JMemonic

I have no doubt that breeding them in captivity is possable, but at what cost lets face it if you have a lab, a small lake etc and can recreate the conditions of their natural habitat then it would be possable however. The best way I see to look at it is if is easy then your LFS would breed them by the hundreds and prices would reflect that ie guppy type prices, which the clown loach certainly isnt. Lets be honest I know that if I could breed them I would just for the "cool" factor, which one of us would not like the bragging rights to that acheivement

If you are thinking of using RTV type sealant then yes some of them are poisonous but not all thankfully of we would not have many of the tanks we do today. Some tips I have learned, chose a sealant that states it is ok for use in aquariums, none of the coloured sealants are, and ask around others to see what brands they use and what their experience of them was like. I uses one produced by fosroc called silaflex RTV http://www.fosroc.com/Listing_Products.aspx?Item_ID=324&ExpandItem=324&Menu_ID=1&set=one&type=alpha&str=S

My suggestion get a personal loan from the bank rather than HP the interst rates are lower as are the overall costs, plus you can price up everything you need like plants, fish, gravel etc and get the loan to cover it all.

Ours are the same with blood worms, I guess its a bit like us humans if there is a choice between chocolate biscuits and plain water crackers, most would take the chocolate biscuits even if it meant we had to climb up to a higher shelf.

I don't want to make a comment that offends any one but I cant see the need to dye any animal any colour that it was not born as, especially when you see a fish that looks like this in its natural colour. Its a sickness to do such a thing, just my opinion.

On second thought a box filter working normally filled with you calcium media would work better, you need the water to flow over the media and "dissolve", normal operation is going to give a better result. Sorry if the earlier reply confuses, I had just woken up and brain was not fully engaged.

Beachy I would suggest a modification to my DIY CO2 diffuser use the same idea but fill it with coral, crushed shells or bird grit, anything high in calcium, then instead of running CO2 through it run a line off your air pump with a tap to control the flow. That should give you a little more "active" calcium.

I have a little cure ex that I am holding onto for this purpose, apparently it needs to be re classified or licensed under animal remedies but I have used this in the past and it works a treat. You could try the gravel cleaning but I suspect that will only limit the population not annihilate it.

I had something similar in one of our old tanks, they were not bloodworm's as when I investigated closely the worm is red over most of the body but one end is greenish, I suspect they were some kind of parasite but never did find out. I now find myself watching for them in the new tanks and have some remedies on hand should they appear.

We use Aqua plus on every water change not so much as a decontamination but more on the basis that it states "Extracts to reduce stress" and anything that helps out has to be good. How does that old saying go one ounce of prevention is better that one pound of cure.

I see a new project comming up, I am having issues with our tanks raising to above 30 Deg C as well, reading that its fine for a day or so is ok but if this fine weather keeps up or we have a good sumer next year I can see issues. Might be time to actually get to work on a cooling chamber system. I had better add that to my list.

I have posted a link to my home built diffuser in the DIY section.

Well I got this site knocked together rather rapidly but if you take a look at http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/crosis/Diffuser.htm you will get the idea. Any comments welcome.

CO2 is used as one of the possible inert gases in MIG welding, you can pick up regulators at any decent welding supplies outlet. Here is Christchurch ASCO will sell you a 9kg bottle it you do not wish to rent from BOC which can become expensive. I am a little concerned about the mention of a flow rate of 30 liters per minutes as you only need 6-7 for welding. The real key is to get the gas to infuse with your water, just bubbling it in would have similar effect as and air pump's ability to add oxygen to you water, the reactor kits available have some form of delay to ensure that the CO2 bubble stays in contact with the water for a reasonable period. I have had a thought on this and will get a unit built and a details up on a web site soon, also there is no reason that you could not use an air stone and inject the bubbles from this into an impeller on a pump should you have a spare lying around as well. I would suspect that unless you are trying to grow plants on a commercial scale and can diffuse the CO2 you would only be needing a flow rate of around 2 liters per minute tops. If you really wanted to get the best usage of the gas a solenoid valve could be added in parallel with the light switch so flow is only available when the lights are on, no point wasting gas when its not needed.

Well judging by the welcome I am sure I will enjoy myself here, looks like I had better get our homepage set up, however given my list of projects on the go I might need to really get our web server up and running just to host all the photos that are really needed to document, unfortunately I am not a good artist so never really ever draw plans that are legible to other people. In answer to Ballistic's question I updated my profile a little, my partner and I are in Christchurch. Over time you will all find out a little more about me through my posts so I will leave anything else to you imaginations until then 8) . Also looking foward to seeing you all on chat, hope I got the details correct, but I guess I will find out soon. Cheers JM