HummingBird

Ocean free hoods are t8.

Yeah I wondered about using the Peat moss for that reason but a number of articles I've read on the net recommended it so I went with it. I'll wait till I hear what everyone else is using and if there've been any bad experiences with peat, and if there have I might start a new culture without it.

I set up a couple of ice cream containers today with a 50/50 mix of peat moss and potting mix and seeded them with some white worms. I was just curious as to what media everyone else uses for theirs, and what they feed them? I've got a big tin of expired fish flake that I'll be feeding mine. Also how does everyone collect theirs? In the (not so successful) past I've just scraped off the ones that are crawling on the sides of the container, but I've heard talk of using a plane of glass, does anyone use this method?

Apparently he has a concrete divider half as tall as the tank in the middle of the tank so he can sink the water level down and make it easier to catch fish. He usually doesn't have to though, he says if a fish dies in the tank he just doesn't feed the rest of his fish till it's completely gone 8)

Touche Caryl - great minds think alike

What do you even need to adjust your pH for? Unless your tapwater's pH is extremely acidic or extremely alkaline, you shouldn't. The pH fluctuations caused by such products can be really harmful to fish. What's more important than having a pH exactly neutral is having a pH that's stable.

How often depends on how quickly nitrates accumulate. Less nitrates=better growth.

Metronidazole or praziquantel both work well and are available cheaply from the vets. Last time I bought metronidazole it was like $1 for a 200mg pill.

I've been thinking about asking this guy if I can come have a look at his tanks when I go to Canada next year, they would be awesome to see.

Any plastic container can be used for a bio media container (assuming it has appropriate holes in it, of course), at work we use these random containers that are from payless plastics or somewhere similar, the water flows down through them. Another bonus with them is that they're removable, unlike a glass partition in a glass sump would be. As David said 800lph is definitely not enough, the tank will be about 650L and you'll want a 3x turnover per hour minimum. In my 490L tank I've got a 1550lph canister filter and a 500lph internal filter.

I do all my water changes straight from the hose and I'm on Auckland tap water. I've never had a problem, even with 75%+ changes. I don't think the temperature matters too much really (well, obviously since my fish are all still alive and happy) because in the wild water would get cold pretty quickly when it rains, especially in monsoon season.

I'd go for the Elite personally, but if you've got the room I'd get the Elite 60 rather than the 35, it doesn't have that much bigger a footprint but its around 60L while the 35 is only about 40. I prefer their hang on back filters to the aqua ones'.

I've used vinegar before and it's worked a treat. Use white vinegar of course because it has the most acetic acid in it. You may have to soak it for a while or soak multiple times, depending on how bad your stains are.

Maybe he's referring to That's about your own auction list, but perhaps it's interpreted to apply to any auction list regardless of your involvement in it.

They could have internal parasites, but I haven't heard of BN's getting any before. What do their poos look like? If they're clear it's a sure sign of parasites.

Indeed. There will always be people lacking in experience but overflowing with opinions.

They thrive in coldwater and tropical. I've got them in ponds as well.

Ramshorns are awesome snails. I have them in all my tanks, I'd highly recommend them to anyone who wants an unobtrusive algae eater.

I wouldn't go so far as to call it a "good chance". I know of a few other people who have kept plecs outside all year and haven't had theirs die like yours.

They're probably planaria. They're harmless, in fact your fish will probably eat them. They're a result of too much food/algae in the water.

That says it all then...the fact that I've personally watched a baby pleco grow to 25cm+ over two and a half years in an outdoor pond? Are you even sure yours died from it getting, as you so eloquenty put it, "to cold", A.PROPHECY?

That's true. Well plecs can survive in ponds for certain then. I've known people who've had them in ponds and at a place where I used to work they put one in when it was tiny and it got huge eventually, it was very active. It seemed happy to me.

In my experience Plecs can thrive in coldwater enviroments, even ponds.

I do mine every week, I do skip some spots that are heavily planted though. I figure that fish poo continues to leech nitrates for a while when it's in the gravel, it's not all dissolved right away. For bigger fish's poo I think this is true, anyways.

I'm pretty sure they're sewellia lineolata, Purple. There are some that look more spotted and some that look more striped though.