Luke*

A beautiful eclectic mix of plants complemented by obvious planning and impecable presentation. Well done Fay! One of the nicest tanks i've ever seen.

Looks great Caryl, our flat just purchased a 180X60 paddling pool that i thought would be cool setup as a discus biotype tank similar to what you've setup there. Just need some way of suspending a few heaters and some good powerheads for circulation. All the best

Nice and high I think a really wide tank would be awesome, really terrain-like.

Albinos aren't blind, just like humans, but they definitely all have sight problems (this is my understanding anyway). I use to buy albino varieties but now I avoid any type of albino fish due to this reason.

I also have this lethal sounding stuff, did you notice "is known to the state of California to cause cancer" on it too? That scared me a lil. Does an excellent job on green/brown long hair algae which I am unfortunately blessed with. At normal does it freaks the fish, they all school and look scared after adding, then about a month later when it's worn off I need to add it again. I was thinking maybe if I add it regularly it would eventually just kill all the hair algae off altogether... wishful thinking???

Excellent

Most people would agree stereos and fish are not a good combination. Those items you listed are mostly made to benefit the fish, not deteriorate it. Why does it say at LFSs "do not tap on glass"?

Have to say it....I think anyone that thinks music/speakers/vibrations/bass/dB and fish are a good thing, don't care much about fish. Haven't seen a lot of speakers near the Amazon lately.

(First of all i agree with Melanotaenia, good ideas, except I think most of NZ's water is soft, doesn't mean to say the O2/CO2/alkaline exchange still didn't occur, my tap here is 0-1DH but is 7.8+pH). How long had the neons been in there? I'm thinking ammonia. When I had a bunch of guppies in an uncycled tank once pretty much only the pregnant females died. The males were left largley unscathed. Not sure why this was but thought it would be worth sharing. Perhaps ammonia attacks and irritates the gills?

Man must take a heap of capital for all those tanks, my biggest tank is exactly the same, can't imagine trying to look after 150+ of them! Cool to have a discus importer in NZ.

Cycling takes about 6 weeks, if you leave adults or fry in there they will die of ammonia poisoning before that time is up. If you add adults they will release more ammonia and thus kill the inhabitants faster. Water changes with no filter will prolong that period. As Caryl said, buy a sponge filter, put it in an already cycled tank for 2 weeks, then put it in with the fry. Doing large weekly water changes should last the fry long enough until your filter is ready to be moved in with them.

Speaking of this, I decided to expand my whiteworm culture with some garden soil, however this soil contained little white mites and some earthworms, now all the white worms are dead and there's little things that look like white worms but have 2 antenna looking things, are these possibly baby earth worms? Anyone have any ideas as to what killed the whiteworms?

Hey Nick, should find lots of info on a simply google search. I'm not familiar with that type of tetra but i'd say they're just like any other: pH 6.5, temp 27, condition adults first with range of foods, place female in spawning tank in afternoon, add male about an hour later. Check for eggs in the morning, allow 24-48 hours to hatch, keep tank dark. Luckily our tap water is really soft, great for breeding. Hope this helps. Cheers

Thanks Dan, good idea.

Hey guys and gals, thanks for all your kind comments, I clearly pay you too much. Yeah the plants are all real Brianemone but I'm sorry I'm not sure what the palmey plant is called, I got in Auckland a long time ago, if anyone else knows please feel free to pipe up. The substrate is just gravel from the LFS, it's cheap stuff that the LFS owner tells me comes from a local source. You can't really see in the pic but I also have a layer of clay underneath the gravel which I picked up from Raglan. Apologies for the quality of the photo, the camera is cheap so the colours didn't come out quite as nice as it really looks. Cheers

Maybe it would be easier to count the buckets of water you add? I suppose it's already full tho is it?

What kind of tropicals specifically? I've bred neons, rummies and only got about 20 fry out of those, glowlights i got about a 100 but ended up with 6. Cheers

Hey guys, thought i'd just post a pic of my 75G/300L. Here it is... (click on link to get larger size) http://image18.webshots.com/18/5/42/75/215154275CgIsqZ_ph.jpg My discus are here... http://image18.webshots.com/18/5/43/8/215154308tOsXTU_ph.jpg

Congratulations If only tropicals had that many eggs Keep us posted about fry

If it stays constant why add pH down? Just use the water straight, let your fish adjust to it first though. Consistent pH is more important than a fluctuating pH and popular belief is that it doesn't really matter what that consistent pH is. For example discus can quite happily be kept in a constant pH of 7.8+, not so long ago this was considered certain doom.

I'd hate to see a Target episode on it myself Like Wok has said, the bacteria is in the filters, don't worry about moving all the water, fish prefer clean water to used water, just make sure the new water has the same parameters (pH, kH, dH), to get this you might just have to let it filter/agitate for 24 hours first to stabalise it. Do some large water changes leading up to the shift so the fish get use to fresh water. If you go for setting up the old tank, I recommend having it ready at least 24 hours before you start as there's always last minute things to do. The good news is you have plenty of time to get new filters established. It only takes two weeks running a filter in an established tank (with established filter) to make the new filter with beneficial bacteria and thus also become established. I'd just buy a couple of large sponge filters with strong air pumps. Then all you have to do is move the fish and filters and fill up the new (old) tank, and do the same when you return them back to your tank again.

Very good idea Bill i think that will save a lot of hassles...now if I could just get a starter myself then I could pass it on to others...

Just to clarify Scarlet, the millennium dan is talking about is a hang on the back type filter like the Aqua Clear/Ones.

I think hang on the back filters are the best way to go. About half the cost of external cannister filters, are really easy to clean, and do just as good a job. For a 3ft tank I recommend an AquaClear 300 (I think they're branded AquaOne's now). You ideally want a filter that pumps 5X the water volume in one hour. [Water volume is calculated by multiplying widthXheightXlength of your tank and dividing by 1000 to get litres, divide again by 4 to roughly get the volume in US gallons.]

It's unlikely that those 5 discus are all female and laying eggs. Check out: http://www.simplydiscus.com/library/bre ... ning.shtml PS something the article doesn't mention is using a barebottom tank. 29gallons (120litre) is ideal. Have only a few things in the tank like a spawning cone, this makes it easy for the fry to find the parents as they eat the slime off their sides. Use sponge filters. Goodluck