suphew

Just so I have this straight, and I'm in no way implying anything about Hutt pets (which is a great shop) or any other shop or person, but what your saying is I could be ripped off blind, given the worst advice, horrified at how I've been treated, ignored, sold substandard stock, etc, and I shouldn't say a thing because it's a public forum. But if a shop or person just does what I think I should be able to expect like provide good service I should go out of my way to post compliments about them?

It's possible there will but other chemicals in the water, you could try and get the council to test the water for you. Which might pay anyway just in case it's bad for the fish AND for you. But the main problem is that by just treating the symptom something else will pop up. So you might stop the green water but then get bad green hair algae. Most likely if its ag chemicals, it will be phosphate in the water, there are lots of resins that remove phosphate and they will be cheaper than a UV filter.

When was the finger pointed at you?? Your name (I assume) came up suggesting that if you supplied the shop you should talk to them regarding how they kept them which I think is pretty fair comment. I know nothing about beardies, for all I know you may well be right regarding the condition of this one. I just pointed out that 3 new members appeared all at once with views opposing every one else, seemed very strange to me, and I still think that is the case. Good on you for going down and having a look, that was all that was suggested in the first place.

A UV filter should get rid of the green water, but it only treats the symptom, you need to address the cause, algae needs light and nutrients.

Not saying there is any thing dodgy going on but its interesting that the 3 new posters in this thread all joined up on the same day, and posted with hours (minutes for the first two) of each other. It would be great for this forum if there were 3 genuine new experienced posters.

Here is a link to a thread about controllers. It's useful because it has links to sites selling them and the NZ agent for one brand. http://www.nzmas.co.nz/site/viewtopic.php?t=1882

I wouldn't buy a chiller at the outset, just allow for one in case you need it later on. I don't have one on my tank, the temp has never been over 30 degrees which is fine for short periods. What you should buy is a temperature controller, this will cost you round $100-$150 will turn on heaters and fans/chiller. To throw in something else, if I was going to start buying equipment again I'd be having a good look at getting a computer controller, by the time you add up the costs of timers, Ph controllers, top up, temp controllers, etc etc the control computer don't cost much more but appear to work so much better.

Anything you put under the stand is just going to help trap water under it. You need to either not spill water :lol: , remove the carpet, or have an air gap under the stand so air can move and dry the carpet out, what I mean by that is have a stand with feet rather than a flat bottom. Don't discount removing the carpet, I have done this in my house (although I do own it) I kept the removed carpet and will get a carpet layer to rejoin it when I want it back in, you would be surprised how many joins there are in most carpets anyway

It is worth putting effort into removing them because they will become a plague.

Not sure I agree with this, too large a heater can stress the fish by changing the temperature too fast, also it doesn't take much of a heater to maintain the temperature, I would rather my fish were a little cold for a few hours over night than cooked because my heater jammed on. Saying it wont cook the fish unless the thermo breaks, is just the problem, they do break! The ideal setup is to have two or more smaller heaters. That way if one jams on it wont cook the tank, and if one jams off the fish wont freeze.

Feed the sliders out of the tank, put a water filter in there.

Ops just realised this isn't in the in one of the sales forum's

Do you know if it's aiptasia eater??? If so I have plenty food for it, might be interested

What about other danio's?

Not worried about seeing them, the WCMM's breed like crazy, I used to fish them out to give away (which is why I have no more, I gave too many away one day :oops: ). The reason I keep them is 1) because the ponds there 2) it keeps the mossie's at bay.

I have an outdoor pond it's pretty sheltered but still gets pretty cold, I have a couple of gold fish and have had WCMM's successfully breeding in there. What other options for fish do I have??

Do a search on SCWD

Recent studies have actually show we might be worse off without cats because they keep populations of rats and mice in check. They still aren't good, but as per the Teara web site "It is difficult and expensive to rid the bush of cats. It took 128 people almost 400 days to remove 100 cats from Little Barrier Island. In some cases they can be seen as a lesser evil, as they prey on rats, which cause even more damage." One of the reason they were introduced was to control rabbits hahaha. In parts of Aussie, they have to be kept indoors, or on leads if taken outside

As above, this is how durso's work. This stops your pipe turning into a full syphon and draining your overflow box, which then breaks the syphon letting your box fill up again, and the cycle repeats. This cycle makes your overflow sound like it is "flushing". It takes some time to adjust the durso air hole to the correct size, but once it is done it shouldn't need adjusting again and your overflow should be very close to silent. Check out this site for details http://www.dursostandpipes.com/ The other option is to run a 'full syphon' system to do this you adjust the tap to limit the flow until it is balanced so you aren't sucking air but are still keeping up with the flow into the tank, to use this system you really need another back up overflow pipe because as you can imagine if your flow changes (by something blocking the overflow a little bit) the balance will go out and your tank will flood.

Do you have any kalk power yet? If so mix it into a paste (like toothpaste) and completely cover the little buggers, some suggest just putting a little bit on them but I find this (and most other things) just makes them break up into smaller bits that re-attach and grow again. Taking the rock out makes this easier but also makes it hard to spot them, they just look like a little slimy patch out of the water. There is also a new product from red sea call aiptasia-x that looks like it might be good, but I haven't seen it here yet.

I just syphoned mine out using a normal syphon hose. I think syphoning is the best option (with-out pulling the whole tank apart) because you don't stir up the dirty sand as you remove it. You will have to do it a few times because of the sand under rocks that will work it's way out, plus it pays not remove it all at once, just because it is a big change to the tank.

Shame hamilton water also smells so bad and its use is restricted. :lol:

My tank loses about 60l per week. I have a semi sealed canopy and an extractor fan that pumps the damp air outside.

A change of 6.5-7 is actually quite a bit change, the scale is logarithmic so a PH 4 is ten times more acidic than pH 5 and 100 times (10 times 10) more acidic than pH 6. Using shell can be quite a good option because the amount it breaks down depends on the acidity, when you Ph drops it will break down faster and push your Ph back up. The problem is that you don't know what else is in the shell that is going to end up in your water.

Baking soda will increase your Kh, very commonly used in marine tanks to increase kh. It wont however increase your Ca or Mg, do do this you need calcium chloride and magnesium chloride, the first can be purchased from a pool shop, the second from farm supply shop. however, NEVER add any chemicals to a fish tank unless you can test for them, it is very easy to over dose. IMO for normal planted tanks tap water usually has okay Kh etc levels, you are better off doing large water changes than dosing chemicals. If your parameters are dropping very fast I would be looking at other causes, like drift wood causing the water to go soft, or using rain water for water changes. As an aside watch your Ph if you have low Kh, low Kh will let the Ph swing a lot, to test the Ph for swings, you have to test in the morning and evening, or two different times of day at least. Injecting CO2 into the water will also cause larger Ph swings.