interested is available in the below link Many thanks JJ http://www.trademe.co.nz/1121132350

Those are all the main places I would consider It's possible the Warehouse or Kmart may have something?

So glad to hear they liked it Also lol at the little guy with his shell. Yours look really happy, how many do you have?

Re: hatching brine shrimp, I didn't but I'd imagine they'd go down well. I've never been much a fan of baby brine shrimp as a regular food source just because of the process of setting it back up again after using the batch. I gave them microworms which they seemed to love, and mosquito larvae was always appreciated also. I had to give these guys up recently I've gone down from 8 tanks to 2 tanks just because I wasn't coping and giving all my fish the best care I could manage whilst also working full time. Their new owners have converted them to brackish last I heard and they're doing well though I didn't get to convert them to brackish and if I get the chance to keep these guys again I will. May be some time in the future though. I'd love to hear how your guys go with it Mine had plenty of cover and a high pH, though I imagine they would only have improved with the conversion.

As Ira has pointed out, it's a powder you can make into a gel. Mine had to have a bit of encouragement but eventually took to the 'spawn and grow'. And yes, their 'perching' behaviour is adorable

Very nice I have a group of 9 juvenile steel blue apistos and am looking forward to when they may start breeding for me

50% once weekly, sometimes closer to 60% depending on whether I leave the siphon in too long Nitrates seem to coast at around 10 - 20 ppm I /think/ on the 200L tho I have an aqua one master test kit so not entirely trusting of those numbers lol. Haven't tested the 60L for a bit but probably should soon. I'm getting a different brand of kit so we shall see but in general both tanks seem to be healthy and I haven't noticed any abnormal behaviours/sickness for a long time. I also add the numbers gradually I've got a Fluval 306 and a Aqua One CF1200 on the 200L, the 60L has a Fluval 106 on it and I stuff a few plants in there as well. The corys love the big group situation but I'll probably thin them out when the babies get older :'( I'm not sure the other bottom dwellers would enjoy 30 full grown corys lol, but it seems alright whilst ~10 of them are still tiny.

Thanks Wacky I've managed to get myself down to two tanks. Lost my siamese fighter but otherwise everyone is going well 200L Current inhabitants: 30+ Sterbai corydoras 15x Threadfin Rainbow fish 17x Harlequin Rasbora 10x Steel Blue Apistos 3x Banjo Catfish 1x female Guppy 2x Pearlspot Gourami 1x Indian Green Spiny Eel 1x Blue Phantom Pleco 3x Red Whiptail Catfish I've managed to breed my sterbai corydoras and have added 10-15 babies who have now increased my group I've also added a male pearlspot, 3 red whips, 15 or so Threadfins and a Red Tiger Lotus I also removed the swords and have extended the java fern clumps further along the tank. The apistos have gotten better colour too :3 60L 25x Emerald Rasbora (and similar species fish)9x pygmy corydoras9x Banded Kuhli Loaches4x Black Kuhli Loaches6x Golden Honey Gourami (Trichogaster chuna) In this tank I've added some more emeralds who have turned out to be a similar species who grows larger They seem to bicker a bit but are getting along reasonably well for now. I've also had a massive BBA growth in this tank but hopefully since I've started dosing excel everything will at least slow down

Makes things a little difficult for anyone wanting to buy fish whilst on holiday, but always good to get a definitive answer- thanks Alex Though now I'm wondering if my silkie hens would pass as "small caged birds" if I were ever to fly with them (not gna happen )

Looooooovvveee the driftwood it looks amazing <3 like a river bank also Fred is gorgeous

Thanks guys Im really happy with how this breed turned out, particularly since I only got one fry off my last lot of corys

Update photo because I was talking about this to someone today babies are now in with their parents and are busy growing and looking adorable 24/7 I've ended up with about 15-20 babies

I'd imagine you can cap it with sand and the plants will just grow their roots down to it Sounds like a cool tank, puffers are gorgeous <3 Looking forward to the update pics