Luke*

It was an excellent day out there I had a good time. Everyone only got 1st degree burns too. No deaths from the mud fight that we know of...hmm maybe we should've done a headcount Moolies are what we call mollies here in Waikato Thanks for creating the event Dave. Ps I just checked the pH and I lost my reference card thing but it looks like about 7.2, correct me if I'm wrong

It's good for working on your pipes, your vocal chords Especially when you like slipknot. You run out of breath to quickly otherwise.

Body temp and movement?

No one's asked how big these angles are. They may be jerking and not straight because the compass or ruler is not held steady. They may be too young too.

Interesting. Cheers

I heard these fish are breeding well overseas somewhere in the wild, so hopefully prices will come down before too long

Yeah they'll be like sleeping with the fish

Sweet man stoked that it worked out for you :bounce:

Sounds like you've got excess nutrients, try cutting down your lighting hours to 10hrs per day and get some stem plants to use up the nutrients. If it's in balance you won't have any - easier said than done I know. The spotted hard green type algae is seemingly impossible to be without after a while. Regular cleaning means it doesn't set on too hard though. Nuclear green? lol that could be the dreaded blue-green algae. Erythromycin (presciption drug) kills that stuff really well. Otherwise big gravel cleans will do and blacking out the tank for a few days. Thread algae... yeah big pain. I don't think it's the 02 depletion but some kind of chemical in it. It's got on the side it's known to the state of California to cause cancer. :-? It does work well, but only temporarily for me. I found double dosing Flourish Excel worked on it permanently - thank goodness. Goodluck

Bamboo looks awesome in tanks. I saw a display one set up that was entered in for competition. Lots of tall thin shoots and the fish could swim between them. I don't think it was growing just bamboo stalks anchored down somehow

Heya welcome aboard. Unless you're rich you can spend most of your money on freshwater set ups.

Wow that's weird aye. Oh and thanks for the answer, I was feeling left out.

They won't get jealous but the betta may attack them due to their bright colours, mistaking them for other male fighters.

Keeping pigeon blood discus with a dark background supposedly brings out the peppering (yup that's the correct word) more.

<10ppm is good <5ppm is ideal. Oxheart's not too bad to clean up depending a lot on how you make the mix too, e.g gelatin, cooking, flake as binder etc. They will graze along the bottom for a while which helps you out too. It's important to feed a variety of frozen, live, and homemade foods for the fastest growth rate. Do the biggest water changes you can too.

It does now lol

Yeah you never know. HandS saw them in person and reckons more like 100. It's hard to count them cuz they could on any of the 4 slimey sides they have available to them

Wow I'm really impressed. Looks great and I agree with Ant I like the hill. I don't think you need to make any major changes just spread out the stems on the left a bit more. Well done

Neat. Are you going to leave the cover glass off?

Ouu I'll have to bring my big discus catching nets ...sweeeet. I don't get to use them that often

hehe yea I was thinking that as well. There's probably glosso in those lakes too?

Cheers guys. I was really thinking it was a lost cause there for a while! Especially as this is their first time spawning in a tank by themselves and sometimes discus can be unsure what to do at various stages of the process. Luckily for me they did an excellent job

Day 1, 11/01/07: (counted internationally as the first day free swimming) Day 3, 13/01/07: (firmly attached and already looking considerably bigger)

I carefully removed the plants (some were surprisingly venturing to the top of the tank and getting lost in the plants) and filter. I reduced the water level to 50% to reduce the expanse of the tank. It wasn't looking good though. The fry were all over the bottom of the tank and the parents were looking unsure of what to do. Luckily they eventually rounded them all up and had them in the back left corner of the tank. The next morning I awoke to find the fry grazing happily on the flanks of the parents. That was a relief. Now it is looking more like 50 fry and I'm pleased with that. I topped up some water but the flow was too much and blew some fry away. I turned it off and filled it more the next day when they were more firmly attached to the parents. I also restarted the filter as ammonia would quickily build up and become very toxic to the fry. As far as I can tell the parents found those fry and having nothing in the tank helped as you can see.

A couple of days later I unplugged the air-powered filter. It makes it easier for the fry to find the parents if there's no other water agitation because they use subtle fin movements and flicks to attract the fry to them. If the current in the tank is too strong the fry will be washed away and may not have the strength to swim back or be recovered by the parents. I came home from work to find all the fry around the base of the filter (I had left it in the tank to preserve the bacteria). Because it the base is grey and the filter sponge black they were attracted to it more than the parents because they instinctively seek out the darkest object in the tank.