Dawn

The best plant for the fry to hide amongst is the Java Moss. It is excellent for fry cover - I don't bother removing pregnant Platies anymore, most of the fry survive just fine. I don't even bother with fry food anymore because there is plenty of food in the Java Moss to sustain them.

Brian, I have a Bristlenose for you if you want just a plain ordinary everyday one, I'm in New Lynn, free if you want to come & pick him up. I feed my BNs sliced uncooked courgette & cucumber, they love it and it disappears overnight except for the skin which is still sitting there attached to the sinker! They get some just about everyday, I just do them a few slices when I'm preparing a salad for dinner. I also feed them the JBL Plecochips which have 10% wood fibre in them which they need in their diet, also algae and spirulina sinking wafers.

Thanks Caryl. Jude talked about it as if she'd seen it (the tank photo) so that's what I couldn't understand.

So has it been approved? I can't see it so thought it was still waiting for approval. I'm confused now....it's not showing up in the forum index.

Well, little bits keep floating to the top but I think they would be too fiddly to replant and probably not look that good anyway.

Hi Blackcat, when you wake up tomorrow you can have a look at the picture of my small tank, probably smaller than yours. I have two small goldfish in it but I think their growth is stunted because they don't seem to be getting any bigger. I hope you enjoy your fish tank and that your fish are very happy with you.

Here's a picture of it in my tank:- Edited - I forgot I'd already posted this picture in another forum, don't want to bore everyone to death! It's not really low enough to be carpet like though.

I bought this as 'Hairgrass' so don't know which one it is, presuming Mauritius - what do you think? Sorry it's a bit blurred. And this one is very similar but not Hairgrass and she didn't know what it was - I thought perhaps Triglochin striatum - Arrowgrass - anyone know, it's not a good photo unfortunately?

It does look pretty Jude, it's a lovely orange & green colour - but I'm not really expecting it to last very long - thought it was a good way to gradually use up the plants as I pull them out of the garden!

I love the Aqua One tanks and have an AR380, AR620 and AR980 - unfortunately don't have room for anymore I couldn't make up my mind between the AR850 or 980 and in the end decided on the 980, it was only another $200 and I knew I'd be wanting another one as soon as it arrived anyway! Everything except for a heater and bubblers are included with them - they're a no brainer really. The AR980 does have one bad design feature though, it doesn't have anywhere for the light lead to go except UNDER the filter holder which meant it was trailing in the water which I didn't think was a good idea. I had DH cut me out a small piece on either side of the filter house so that I could fit the lead through that and it works perfectly! Can take photos of what we did if anyone is interested. I have just posted a photo of the AR980 on the Freshwater Picture Forum, hopefully it will be approved soon.

Okay done! But I doubt you'll get any great ideas from my tanks, I copy everyone else's :oops:

Thought I'd better post this one here seeing it's not strictly an Aquarium plant. This is the Carex testacea - Orange NZ Sedge - that I was telling the Chat Room about last night. I've had a lot come up from seed all over my bark garden - so if they can grow in that they'll grow anywhere! I thought drowning them couldn't be any worse than the drowning they've been getting lately!

Here's a picture of the Lileaopsis brasiliensis in my tank - finally managed to stop it from floating with a couple of DH's fish sinkers :-?

I didn't actually take the home with the eggs in it out of the water so that was lucky. I was really thinking that since the parents were disturbed they might eat them - time will tell I guess.

Cobalt blue and honey dwarf gouramies are a nice bright addition to the community tank Phillz. I also love Cherry Barbs, small fish with the male very brightly coloured an orangey/red colour, females not quite so bright. For Barbs they are not aggressive at all and get on very well with all my Tetras etc - the males are very active too. I took photos of mine tonight but don't know if any of them have turned out any good yet, will post some if they do.

Ten days to wait huh - oh heck that's too long! This afternoon I was going to move my kribs to another tank, fished them out very easily and then when I went to move their home (upturned small plant pot) there were eggs in it - yippee my first spawning (I think!). So I left it there and put the fish back in again - have I signed their death warrant????

They didn't seem to mind about the water condition as I had a problem with PH getting low everyday after I added a new piece of driftwood. They are now in my AR980 community tank with all sorts and holding their own even against the larger Silver Dollars - which are going next week btw!

How did you get on with the artificial grass Mystic?

Surely you don't have to get permission to put a link to someone else's webpage/photos, what's it there for if they don't like people looking at it??

Brianemone, I found an aquatic plant in Mitre 10 (New Lynn) a few days ago that I thought I might try. So far so good although I had to anchor it with a couple of DH's fishing sinkers (seemed appropriate, no hooks in sight though!) to make it stay on the bottom! It's called Lilaeopsis Brasiliensis - Oxygenating. A lovely plant that forms a carpet at the bottom of your pond. Great for foraging fish. Will take greater depths than other oxygenating plants. Planting depth up to 1m in good light. I found more on it here:- http://species.fishindex.com/plant_90.html It's also called Micro Sword and comes from South America. I planted the whole thing but it could be broken up into smaller pieces. You really need to have a deep layer of substrate to put it into - it looks like it's sitting on the top of mine, I need more gravel! It cost $11.95 for a large plant and they had lots more bog plants, quite a good selection really. I also found a good size plant of Hair Grass (Lilaeopsis mauritius I think) yesterday at the Bird Barn in Lincoln Rd plus another one that looked like Hair Grass but wasn't - only $4 each but they were the last ones! Another LFS also have it but theirs are piddly little plants for $4.95, they look like they'd keel over if you looked at them!

Hi Brian In my AR380 I used to have a pair of Honey Gouramies - shy but a beautiful yellow colour; one dwarf Gourami and one Cobalt Blue dwarf Gourami, three Guppies and a few Bristlenoses. I don't think they were overcrowded but the Dwarfs do bicker a bit with each other, nothing major though. I've read that the Honeys like to nibble on plants but I didn't see them or have any problems with that.

This one is called Bio-Chem Zorb.

Welcome Brian. Whew that's a might tall order you have there! Maybe I'll try to answer a few and then the others can chip in with their pennyworth. First of all you already know this but it is important to wait until the tank has fully cycled before you add all of your fish. Just get say two or three to start with, maybe Platies as they are fairly hardy and don't worry too much about water quality. Don't change the water at all for the first two weeks but do keep monitoring the ammonia and nitrite levels - if it gets too bad you might need to do a few SMALL changes. I also have an AR380 and over the two years I've had it I've found it the easiest tank of all of mine to look after, I have no problems with PH or anything much except for when I add driftwood - that sends the PH plummeting everyday! The only thing you need to watch with the AR380 is that you keep the water level right up to the bottom of the plastic edging on the top of the glass - they are designed so that you don't see the level of the water - if you let the water level get too low the filter pump burns out - which happened to me twice before they finally told me about where the water level should be - it doesn't tell you that in the instructions that come with the tank, at least it didn't with mine but you will have one of the newer models with the new PL light tube so the instructions might have been updated also! I now have only a pair of Kribensis in my tank but before I changed it over I had the following which I think was about as many as it will take without being overcrowded - two honey dwarf gouramies, one dwarf gourami, one cobalt blue dwarf gourami, one male & three female guppies, two golden bristlenoses and about four other baby/juvenile bristlenoses. More fish would mean more regular cleaning! I don't really think the tank is big enough to have neons or tetras as they are a schooling fish which need plenty of room to school! I also have an AR620 and AR980 which has lots of neons etc and there's nothing like a school of fish flashing by! The ones with the red noses and black & white striped tails are Rummy Nose Tetras - one of my favourites - expensive to buy (apparently because they are rather hard to raise from fry) but in my opinion really worth it! If you do get any be aware that if you have one that doesn't school with the rest of them for some reason it will usually die within a day or so - I've found that out from experience - I had yet another one that went swimming off in the opposite direction when I put a few I'd bought on New Year's Eve into the tank - the next day he was still just shivering in the corner so I took him back and they exchanged him for me. Oh hang on, you said it had a red eye not a red nose, I've just re-read your post - not sure what that one would be. Don't know anything about the American Flagfish but I do have three Silver Dollars in my community tank and apart from them always beating the others to the food they aren't aggressive at all - at feeding time I need to get their attention with large cichlid pellets at one end of the tank while feeding the other fish at the other end! Be aware they do get fairly big so would not be appropriate for your AR380. The eel-like guys are Kuhli Loaches, I fell in love with them too but you do need to have a covering of some sort on the intake of your filter otherwise they disappear up the filter very quickly apparently! The local LFS puts a piece of filter wool inside the end of their filter but of course that would need to be cleaned out everyday which becomes something of a problem, it's bad enough doing it once or twice a month! Brown snails are okay if you only have one and if you get an apple snail then don't have any REAL plants in the tank, they won't last long! I have one in my AR980 which only has fake plants and one real one growing in the driftwood, I have to keep an eye on him and knock him off when he gets too close! Bristlenoses are good for cleaning the algae and the black-eyed golden ones are really pretty, Kim, one of the other members, has lots of them at the moment, she has a shop in Birkenhead. Better let some of the others get a word in, if they haven't already!

It could be a female Swordtail but it also might be a female Platy, it's hard to tell the difference although I'm sure there is one - I've just never had Swordtails just hundreds of Platies!

I read somewhere (might have been on here but can't remember now) that the hair algae needs 12 hours uninterrupted a day and a good way to get rid of it was to turn the lights off after 6 hours, wait a few hours and then turn them back on again for another 6 hours. So I fixed my timer to turn the lights off for 2 hours in the middle of the day and so far that seems to have fixed it! However, just to make sure I use Algae Cure every 14 days also. It hasn't harmed the plants and they are still getting their 12 hours a day.