henward

so you quarantine them with wtih spot cure? how should i quarantine them? I am heavily considering separating them first anyways, and can act as quarantine for a few months, then when certain, mix them together. no harm in that. i want them eating well befoer i mix them i guess. but thinking bout it, competition makes them eat more too. but if i get a school of 20 small ones, there is competition none the less.

cool sounds good! guess will mix!

what do you feed yours? they all get food to eat/

ok i have a group of medium to large clown loaches.... 6cms to 20cms about 16 to 18, i dont remember. I am thinking of getting a school of small clowns, so its cheap, and so i can see whcih on grows fastest and largest quckly...... should i put them all into my 1200Litre? Or should i separate small ones wtiht he medium to large group? i figure, theya re schooling fish,a nd would benefit from having a huge school. if i feed, i will certainly feed enough so everyone gets food...but will the small one actually get food? keep in mind, i am not shy with feeding or have the need tob e:d i will feed tetra bits, nls thera 1 1mm pellets and beef heart discus mix

i use eheim bio media in my fx5.

100w heater would be very overkill...but good cos it wont use much power after heating as it maintains it well. as for stocking. i have had one, for 2 drawf puffers, more than sufficient. planted, even better! but really they are meant for low stock and plants display tanks.

david, can grab a roll or half a roll off me to try. i burnt out my food processor trying to up the mix haha 1kg to 1.2 kg. and it burnto ut. i think a total of 1kg total mix is a good amount

consdiering a few smaller ones to grow too i am gonan recycle my discus beef mix for the clowns! they lvoe it! tried it now, they go nuts for it

i guess, im a value for money kinda guy. eheim is great, but too expensive.... and its the best...why? because its made well, sure...... it focuses more on bio filtration sure. but the end of the day..... like isaid, 2fx5 will far outfilter 1 eheim filter of the same rank. because its 2 vs 1. 2 eheims or 4 fx5. guarantee - you WILL NEVER have amonia problems with that monster filtration

id ditch the splish and splash and upgrade to a 2 to 3 feeot to be honest not worth really having a comm tank that small in my opinion. youc nt fully appreciaet the schooling effect of small fish and tetras

fraser, i feel highly attached to those dels! yeah, recently i have had experimentation on the mind. discus, but not really my main thing. but its ok, i gave them a go, i like them but not my thing! arowanas is where its at. also clown loaches, theres something about them schooling that i love!

also be aware, alot of photos you see in the internet is taken wtih a red or enhanced light above the tank. some are even photoshopped. you can alawys tell, same fish with white light versus red light. Golds are harder to fake. because golds wills hine in white light, and in red light it doesnt work. but red arowanas, if ind that in red light, the arowana can look unbelievably red, but really in white light, its not as red. still beautiful fish and nice fish, but the red light makes a difference. so i judge a red arowana by the looks under white light. to see hwo red the scales are.

David: have mercy! :evil: lol lol yes, davids post is as involved as you would have it. Gold and reds and greens are from asia, but from different parts of asia. some in similar systems, but they evolved to be different colours over millions of years. Asian arowanas can however cross with each other... while the south american variants, wether it be the silver and black to arapaima as far asi know cannot cross with asian species. Asian species are crossed to create different scale base colours and scale rim colours. The rims thicken depending on care and selectively chosen animals. Out of 2 parents, 3 grades can come out. and bottom to top grade can differ 3k to 4k in price NZD difference. This is chosen by the breeder, and selectors....in turn they determine, well predict that the fish will more so be redder and scales are fuller in red, and maybe more scales actually turn red, as opposd to only a few scales and some scales are not fully red, jsut rims.... the fuller the colour, of course the more expensive. same kinda goes with Gold variants. but gold variants are more measured on how many rows of scales turn full gold. In my post, My RTG is a '4th level' Gold. meaning up to the 4th row of scales are gold. Then you get 5th level whcih is 1 to 1.5k NZD more than mine. And you get a 'crossback' whcih means the gold crosses the top. Thats about 4k to 5k i believe. Then y ou get a FULL GOLDEN HEAD, everything is just gold - and the scales are so shiny it can actually make you squint! thats about 7k appetite, strength and aggressiveness even is apparently bred into the fish. to ensrue they liek to eat. some arowanas fast often.... i found that my RTG does nto fast much, eats consistently. grew better. my grade 2 jsut didnt eat as nicely, and didnt grow as nicely. it fasted mroe frequently than the RTG. The grade 2 is a cross with a cheap red and a wild green arowana. There is only one person in NZ that i know of that imports and specialises in this fish. He has a wealth of knowledge......and he appreciates and imports only the top fish you can get. so dont bother asking him to bring in cheapies. He jsut wont. (i tried 8) ) but then again, why bother wtih cheapies....they look like nothign special. I had a grade 2 red arowana, sold it now, but really wasnt that impressive! I am not advertising for him - but i do believe he does good by bringing these animals in! we need more people that privately import fish intio NZ. www.arowana.co.nz Hope he sees thsi post and WHEN the time comes to bring in fish for me, he 'may' give me special consideration or discount hahaha :bounce: ok maybe not...........anyways. that website showspictures of asian arowanas asian arowana's colours and good looks are msotly from genetics. Then diet, water comes in to it. you can even TAN your fish, LITERALLY by putting a bulb wtih the right UVA and UVB output, it deepends colours and widens the colour spread! I have tanned my RTG.... with good food, growth, and good genetics from PANG LONG FARM in singapore.... my rtg has almost full gold scales, soemthing that some people have told me was not possible with cheaper gold arowanas:) but ins aying that, coul be luck too patially. but yes, aroawnas no matter what get big, big filters are needed, and big tanks a must. so really need to see what you want out of your arowana or if you want it at all...........its hard getting rid of large dilver arowanas. They are easy to mov when little, but when big - really somewhat cumbersome for most.

yeah, in my school, i have a range of sizes. from 5cms to 20ish scms. i guess wanting to beef all of them up lol

Ok my next mission is to severely grow and enlarge my clown loaches. I currently feed it sinking hikari gold. Occasional tetra bits and they pick on beef heart ball i drop in. moving them to a tank wtih less competition so they can focus on eating!! the group will be a 20 to 22... lost count or never really counted. anyways... i am thinking of feeding NLS THERA+A. small enough to get in one bite, and even for smaller fish, they can suck it up too. suggestiosn on which NLS to feed?

SNEAKY: how doyou feed, just release insects or you must hvae a natural source ay? wow! is that outdoor, can we have more pics? perhaps how you access it, view it, any different viweing angles? etc, curious looks awesome!

gott aput that th ing down dude. no eyes, that fish is just suffering! its sad, but best way i reckon, in a bag or let, and the mightiest whack against a hard stone wall! instant death. sad!! but it happens. what you can do is learn from this! dont give up dude. it seems that the ornate, is a problem ornate when an ornate does that, it will keep doing it. I reckon get rid of the ornate - dont keep it. some fish have a tendency to do things like that, some dont. i have an ornate, does not attack or eat other fish.... albeit ate a smallish clown loach but hes a gentle giant. yours sounds like its a monster already even small. dont give up!!! get another jar and start again!

fair enough. i actually think the eheim looks awesome! looks spaceship lke

EVIL ELMO YOU SHOW OFF! :lol: agreed, if you knew what he kept then you would probably spend that much on equipment too but in my opinion - eheim bio filtration is not DOUBLE the effectiveness of a fluval, yet double in price, and its reliability is not double reliable either. so, if you buy 2 fluval fx5 - and you get 1 eheim for it....then you are effectively doing more filtration. My opinion i guess, if i had deep pockets, i would probably go eheim cos i like the colour:) but, generallyspeaking - fluval is best VALUE FOR MONEY.

melafix

witht he german shipping, only i think 6 or 8 came in. i think 6. but i got one befoer it entered teh country! i booked it up lol there is one left in my memory in shops, litereally, only one. HFF albany has it - 160 for the fish. nice and big fat too! good condition. i reckon they will ship

for 1 eheim high output filter (not thermo) just a big capacity eheim youc an get 2 fluval fx5 i guarantee you 2 fluval fx5 will crank up your filtration like something cronic you can probably poo and pee in that tank! in my 2x 1200 system, sharing the same filtration, i have 3 fx5 plus 2 sumps. the fx5 clear the water so well! eheim is good...but really, value for money they are bad

African brown knife asian brown knife brown ghost black ghost clown knife royal knife chitala chitalla which is a clown variant wtih no spots at all just silver green striped knife (bought in ages ago, still around) gymnotus carapo south american banded knife. thats all the knives i know thats here

I think its almost the same as a giant gourami..........but at least giant gourami takes longer to grow. pacus can be very big in short amount of time. wonder why people keep buying them? i mean......its so impractical

david, i agree with you, that comment was not supposed to be serious, a sarcastic and cynical comment - forgot to put a emoticon haha yes, i dont beeive they should be sold only sold to order .... or informed of their potential size from purchase.