DiverJohn

That was my thought, or perhaps a bit of contamination in your testtubes? GIve them a thourough rince in the sink, then fill, shake and discard 2 or 3 tubes full of the tank water you are going to test. Also test the water your putting in (as per sharkey's post), something might have contaminated it. HTH JJ

Hi DM, Keep an eye on your Sharks... they groooooowwww and can zoom about pretty quick ! They also like to jump! JJ

HI Candy, i had this exact same problem, and i was stumped for a while too. This is what i did.... I bought a phosphate test kit. Reading was medium (10ppm) but ideal is zero. Then i noticed that the water when i came home from work was crystal clear, but seemd to go cloudy later on. seemed to happen after feeding time... And also when ever i added fertilizer for my plants, it would go cloudy too. Literally before my eyes . I was suspicious of the chemicals in the fertilizer. After a water change it would be fine for a couple of days , then back to cloudy.... SO i got to thinking... 1st, I started doing bigger water changes ( 15% increased to 30% per week) significant & immediate improvement. Second, i added PhosEx to a hang on filter. Been running 2 months now and time for a change. 3rd Stopped using LFS fertilzers - now used PMDD - MUCH better!! NOt quite sure exactly what the issue was, but with phosphates at zero now, everthing is good. HTH John

HI Bluetom, Thanks! As the one on the right , I am a bit proud of it! It has gone completely nuts and now takes up about 1/2 the tank!! It is E.Orisis http://www.fnzas.org.nz/plant_survey/aquarium_plants/?user_plants=52&cHash=d098544e42

I use an autofeeder. Several reasons. firstly it is better (so i hear), to feed several times with small amounts rather than 1 large feed per day. Secondly also from reading commments on the web.. your fish like regularity. and thirdly, often i am out at night so the only way to acomplish all three things is to use an auto feeder. And finally an observation... after introducing the Auto feeder, the fish seem more "relaxed", not as much of a frenzy at feeding time inparticular the two sharks dont seem to get spooked. John

Hi Guys, Finally got around to posting up some pic's and a description of my setup in the Freshwater member Tanks section http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/viewtopic.php?t=7987 And managed to get the upload wrong :roll: so you get to see the same pic twice :oops: Comments Here John

Without wanting to blantantly advertise.... Go try your local Cheesecake Shop... Definatly food grade!

To start with Just add some MORE lights. Cool whites will be fine if yuo just want to see a bit more colour. But what colour gravel have you got?? IMO dark gravels bring out the colours more. At the very least it stops light being refelcted into your eyes and you get to see more of the fishes colours. HTH John

PM'd you

6500 K is ideal I run a mixture of Osram Biolux with a High quality colour + Osram Daylight White which is not quite as high quality light but the correct colour. My plants go well. I am in Aucks so can help you out if you want. I have a good source

Might no be exactly what you are talking about but about 2 months ago I added a HOB filter with carbon in a bag. My tank looks MUCH better now. John

I got annoyed with carrying buckets from bathroom to lounge too. I went to bunnings bought a 70l rubbish bin for $9.95. I take the bin to the bathroom and fill with water. Drag it up to the lounge, pop in a heater, and an air pump and leave it going overnight. Come saturday morning I syphon out 7 small bucket loads and chuck them over the garden. Add 4 squirts of aqua plus + Ferts to water in large bin, hook up a pump and pump the water fresh water in. Could just as easily use the pump to pump out water from tank down a long hose (also partially syphon i spose). Easy way to stop a sypon or pump sucking out too much water.... dont stick it all the way to the bottom. ( I gravel vac about once every 2 months and that only takes 20-30l of water) John

I bought 2 of these plants ages ago, also from LFS called "Swords". One of them is still going nuts! Throws out a leaf and grows straight to the surface then opens up, has a bit of red colour in the leaf too. All you see in the tank is a stalk. Got to the stage now i just cut them off cos they stalks look horrible. Its only use at the moment is its stalks support the leaves of a large E.Orisis.

Hi Duke, You should test the water u are using for water changes, a ph of 5 is quite acidic. What does your water supply taste like? Shilo is right adding CO2 will only cause pHto drop even further, especially with no detectable buffering capacity (kh). IMO you will need to raise the Kh and GH, I run my tank at about 5dGH and about 4dKh. If you are running 24/7 CO2 (nutrafin?) you will need buffereing capacity so your water doesnt go acidic (pH <7) when the plants reduce their use of CO2 at night. Anything you do, do it slowly and check all 3 parameters, to a ceratin extent any changes to one condition will effect the others HTH John

last week i sent some quite large plants to a couple of people. I put the whole lot into rubbish bin liners, added about 100ml of water and tied the end of the bag. Then i got some lareg sheets of lite cardboard, rolled it around the bag, to make a tube, folded the ends in and sent them off... Was next day to Wellington & 2 days to the RD address - as far as i know the plants arrived fine.

Hi PeneJane. Remember you need to think about what you want to achieve and light it accordingly. You should also consider that if you add two or 3 of these sets, dont wire the whole lot together... You can always put them on seperate timers and have one come on for only 6 hours a day while the other tube runs for 10-12 hours per day. Giving the effect of the sun rising, "Midday sun", and then afternoon. Might sound corny but you could think of it as trying tp replicate as close as posible what happens in nature.

www.jaycar.co.nz. Part # XC0224 Hope that helps

What is the actual litreage of your tank? About 200L ? Depends what you want to accomplish? I have read that if you get into you plants, the fish become a secondary consideration! Certainly with lights, CO2, fertilizer etc... its getting a bit that way in my tank! As has been said elsewhere on this forum there is no hard & fast rule as each circumstance is different. But if you work on rule of thumb you will "probably" be ok... So... IMO... less than 0.3 Watts per liter would be "low light" between 0.3W - 0.75W per litre is "medium" Over 0.75W per litre is "high" So if your tank was 200l, 2x30W (60W/200l = 0.3W/l) would what i woud describe as "low" 4x30W (120W/200l= 0.6W/l) is medium. 5x30W (150W/200l = .75W/l) is high. And my tank @ 180/250 = .72W/l so I would describe my lighting as "medium high" And my fishies are fine, none wear oakleys!! 8) Just like to re-iterate this is what i reckon, and seems to work for me. Hope that helps. John

Hi PeneJane. Your red plants will definatly need alot more light. I am running 6x30W tubes (180W) on a 250L tank. And the red plants are RED. The comment about K rating v intensity I would have to slightly disagree on. But only is so far as if you dont have a balance of K AND intensity you will have difficult growing much other than algae. On a 90l tank between 45W and 60W would be about right. As your lighting is so low. anything at the surface will have a significant effect on the amount light reaching plants planted in the substrate. I woudl suggest you try to keep you ricca confined to one area so as not to obstruct the other plants. Good luck John

PMDD rocks!!

Hi Steve, I deal with Rexell thru work and my local branch doesnt stock the Biolux's but does stock 865 Daylight tube. Last time i needed them i just went straight to the penrose branch as they had both 965 & 865 and has more options for sizes (remmeber my comments about 3 v 4 v 5 footers) Let me know if i can help...

Hi again If you want to save $$ on Tubes, go for the daylight 865. trade price is under $10 for 3footers (you sparky could get them cheaper). Make sure they are 865, not 860, the 865 is 6500K. The tube I think Balistic is talking about is aka "butchers tube" it seems to be be very hi in the red end of the spectrum. I installed two for a week and algae went nuts!! John

Well... in my humble opinion. As the tank will be well insulated you could probably get away with 1 small heater (all sorts of arguements for an against 1 or 2 heater etc...) But lights wise i would say you are "quite a long way" from having enough light, but that depends on the plants etc... What are the dimensions? The general rule of thumb is something like... up to 0.3 Watt per litre = low light 0.3-0.6 Watt per litre = medium 0.6+ = high. But like i said, depends on the plants... also watts for $$ you may find the 2 foot tubes are actually more expensive than 3footers and 3 footers are not much cheaper than 4 footers. There is not really a constant $ per foot! As most offices and commercial fittings use 4,5 and 6 foot tubes hence they are the most competitivly priced. Hope that helps. John.

OK, your sorted then... best bet ask your hubby to ask a sparky about a batton fitting... You see them all over the place, in offices, warehouses garages etc... Cheap as chips... While your onto the sparky ask him to get you some decent tubes, I use osram biolux 965 and daylight 865

Easiest way to do the tubes.... Go to rexel buy a flouro baton fitting, they hold 2 tubes, if you want you can buy a reflector too that will hold the tubes up off the top. All you have to do is wire in a 1 or 2m cord to the pre-wired batton fitting ( you will need electrical knowledge / a sparky mate / or pay a sparky to do this) Let me know I can get you part numbers.... How many watts you planning on running? If you are injecting CO2 and fertilising etc low light could be a limiting factor...On my 250ish litre tank i am running 180W (6x3foot tubes) on my new tank I will be running 6x58W tubes.