petplanet

Ah, Brings back fond memories of the two I had years ago. That was until they did their cynchronized diving routine down the back of the tank!!!

3 months in the dark. If not used straight away the salt water needs to cycle just like a tank. Even crystal clear looking water was an amazing amount of stuff in it. Just look at the sedament that collects on the bottom of your storage container.

If my T5 Arcadia is anything to go by then I agree with Reef. Looks good but even wholesale it is $176.00 for four tubes. Mine has blown six so far.

The best ones have the black line that goes right through the tail fin. Generally they are pretty good. I had some young ones in with dwarf loaches and they all schooled up together. Like any fish you can get the odd rough. They will eat all the usual stuff, flakes, pellets, bloodworm etc. I think it is always good to have a variety of algae eaters, say some flying foxes and bristlenose.

Rock salt or tonic salt are best. Iodine in normal table salt is very toxic to fish. Non-iodized salt still has other additives in it (free flow agents). The stuff is real cheap, about $2.95 for a 500g bag so you may as well by the tonic salt. Does the fin look ragged or eaten away? If it is just white but not eaten away and the fish is acting normally then I would leave it alone. It could just be normal fin colouration. You can dose the tank with about 1 gram of salt per litre. Sounds like a lot but salt water has 33 grams per litre. Make sure you feed that bristlenose. JBL Novo Pleco chips are really good. The goldfish will love them too. The bristlenose needs the wood fibre they contain.

I have a freezer full of bloodworm if you want to drive to my shop in Whangaparaoa.

They are bullies if there are only a few. You need more of them so they will school up or at least have more fish to pick on.

Shop around for the discus. Some times you can get them dirt cheap. You may find someone on line selling them. Start with a large group of similiar sized juveniles and grow them on. If you start with to few, one will bully the others and dominate for food. If you have to by them from a shop then find one that will do a bulk deal. Run the tank in with schooling, algae eaters etc first. Tou can get river sand from building supply companies but you will probably be better off with fine gravel like brightwater 0603 (3mm-6mm size). What types of lighting and filtration do you have? Is Palmy water that bad?

I find most glass heaters end up with moisture in them as they get old and they still seem to run fine. I have thrown out quite a few visitherm heaters that have kept on heating. Mostly the low wattage ones. I think the AquaOne heaters are just as good. It pays not to overkill with the heaters. Cooking is much more dangerous than cooling. I had a heater blow in the middle of winter and my tank dropped to 17 degrees. Fish stopped moving and the corals closed. Once it reheated it was all back to normal. What if your controller packs up....just a thought.

I use the cheap nasty timers with 1 on pin and 1 off pin - no problems and they cost less than $20.00. The HPM digitals that I had lasted less than 6 months.

I would never rate the ones that get big as a good thing. Get a wrasse, that will take care of the little bastards...at least during the day. Aren't they the ones that eat snails, attack clams and do other nasty things.

You probably have two males. Most wholesalers don't bother with female dwarf gouramis because the males are brighter. They would go better in the big tank. When there are only a few they tend to fight a lot.

I use a Hydor inline on my tank and it works fine. Had it since they were first released in NZ. The import no longer brings them in because they were a bit pricey and not many sold.

A freshwater fish wholesaler has had a case of cross infection from a fish to a human. The disease in question is Salmonella Enterica - Serotype Paratyphi B. Causes severe vomiting, diarrhoea and may send you to hospital. The fish show no sign of illness. It is believed that the transfer has occured when priming syphon hoses by mouth. You may want to think twice before you suck on that hose. There are gravel cleaners available that you do not need to suck on.

I went straight into marines. Learnt the hard and expensive way.

Dice the mussel up and don't force feed it. If the anemone spits it out try again after a few days. You need to feed once a week. I use seafood marinara mix from the supermarket - pre-frozen shrimp, mussel, clam and squid. If your lights are brighter than it is used to it will hide till it adjusts. Looks like a Entacmaea quadricolor. They like to bury their base in rock crevices and just have their tenticles out.

I sell the Aquaone tanks and have seen similiar tanks (Jebo) in Australia. Over there they throw the lights away and partition off the back 10cm of the tank. They turn the back section into a trickle filter and hang a metal halide over the tank. They look good. As reef said the standard lighting is a bit dim. There is new lighting in the AR620. Twin 14000K PL tubes (like a long life light bulb). The distributor can't tell me what wave lenght they put out but they are brighter than the fluros. The tanks are also taller than they are wide so the rock work would look very piled up. It is better to have your tank wider than it is deep as it is easier to aquascape.

Mine runs on two cannister filters and a couple of powerheads just fine. If you were just starting with fish you would not even need the powerheads. Just start with base (dead) rock, the life will develop. Every coral comes with a peice of live rock and lets face it how many of us still have the rock and not the coral?

It would, I have a felling that they have a limited life span. Maybe a year. Aquarium Pharmacuticals make on for fresh water. Check them out.

I would start with a three foot at a minimum. It is not THAT different to tropical. A few more toys to add and a bit more science. Lighting and a protien skimmer are generally your two most expensive items. Decided on what you eventually want your tank to be like, plan it out and gradualy get your gear. No point starting with a small tank and upgrading a year later. Read a few books and take everything with a grain of salt (yes that pun was intended). I brought my first tank from Jansens and dealt with their marine "expect". He sold me a mercury vapour light, a deep 4ft 300litre tank and a cannister filter rated for a tank half that size. With that great start we were sold a blue tang the very next day to run the tank in. It die within 30 minutes of hitting the water. Back then they only cost a mere $75.00. Even the shop experts can not always be trusted.

Check your nitrite level as well. It changes the hemaglobin in the blood so it does not carry oxygen and the fish gasp at the surface. I would use furan over melafix any day.

Look on the floor. Do you have a sea anemone or any suspect fish?

I don't have calurpa but I do have at least two other types that grow well. If you have some live rock (or rock form corals that have died) stick that in there. You will be suprised at what grows when there are no fish and the amount of living things that come out. I have a small tank growing algae for my tangs and the glass is covered in little creatures. My wrasse would have a field day. I can get bags of Reef Base which is a mix of aragonite and reef spheres (porous calcereous shells of simple protozoa according to the bag). A mere $49.95 for a 5.4kg bag.

Anyone know much about pearl bubbles? I brought one and now have more than nine. I brought the original about eight years ago and it measured about 15cm across. It divided and I eventually had to saw it in half. The two halves have since divided and I now have one that is producing small juveniles. The real question is, how big can a single polyp get?

cavitation...try using that word in everyday conversation....