Luke*

How young are they? Young ones are more fragile than older ones. Discus like a lot of fresh water: very low or no nitrate. In a bare bottom tank it's also easier to see if anything is wrong with their faeces which might tell you what disease they have, if any. The easiest thing to start with is getting the water conditions right. They like it warmer 28-30 degrees celsious and just make sure the pH is constant. Hope this helps.

Great Caryl nice job

I wouldn't let him breed, or at least the fry survive. The aim should be healthy good looking discus. Some fry might come out ok but then if they spawn their fry can have those bad genetics from the original. Where did you get all your discus from?

Oh yeah love those tetras! Just gotta breed them and get a huge school. Obviously the commericial breeders are doing it cuz there's so many in the LFS tanks. In saying that when I've tried I've got about 6-10 fry.. well will keep perservering.

My LFSs all have it

I hear what you're saying Agoh, does seem like a shame/waste. My lemon tetras were breeding yesterday but I figured it was awesome caviar nutrition for the cardinals/rummies/black neons/clown loaches. However I managed to grab the male which i'm going to condition now. Aren't congos worth quite a bit from memory??

There's also that cory with those gold side fins (forget the name) which otherwise looks like a sterbai cory. I think the prettiest are Aldolfoi corydoras but of course i'm biased as I have some. http://www.diszkosz.hu/0204pictures/cory_adolf_0136.jpg

Yeah 1W/litre would be excellent for a fast growing aquarium. Yes if you're referring to pressurised CO2 (as opposed to CO2 out of a soda stream bottle) then that's way better than DIY yeast, have just upgraded myself, way easier to get a consistent dose of CO2. Yeast builds up to a peak then starts to die down.

Ammonia doesn't affect goldfish as much as tropicals. Or they don't build up as much, I've heard something like this before, I'm sure someone can clarify. There's 3 big ones back home that've never had a filter and have gone fine for years, not a big tank either.

Caboomba and Ambulia are fast growing tall plants. Rotala indica grows tall too. These are pretty common in pet shops. I'm not sure what you mean injecting CO2 straight from the bottle? What you want is a constant supply to keep conditions more stable, yeast mix is fine. I would increase your lighting, those units aren't sufficient IMO. I have 2X that on my 300L and would still like more.

Looks like sterbai cories in there too?

There's aquatic clays you can buy (I just use some from Raglan covered with brightwater gravel). You could just use gravel and add substrate fertilisers if you wanted to. Brightwater gravel is the dark stuff which looks nice with tetras. There's laterite which is supposed to be a natural plant substrate, quite expensive though. And there's always sand which is pretty cheap and you can get it in black or baige; the plants find it easy to grow in sand. Choice is yours

Thanks Al

Hey all, was wondering if it is a major problem to have 1cm either side of the length of the tank hanging off the edge of the stand. I'm looking at buying just a tank and it's 2cm too wide for the stand. Is it better to get a board to put underneath that supports the whole thing or doesn't it really matter? Tank would be 60cm tall. Cheers

Vjarn, MADDOG mentions both sodium bicarbonate (baking soda, to increase pH) and sodium biphosphate (to reduce pH). Just thought i'd clarify

Discus prefer to be by themselves, and like said, prefer constant pH than a fluctuating one. Think of it as humidity, if you went to Thailand for a month you'd get use to it, if you went back and forth every day or two it'd stress you out.

Check your general and carbonate hardness before adding CO2. You want about 6KH (carbonate hardness) to keep a constant pH. Most places in New Zealand have soft water. Here i have 0-1GH and 0-1KH so I add baking soda to raise the hardness and keep the pH stable. CO2 leads to quick pH crashes without any buffer if you have soft water.

Thanks heaps Bill. I see Mitre10 has a big sale this weekend. Hopefully they're still open. Cheers

Hey is it fine to use peat moss for filtering into fish water from the garden shops or mitre10 etc?? Just thought i'd check before i buy a bag. Cheers

So do these usually hang on the back of your tank or how do you position them?

Feed on the the... infusoria/green water. Is this what you were thinking of Ballistic?

Futhermore, who would sell a breeding pair of clown loaches? If they were smart they'd realise the commercial potential.

I'd rather be scared than have dead discus Good to hear they're doing better.

I got a big sack of black sand from the local pool shop. It says "fine grade" and if you rub some between your fingers it doesn't feel too abrasive. It has been used so far with some cories no probs. I think it cost about $10-15. Cheers

With your DIY yeast/CO2 setup alcohol is produced and this is what kills the yeast eventually. Brewers yeast or even better champagne yeast is much more tolerant to alcohol than your normal bakers yeast, hence your mix would last longer. Otherwise yeah just get a bigger container; use standard amount of yeast, this way it'll take longer for the alcohol to build up and kill it.