HummingBird

That's Hygrophila lacustris (Blue Hygro). It's a stem plant so it'll just keep growing, like all of them do. Same rules apply to trimming them as with most stemmed plants - just cut off the top and replant it in the gravel, the bottom piece will sprout a new tip and the top piece will sprout new roots. And bingo you've just doubled your number of plants. Nostalgic trivia: My first post on FNZAS was asking what this plant was too.

Not really. There's some dwarf sag on trademe right now, it's Sagittaria subulata though.

You're sucking on the outflow pipe, right? All taps are turned on?

Coral sand will buffer the pH up, as will limestone.

Ok, I'm looking into making a hood for a tank of mine. I'd like to have two or three fluoros built in it, like with those end cap things. I know next to nothing about how to do this. So my questions are: What do I need to make this work? Those end cap things, a ballast? Where would I get aforesaid things? Kind of vague, I know, but any tips/info would be appreciated.

He should be fine in either tank really, but I'd opt for the tank with gravel because he'd feel more secure with dark substrate, and the goldfish is probably pretty messy as well.

Hahah, well in my experience it'll attach itself to gravel, anyways.

Basically just shove it so it's weighted down by the gravel. Eventually it'll spread out and attach itself.

Don't feel compelled to have co2 though - give it a go without it and you may find that your plants do just fine.

Yeah I bought an Atman CF1200 recently (which is made by the same company, it just has a bit faster flow rate) and one of the taps leaked when I got it - when I mentioned this to my place of purchase they replaced it though.

Heh, that's the dwarf sag! It's not so dwarfy, I know. Like B&K mentioned it apparently has a tendency to grow a lot larger - I'm not sure about the conditions that spur it to do this, when I got mine they were like this. It's still putting out a few flowers each week too, it's mental.

Biochem Zorb also absorbs Ammonia and Nitrites though, doesn't it? Which would deprive the beneficial bacteria in the tank of nutrients and thereby disrupt the cycle.

I ended up just transferring my oto to a less heavily planted tank, and my suspicions were confirmed - he was eating my hygrophilia polysperma! (now that he's gone it's growing back normally) so just be wary about these guys.

He should be ok by himself but more wouldn't hurt. As for food: anything you'd give most bottom feeders - courgettes, pleco tabs, etc. And yeah, that's their heart, I've kept a few before, it's pretty cool huh?

The brand of the light is "Marina"

I work at Jansens in Botany - The Borneo Sucker aka. The Chinese Hillstream Loach are from a similar biotope to WCMM's, and are coldwater as well (though like WCMM's they can survive in tropical temperatures, but will not flourish in them). They'd be fine in your tank and wouldn't eat your minnow fry - they're strictly detritus feeders.

I've got this lighthood that has a bulb that's about 104.6cm long. It's labeled 42" but obviously that's wrong. It's called a phillips powerglow. Does anyone know where I could get these, or have any suggestions? My lfs has no idea.

An Eheim 2008 would be fine for that size of tank, and since it's internal it's totally silent. I've got one on a planted-ish tank and it's great. You can pick one up for less than $50 from Pet Planet.

Yeah a lot of people mistake hair algae for green water (unicellular algae) - hair algae kills daphnia. They try to eat it and get stuck.

Chlorine isn't really a problem at all if the water splashes around when it goes into the bucket. It evaporates really, really quickly. I put the hose straight into my tanks when I do water changes.

SCIENTIFIC NAME: Astronotus ocellatus COMMON NAME: The Oscar A. ocellatus are popular as pets, and are regarded as intelligent by aquarists. This is in part as they learn to associate their owners and food and are purported to be able to distinguish their owner from strangers. Despite their large size, and predatory nature A. ocellatus are relatively placid aquarium residents best housed with other fishes too large to be considered food items. Yeah, I just copied that off of wikipedia.

My filter hose looks exactly the same as yours Wilson, like Sharn says it's just algae so nothing to worry about.

A small entrance is good but the cavern isn't. Like Caryl said, they like tight places. I've had best results breeding them in places they could barely fit into.

I added some backing paper today and put a 2ft tank in the bottom of the stand to house feeder fish for the guys. The tiger's won't even deign to look at anything that isn't alive. Eventually I'll be putting some wood paneling on the outside of the stand so it looks better. A close up of death row (currently inhabited by 45 WCMM's)...

If it helps any, I got an Atman CF1200 a couple of weeks ago and it's been great - no problems thus far. And with 1550LPH for $180, I can't complain