HummingBird

Try just leaving it in the hot sun to bake for a few days, it's as effective a sterilizer as boiling or janola, and significantly cheaper.

That's actually not true, most tetra eggs are fine with light. I think it's just neons and cardinals that are photosensitive.

Maybe it's your thermometer that's reading incorrectly.

Lickindip, yeah the Tiger in the Jansens Botany is an Indonesian Tiger (I work there ) dunno if I'd call it small though David, it's pushing 10cm. Small compared to yours, perhaps

I never worry about the temperature difference of a water change either. My thoughts are along similar lines to Amazonian's, it's just like rainfall in the wild.

Wow, I was lightly stocked before and now I'm seriously understocked. I never actually worked out the literage myself, my dad did and I just trusted that (It's a fairly simple volume equation...maybe he just got the dimensions wrong?). In actual fact though the tank is 113.5x86x55cm. It's just easier to say 4x3x2. According to my calculations that's 537L...more than 490L, for sure. Thanks for pointing that out guys.

Also make sure you store it in the fridge to prevent fungus, unless you're adding the Hcl Hans?

It's a 4x3x2ft, about 490L.

As you know HaNs it didn't work out well when I had two in my tank, and I've heard bad things about keeping two in general. Groups of 3+ seem to be fine though, I know a couple people who have three and a lot of people on mfk keep lots together.

There isn't really isn't a set rule on how many fish you can keep in a tank - it mainly depends on how quickly nitrates accumulate and how often you'll be doing water changes to reduce them. Obviously though, adequate aeration is required for whatever your stocking density. Personally I tend to stock lightly and plant heavily so that even with a month without water changes my nitrate levels don't even get over 10ppm (and my really heavily planted tanks don't have any nitrates at all...ever).

According to the name and picture it's a Siamese Tiger, which has different striping. Care requirements are basically the same though. Visit Tigercraze.com for a great resource on them.

Maybe I'm the exception, but my CF1200 self-primes fine

I've got a 3ft piece that's covered in java moss, its taken about a year to get there but it looks excellent.

Yeah it will, the way it kills bba isn't by providing other plants with more nutrients to out-compete it but it actually converts the iron stored inside the bba itself, vallisneria is affected similarly at even a standard dose in my experience. Just a word of warning about using this stuff to kill bba though, it works really well and isn't harmful to fish, but what can be harmful to fish is the massive amount of ammonia released from the newly dead algae, be sure you monitor your levels or just do a water change after it starts dieing to be safe. I lost a tank of my first gba babies this way and their parents which I'd raised from a small size too.

Smidey, what excel does is convert iron into a ferrous form so it's more usable by plants.

I've heard stories of bristlenose doing it too.

Fish don't like fresh bamboo usually, but since it's dried it should be fine.

I keep WCMM's in an outside pond and I've kept them in a tropical tank before too, my experiences coincide with alanmin's - that they're much more colourful when in cold water. Mine breed most of the year except the dead of winter, but that's probably just because auckland is a bit warmer than christchurch. In my experience borneo suckers do fine in cold water, not just cool. Yes they can survive in tropical tanks, but it doesn't make them tropical fish just because they're sometimes (mistakenly) sold as such. Goldfish can survive in tropical tanks, so can wcmm's and so can a lot of cold water fish.

Florida Flagfish eat it too.

Jansens Botany is selling them for $2.99. Should be interesting to see how they develop, I didn't think they looked like normal khulis.

Vinegar's also quite an effective sterilizer, and it has the added benefit of not being carcinogenic like formalin and other fish meds! I personally just use the sit in the sun method like herefishie, though.

Might as well give the calcium tablet a go, heh.

Probably a lack of calcium. Put one of those turtle blocks in the tank and it'll eventually come right.

I give the yeast a little warm water and sugar then I leave it in a cup for about a quarter of an hour to activate. I've got them in a standard sized paddling pool and I feed them about half a cup every week or when the water starts to clear up again. They'll eat anything that's unicellular, so that can be green water (algae), bacteria from decomposing matter, or yeast, which is probably the easiest food to maintain. I also give them Daphnia Boost which is a gutloading formula for daphnia so they have a lot more vitamins, amino acids and minerals and whatnot. Surprisingly it got through MAF fine when it was mailed to me but the guy who was selling it sent me a free sample of "wormloader" as well which MAF confiscated - if you're planning on buying any make sure you tell him to leave that out.

Thanks alan, I'll try out a wooden box and see how it goes, I've got a few lying around that should be suitable. I had wondered about them feeding on the mix instead of the food, but that's just something I'll have to wait through I guess because we don't have many pot plants around the house due to a member of the family with allergies. My fish should be fine in the meantime, I've got plenty of bloodworms, mosquito larvae and even daphnia coming from my ponds in spite of the lower temperatures, I feed them on yeast and they multiply crazily fast - I harvest almost every day to keep them overpopulating.