Luke*

lol at your statement chakuna, followed by two opposing smileys. Is this just a FYI (for your information) for us or a question to do with it?

Rig up a lamp on one end with a blue coloured 40w bulb

Just a pity albinos can't see as well as regular or golden fish (with dark eyes)

Potassium Permanganate does the same trick, you can pick it up from a chemist for about $7. It is a powder so you mix in enough till it's only pink (not purple) and leave for 30mins, then rinse plants and add to tank. I have no snails in my 4 foot tank now after the overhaul and doing this to all plants.

He could be referring to hair algae, I have some of this black stuff taking over my plants too. Is it long and wispy growing in conglomerations around the tops of plants, relatively easy to remove? Or short and growing in small patches, very hard to scrub off heaters and ornaments.

Argh! that's what I meant! sorry I wrote it around the wrong way must've been tired . Most label them as C. Julii, but they are C. Trilineatus, and they usually only have C. Trilineatus. You don't really see many Juliis aye Rob as they are usually wild caught from memory.

Hey Liz, most LFS sell Corydoras Julii (C. Julii) but incorrectly label them as C. Trilineatus. C. Julii has lots of fine spots on its head, C. Trilineatus as the name suggests just has lines.

hrmm few random stabs which wouldn't match up but -pictus catfish? -american flag (killi)fish? -flying fox? -siamese algae eater? <<-- thinking must be this...

I rung them up and the (*&(* didn't even know what kinda kelvin bulbs they had.

Best to keep them outside too as they need a lot of oxygen

Carbon Monoxide (which cars produce) is much worse than Carbon Dioxide.

Hi EK69, if you have good lighting and pumping in CO2 your O2 content during the day can reach over 100% O2 saturation. Therefore there's tonnes of O2 in the water which easily last the fish through the night. On pressuired systems some people use solenoid valves to stop the CO2 flow at night or use pH meters to control it. As yours is DIY you could get a T junction with a cap on the end of the " l " you simply take it off every night. It won't make much a difference to your pH as your plants don't put as much CO2 at night as they put out O2 during the day, plus your plants pick up the CO2 when the lights come back on, your actual lights off period wouldn't exceed the lights on period in most cases. Adding some baking soda raises your water's buffering capacity too so it won't swing at night if you have soft water with low pH it does risk this. Get a GH/KH (general hardness/carbonate hardness) testkit and aim for KH6. I think it is best to just test your pH every day and night for 7 days and see how much it is changing. Changes of 0.2pH / 24 hrs don't bother fish.

Interesting that you can use the peat method, can someone enlighten us and post details on how to do this, is it a covering of peat along the bottom of the tank or just in a margarine tub etc with a hole cut in the lid?

Yes, using tank water.

Hi Alan, they breed well in mops, take 10-14 days to hatch (you will see the fertile ones going dark and see their body and their eyes rolled up in a ball). I use 2 drops of well diluted methylene blue to prevent fungus. I keep the eggs in a chinese takeaway plastic container. You have to use the right plastic though otherwise it can destroy the eggs, e.g I've tried those large yoghurt containers but the eggs disentegrated each time. Not sure of any methods of how to increase your ratio of males/females if any. Store them in water. Room temperature is fine but hatching will take longer depending on temp. My first batch I put them in the top of the hot water cylinder and they hatched in 10 days. Mine are chocolate australe. HTH

Got home yesterday from work at 7:30pm and they had disappeared. Cause of death likely eaten but could've been sucked into filter too I suppose. Don't know if parents or other fish ate them. Ah well.....time to play the waiting game till next time and hope I can get the male to choose a different female (as the one he bred with had pointed fins top and bottom)

Hi there Kim&Dan, the ideal KH (carbonate hardness, not general hardness or GH) is 6 for buffering capacity. Due to your low hardness you are correct that is most likely why the pH dropped so suddenly. You used a lot of yeast, try 1/4 or 1/2 teaspoon, this will also make your mix last longer. Your sugar quantity is ideal. Forget the baking soda, wives tale. Add it to your tank instead, 1/8 teaspoon, this will bring your buffer capacity up and pH with it. You will learn how much baking soda to add compared to CO2 over time. The airstone isn't very efficient yes, but a lot of CO2 is still diffusing into the water as the bubbles rise. No, the bubbles don't sit on the water they pop and disperse into the air. Assuming you have 2 tanks, sounds like quite well stocked, so the wastes of the fish bring the pH down too. You said the pH out of the tap is 7.2-7.4 but have you tested the pH in the tank a while after a water change? How often do you water change? It will gradually drop in soft water. HTH

Yesss tis very exciting Neat to see their instinctive parental skills kick in. Yes I was going to bed last night (late) and looked in and I saw these tiny lil black bodies with tails sticking to the heater!! That was really cool and proves that I have a definite male and female. The parents cleverly moved them up the heater too, away from the heating coils where they would otherwise cook. There is about 10 and Mum and Dad have moved them to the filter intake now (luckily with a sponge prefilter on it so they don't get sucked up). Really cool to see the Mum last night she picked up a baby as it fell from the heater and carefully spat it back on. They took turns guarding the eggs but now both of them are full time babysitting which is hard work involving intently staring at them lol. Hey Ronnie what did you mean about saving the fry if the parents are good? From the timelines I have read they have been exact to the hour so far (hatch after 55 hours, free swimming the next 24 hours) so by my calculation they should be free swimming then which I think will be the most dangerous time for them due to the other discus in the tank. Will keep ya posted

It is surely the best addiction out there

After 16 months of daily 50%+ water changes finally out of the blue 2 out of my 5 large adult discus decide to spawn. The clutch is currently around 30 and they laid precariously on the heater. At first the male ate them but after some food he then clicked into parental mode and 52 hours later they are still being good parents taking turns guarding them. The fry will probably get eaten but we'll see what happens. I'll keep you posted. The female laying eggs and the male watching: The male doing a good job guarding:

Thanks for the comments guys Haha yes Ronnie it is what I like to refer to as fish s-porn NB: I have also updated a close up pic 3/4 of the way down on page 5 of this thread, originally the pic didn't work but now I use a better pic hosting site.

100cm long x 70cm high x 42 cm wide (front to back) Discus display tank

White worms love cat biscuits

Good old humans screwing up their habitat once again :roll:

Hey Feelers the Consumers Institute would likely refer to the terms and conditions of your retailer, which I assume in all cases would be that power supply is not guaranteed 100% of the time. They should pay out for faults of their own like disconnecting wrong property anything else would fall under the non guarantee of continuous supply. As Warren says the power isn't usually out for very long so isn't much of a problem. Just a note for those with hang on the back filters (HOBs) you may need to add water to the actual unit as it can siphon out into the tank when the power goes off and some aren't powerful enough to start going again when the power is restored.