aspiringAmano

Pegasus-cool-saves me alot of hassle-I just thought you couldnt get them. David

The length of block life depends on how high the setting is-for a 55g probably 4-6 months,though I've had them last longer-they seem to be very conservative on the box.I would think the best thing would be to buy several blocks at time of origional purchase,thats what I did with the last set I bought. David

Type in Carbo-plus to any search engine and you should get a bunch of hits.It is a carbon block that generates CO2 by electrolysis-no risk of CO2 dump and fish loss(my main reason for using them) David

I dont know how it would work as a private party,but I have a contact here in california that can get me a sister product much cheaper than the Carbo Plus-exactly the same idea but instead of $150 for the unit and $50 for the block and holder(US) it would be more like $85-90 for unit and $30 for block.If it is possible for private people to ship this kind of thing to NZ and enough people are interested I would be willing to Buy a bunch of them and send them to you guys. David

Very nice Tip pegasus! You should post that on the planted tank section of Toms place. David

Warren I copied your tank stocking levels word for word and included your filtration and waterchanges that you mentioned,and posted them to a board that I have frequented for some time that seems to have alot of very knowlegable people. I wanted to know what their thoughts were,and to let me know if I was way off base regarding your levels-I also included the context of how i found out your levels from our series of posts in this thread. The replies are pretty much universal that (a)your tank is way over stocked,(b) you must be a rich guy to afford all those fish,©your tank probably looks spectacular with all those fish. God only knows what they would say to the stocking levels that you and your friends consider "heavy" David

warren-I'm not hacking off anyone legs or attacking anyone-and if you feel this discourse is clogging up this thread I will be happy to continue it on another thread. I find it impossible to believe that your tanks are 5-6 times the plant density-several of my tanks without weekly major pruning become impossible to move your arms in and light will be blocked to lower levels-maybe it is my pics arent good and have given you a false impression there are more pics at http://www.sfbaaps.com under the member name Oliver-dont know if these will make much difference but the members of this aquatic plant society-including Judges and participants for both of the AGA contests have seen my tanks several times and their standard responses are "Wow-lots of fish-very heavily planted" I'm going to check the general consensus on a few other boards I post on;but I dont personally think that 500 neons equal 1-1.5 discus. David

Warren-your tanks are far from lightly stocked-they may be so to you and the other people you know who massively over stock tanks,but to the vast majority of aquascapers they are way at the outer limit-regardless of filtration.I think it would be prudent if you are giving advice on stocking planted tank,or any other tank for that matter,for you to qualify that your ideas of lightly and heavily stocked tanks are not within normal fish keeping parameters.I just find it strange that you would give advice stating that planted tanks shouldnt have many fish,when you yourself keep so many. David

Keep us posted of what you are doing-it will be interesting to find out. David

And your they guy saying to lightly stock planted tanks! Holy Mackeral!-if you posted that you had that many fish on one of the american boards I am a member of they would have a fit and you would get so much negative feed back.Better clarify your parameters of heavy and light fish load or people like me will get the wrong Idea,as i did. David

I am sure there are other strains out there that would not only be able to maintain the quality of your stock,but possibly even improve upon it.Bringing new blood in could be a good thing(look at the Brittish Royal family :lol: ) David

On other boards that I am a member of Moderators will step in an move topics that are posted in the wrong section,and add a post to where it has been moved to.Maybe if a post is deviating a moderator can decide to retitle the thread from that point on and give a link-I think it would be difficult for people to do themselves though as quite often a topic will simply drift into something else over the course of several posts,to where it isnt noticed and therefore able to be stopped. Just a thought. David

Hey clothahump {insert maniacal laugh here} I'm taking over the worlds aquatic forums! Glad to see you here! David

I wonder whether the repeated inter breeding with no "new blood" has bred in an aggressive streak to your females.It would be interesting to take females from the same brood and bred some with brood mates and some with new stock,continue this for a couple of generations and see what happens to the aggressive tendancies. David

There is a definate subspecies of Bettas that are the short fin males and they do have increased aggressiveness.I am interested as to why your females are so pugnacious-I have never heard of anyone else having this problem-will your females fight to the death? Do they bully other fish? David