suphew

Shouldn't this be in the commercial trade and exchange area?

To prove it one way or the other wouldn't you need to let it stablize, then remove your balls ( ) and see if the params go back up again? Otherwise surely you have changed two things (removing filter media and adding balls) then used this as proof that one of them worked when fact the balls may have been doing nothing. (NB I'm not saying they don't work, just saying you need to test properly if you want to put this forward as proof)

Thats is a funny lenth! Theres a guy in Wellies called the light bulb man that has every thing, there must be someone similar up your way. A friend got a reptile tube from him the other day, LPS $56, LBM $35 for the exact same brand tube. But all electrical stores stock daylight (6200k) tubes, just not sure if they would have that size. Anyway the higher K tubes are fine, but you only need 6200k which are common and therefore cheaper. Light spectrum starts at red/yellow then green, then blue. Water obsorbs more at the lower end (reds) than the higher (blues) therefore you dont want to go below 6200k but anything above that is fine, the higher K (blues) tend to make the tank look cleaner and crisper so some people like them more. There ae a number of posts there that have all the details if you are interested in looking

If its not your water supply thats causing it, it must be something in the tank, maybe a rock or shell in your substrate. Putting some peat in your filter should soften the water but might make the water brown/yellow. However you should try and find the cause, to test your rocks take them out of the tank and put vingar on them if they bubble (fizz) at all they will increase your hardness.

Thanks Jo1, I'll pass that on. As I said I have never had an Eheim cannister filter but isn't it normal to have the mechanical filter (i.e. sponges) before any of the biological which I assume the ceramic tubes are? So that the big bits of rubbish don't block the pores etc and clog the media.

I run two fluval 204's both been running 4-5 years, never missed a beat. Animates in Wlg often sell them for $150 or so, can really see how it's worth going for a 'cheap' brand when you can get them for that price. I have used other brand filters (hang-on, internal etc) but no other brand cannister filters, would never go back to internal etc, what a pain they are, ugly and noisy. I have a friend with an older Ehiem, he has to reprime every time he cleans it, plus has to remove all the media to get to the sponges, which are in the bottom. 204's are great, push up the tap, pop the top, slide out the sponge, done in 5 minutes.

I have renovated most off my house around fish tanks and never had a problem, just cover your tank, and lots of ventilation

yes you are right, but the point I was trying to make was for someone who hasnt kept ANY FISH of ANY TYPE, learning how to run a tank that provides the basics that discus need takes time. for example, there is a person I work with that has a goldfish filled perspex coffee table, every month she removes everything, takes it all outside, cleans it all down with the hose, then fills it all back up again with the hose, as far as she is concerned the fish live, it is clean, they get feed, maybe I should suggest she gets some discus? Buying fish then killing them so you can learn what you did wrong isn't the most positive way to learn and doing it with discus is just an easy way of handing over lots of money to shops and local breeders. Discus are easy to keep any and the only two I have ever lost was due to not knowing the basics of how to keep them, but BK hasn't even got them yet but is assuming hes going to lose over 20% of them.

I dont want to tell you not to buy them cause they have a purpose, but I have a ton of kits and rearly ever use them, when I do its just normally for interest. reasons for using them (NB this comes with a big IMHO clause) 1) you like doing tests (hey I have gone through stages of it!) 2) you have a new setup and you want to know how its going 3) you have fish that require special conditions that need to be checked like PH 4) you have a problem, like algal blooms, fish that keep getting sick etc

laterite is good if you can afford it, when I was looking at it I think it was round $30 a boxand I was going to need 10+ boxes to do my tank. Clay is the cheap DIY version, the point is to get the fertilizer in, most of which is iron (which is why laterite has its red color). If you are lucky enough to live some where with red clay it basically the same stuff (so I have been told). I have some of those JBL ball things, they seem to work, but are just made of baked clay and turn to very soft clay (almost like silt) a few days after they get into your tank so would give you the same problem! IMHO they are a way for people who didn't add the right stuff to their substrate in the first place to then add it later with out making a mess. My latest tank was cloudy for a couple of days, but I'm not at all careful when adding the first lot of water (I often just use the hose). The tank has to age for a few days anyway plus isn't going to look good for a few months when the plants getting some size to them. I don't think matt was talking about adding a UGF?? maybe have a re-read, its generally accepted that water flowing through the plants roots doesnt help. They has been a huge amount of debate over substrate heating, the conclusions I have come to (and this is just my opinion) 1) they are very fiddly (and risky if you use powered ones) to setup 2) I haven't seen any proof that it makes any difference, and how hard would it be, just setup two tanks the same side by side, yet I have never heard of anyone doing this 3) water transfers heat wouldn't any heat generated in the substrate tend to heat the whole tank to the same temp anyway, which defeats the purpose?

Hi BK, sorry to have offended you, but if you had supplied the information that you have now at the start I would have taken it into consideration when giving advise. However I still stand by what I said regarding 6 months before adding discus, as I tried to state part of this is to allow your tank to mature but the larger part is so YOU can learn what you are doing. Yes I do keep Discus have been doing so for 5+ years, I also lost my first two discus trying to do what you are doing and I had 10 years experience with many different types of fish at the time. I currently have a marine setup and mixed discus setup, but have had up to 7-8 tanks at a time before and have been keeping fish for 20+ years off and on. If you decide to go ahead with the discus I wish you the best of luck, they are great fish and well worth all the extra effort. With regards your PH question (assuming you are still interested on my opinon!!) because discus have been tank breed for a long time now they tend to be alot less sensitive to PH unless you are to trying to breed them, it is better to have constant PH than one that keeps changing because you keep changing things to try and lower it. Personally I use around 40% rain water in my water changes to soften it and keep PH low. It did of course it take me a good 6 months to get this ratio right and for my PH to stablize but then what do I know aye..... Jack Wattle is a Discus god , but he does breed and keep the most difficult strains of discus, as well as developing new strains. Trying to compare what Jack does to what the average home keeping needs to do is like comparing a backyard bucket racer to an F1 team. IMHO of course.

I spray all the surfaces where flies like to land in my house (like the roof, light fittings etc) with ripcord mixed with water using an old stray and wipe bottle, only do it a couple of times a year, and the flies they drop like.... well dead flies I fact I haven't even done it this year and havn't seen any live flies just a few bodies.

10-15% weekly at the moment, more because I can than because I think I need to. Wil properly slow down once the weather goes crappy

Most of the bacteria is in the gravel, filter, etc, not the water. The only reasons for holding onto water is so the parameters don't change too much and shock the fish when you put them back in (which you can get around by accliamatising them like you would when they come from the pet shop) or if you don't have a supply of aged water at the other end. I would just take enough water to keep the gravel and filter wet, and arrange for some aged water at the other end.

IMHO your tank is far far to new to have that many fish and will most likely be causing your problems. A tank should cycle for a month or more with just a few fish and even then should have fish added slowly. Also Discus are difficult to keep, I (and most people who keep discus) recommend not keeping them until a tank has been running for 6 months, this is to allows the tank to mature properly and to give you time to get your water (and maintainance) stable. Discus are very messy fish because of how they eat and their waste (which is the reason for a bare bottom tank), adding $640 (so I'm assuming 5+) worth of discus all at once will cause a huge nitrite etc spike in a none matured tank that will likely kill them all. Sorry to be the barer of bad news, but I think you just need to slow down bit

I agree with Matt, and use a similar setup. My plants grow so fast I have given up on using C02 to try and slow them down. There are two main advantages of putting the fertiliser under the gravel, it keeps it out of the water colume so only the plants have access to it, when you add fertiliser to the wtaer you are feeding it to the algae as well, secondly it saves a lot of money and hassle, you do it once and forget it, no need to buy/dose expensive fertilisers. Plus plants absorb most of the fertiliser via their roots (thats why that have them after all!) some absorb okay via leaves others very poorly. Aquatic potting mix is mostly clay and sand I put around 2cm's of gravel on top of it and have no problems with it coming through, when you vacuum the gravel just do the surface, I don't even pull any gravel into the vacuum just the floaties, all the fish waste is just more plant fertiliser and only needs to be removed to make the tank look clean. Regarding your lights, I'm assuming because you have 3 foot lights (so a 3 foot tank?) and 180 liters that your tank is quite deep? (top to bottom), if so you might want to look at more light, water absorbs/blocks a lot of light, most of the calculations on the net regarding watts per liter etc are based of standard water depths because yours is deeper you will need more watts per liter. You cant really have to much light for a planted tank (assuming you keep the C02 and fertiliser in balance), but you can easily have too little. Don't boil/clean anything you dont have to (with-in reason of course), if anything it will make your algae worse because you will end up doing a partial cycle with a full fish load, bacteria is your friend, you will only control the algae by having a matured balanced tank. There is very little bacteria in the water itself, its growing on the surfaces of the gravel, logs, tank, etc etc. Plants like as deep a substrate as you can give them, why don't you leave you current gravel in the tank, mix potting mix and peat with it (I use about 50/50 aquatic potting mix/gravel and a few hand fulls of peat), then just add a new layer of gravel on top to keep the mucky stuff down? The water will go cloudy, but even with new clean gravel with nothing in it, it will go cloudy, its almost impossible to clean all the dirt out of it. If you can afford to, buy a proper C02 regulator, IMHO DIY C02 is messy, a lot of hassle, gives little control over C02 levels, risky (do a search for postings of people with exploding coke bottles, tanks full of yeasty foam, and drained tanks), and basically gives pretty average results. Don't get me wrong a lot of people are using them successfully and it does work, but a proper system just does the job so much better with no hassles. The fish will be fine for days (or weeks) in a plastic bin, as lot as you have a heater (which proberly don't even need this time of year) and run your filter so the water doesn't get too dirty, it's just another fish tank really. your fish don't need light, but your plants will suffer if they go for more than a few days without light, the warehouse sell 40liter clear(ish) plastic storage bins with lids (and wheels so you can move it) for under $20 you could use something like this, it would let in enough light to keep you plants going for a few days. Feel like I have written a book now, good luck with which ever method(s) you decide to use.

This time of year I wouldn't even worry about putting in a heat source, I would bag them up and put them in a chilly bin or poly box. If you can get it use pure oxygen in the bags. Remember they come all the way from over sea's in little bags and poly boxes. I assume because you have posted in the saltwater section they are marine fish, tho it seems like a lot of marine fish for a 60l tank???? Do you have live rock to move as well, this can be done again in a poly box covered in wet newpaper, or I just moved some from Akl to Wlg with an over night stay in Ham using a 60l water tight drum 1/3-1/2 filled with water. I think you biggest problem is going to be what to do with them once you get up here, are you going to get a tank setup and running here first?

I assume the ramp goes into the corner where the tank sides are joined? This is where you need to be really careful, it might pay to have some silicone on hand in case you need to patch the corner.

Not sure how good a contact you would get with the surfaces being wet, but I have glued in my marine tank and filled it 10 min later with no problems. If marine inverts etc survived I'm sure you would have no problems. There are two types on silicone the one you want is the one that smells really strong (a bit like vinagar), and make sure it doesn't say anything about mold resistance

Hay, noticed that you stated your using 2x3/4inch holes to replace 1x1.5inch, I assume you realise 2x3/4inch holes will only give you half the area (therefore flow) of a 1.5 inch hole? If you actually need a 1.5inch hole you will need 4x3/4.

I carried some corals from Akl to Wlg as carry on, used a small poly box (about a foot each side), the customs (or whatever they are) guys got really excited but just cause they wanted to see what they looked like, they were so disappointed when they found they just looked like brown lumps of jelly! However I have heard of people having problems cause the rules actually say 'no live animals in the passanger compartment', but they just worked their way up the chain of command till they found someone that would let them. Most people wont willingly kill something that is sitting in front of them, so saying "do you want to kill these fish because they are going to going to die if you don't let me onto the plane with them....." works a treat.

Having never kept one I'm no expert but wouldn't it be very difficult to keep a Manadrin in a tank that size given their feeding requirements?

Air pumps are noisy, and can cause algae on your cover glass due to the splashing. I avoid them when possible, there isn't much need for them with cheaper powered filters. As stated it is the water surface contact that puts the O2 into the water, air pumps can help because each bubble has a surface, but IMHO directing the output from your filter so it breaks the surface work better.

If you want to run more then one tank it is worth setting them up so they all use the same water, i.e. both sharing the same sump. This makes life alot easier in the long run, increases you water volume, saves doubling up with equipment like skimmers heaters etc etc, lets you add and remove tanks with out having to cycle. The other option (as some people here have done) is to use your sump for your non reef safe fish, the down side to this is you have all your equipment and plumbing in there so spoils the look a little, and often people run the sumps lights on the opposite cycle to the main lights, this helps with keeping the PH stable.

Also if you have lots and you use a chemical to kill them don't forget to clean out all the bodies, or they will rot and go nasty.