Werefox

Hey all, my name is Gavin. A bit about me: My family had a small community tank when I was younger, with a royal blue betta called 'Boss', and after much prodding from my family to get a hobby that would get me up from my computer I decided I'd try my hand at fishkeeping again. Still in the process of getting all the equipment together, although I do currently have a 2'x1'x'1 tank sitting in my room. I'm thinking of trying to do a Suth East Asian Back/Still Water biotope tank with a male Betta and a group (school?) of Khuli Loaches. In the future (probably some time after New Years) I'd like to try breeding Bettas to get a nice line of forest green crown tails. But yeah that'll have to wait until I've shifted out of my current flat here in Palmerston North. Anyhow, nice to meet you all, Gavin.

Thanks for that. I was thinking of making a wooden one based around the one here - I guess thats probably a bad idea and would be better with a metal one? My tank does have glass coverings so water shouldn't be too much of a problem. Once again thanks, Gavin.

Thanks very much for that -Gavin

Hi, I've been looking around at some of the DIY hood light plans, and was wondering if anyone has made one for their tanks. If so, is it cost effective, and very difficult to do? (I'm alittle worried about the wiring up of the lights as I'm not an electrition, and am a little hesitant with playing with mains power.) Cheers, Gavin.

Hello, I'm in the process of setting up my first tank (slowly getting the equipment together now - the tank is 2'x1'x1'). While doing research into it (both on the internet and through the library) I was impressed by the heavily planted aquariums, and thought I'd have a go at it myself. I thought I'd theme the tank as a "SE asian back water environment" (I think its called a biotope?). I thought I'd use this page and this one as a reference point for designing the tank and choosing plants native to the area. Is there a site that has a list of plants which are available in NZ, so I can work out which ones would work well together? I'm also little confused about the substrate to use for it though. On another forum (before I found this one ) it was recommend that I use 3-5" of Fluorite, 1/4" of mulm from an established tank, and 1/4" of peat. Is there a special aquarium peat that should be used or will any garden centre variety do? Thanks, Gavin.