dee_jay_01

Are you going to do anything with the fence? If you are I suggest Nature Reed, It will be a nice back drop to the pond, and tie in nicely with the wood chip mulch you have used.

Sounds good, keep us upto date with how your tank is going...

It must have cost a bit to get the sparky to wire up to the back for the pump and so on...???

you can pick up small pebbles, (eg. 3mm up to 10mm, so on) from any landscape Suppliers just make sure you wash the pebbles before putting them in your tank as they normally have a lot of dirt and other anoying stuff to mess the tank up. I know over here in Brisbane we can pick up a 40kg bag of 3mm pebbles for about $20 AUD, which should be about $23 NZD. From memory, and for our 250lt tank we used about 30kgs of the 3mm. Hope this helps, as most LFS sell 3kg bags over here for about $10 AUD A bit on the pricy side...

Thanks for that Pegasus, Helps alot, I have one major problem with my tank. I have to keep the lids on at all times so my Salmon Tails, and Black Shark dont jump out of the tank. We already have had our Black Shark try to kill himself with in the first hour of getting him. Now because of that I have to clean the lids all the time because of the calcium build up on the underside of the lids, which reduces the light into the tank. Is there anyway of stoping the calcuim build ups??? or do I have to just keep cleaning them. Here is a picture of my tank, before I renovated it, Mine is the bottom one and My Fiances is the top one. I have thought about closing it up completely but I dont have the time and money at the moment. Both tanks are 122cmx46cmx46cm, and built into a 90mmx35mm Pine Stand

I will have to put some money away to come over there and check it out (I will bring the snorkles) and some rc equipment for the nets your thinking of.

hey and welcome, I'm not from NZ but I do supply some advice when needed. What are you looking at putting in your tank???? Those measurements are around 3ft - 4ft tank. which is upto about 250lt Have you looked in the Classifieds section for a new tank?

IMO the only time you really need very bright lighting is if you have a planted tank, as plants thrive on light to grow. I dont have a very planted tank as my fish keep digging them up, but I did have a bright light in there which I had to take out after about a week, as I had a algea bloom which clouded my water and also made my fish look really dull in colour. The blue lights area mainly for Saltwater tanks I think, but it does look nice if there is a blue light in there to simulate a moon lit night for the fish. I have yet to try it. anyways if anyone else can explain in more detail for both of us it would really help, as I have been wondering the same thing.

As I sit here drooling Looking very good.

I just use a bit of natural coral that i found on the beach to keep my PH up to my tanks standards. I did soak the coral for a couple of days before using in my tank though. I also boiled it for about 10mins aswell, to get rid of any little nasties that may have been stil in there.

We have an aqua one internal filter for our 2ft tank that does 500lt per hour and it keeps the water crystal clear, They are easy to clean except that with our one you cant get into the impellor to easily. And they have to be cleaned often to stop them clogging up with any plant litter. But other than that they are perfect filters...

Ok definatly will pick up a pot of water then, What sort of Nitro heli is it misnoma??? i might know someone over here interested in it.. And to Anthony, no I dont have any Nitro at all, but i am interested in them, I mostly deal with Electric Planes, cars and boats, I do give advice on Nitro Cars and planes though...

Problem with the heli idea, as a seasoned flyer and user of RC planes and boats, Firstly the boat will need to be extremely small as most RC boats need atleast 2m to turn around in, and secondly with the Heli idea, Electric helis will not lift any extra weight more then a a couple of grams... Sorry to be such a party pooper , but I do love the idea, of the boats with the salmon nets though, and the Train bridge across the Pond. If you were in Brisbane I could build you a small boat to work in that pond beautifully, and Also a working bridge for the train to go through. I love all RC equipment so if anyone has any questions about them PM me anytime...

you could also use irrigation filters, they are cheap ($10ish) and effective, and they can be modified with carbon inside as well. I have used and modified these for outdoor ponds etc.

We dont get quakes here, but I agree, that attaching or bolting the top of the stand to the wall is a good idea, but in my case I am unable as I'm renting the property I am in. But suprisingly we have had a Sonic Boom caused by a F-111 Fighter close by which came up at 3.5 on the richter scale and rocked the house but didnt bother the tanks at all, But bolting the stand to the wall is an excellent idea. I might have to ask the realestate to consider allowing us to do so.

if you use 4"x4" pine stumps as the legs and 2"x3"pine for the rest of the frame then use the 20mm pineyour definately going to have a strong stand that can with stand earthquakes. Dont forget that it will be heavy so make any access points easily accessable, we have two 4ft tank, one on top of the other on a stand made completely of pine and it is extremely heavy, as you can see in the picture. we will be adding some ply hatches to cover the tops of the tanks to stop the lights abit though. Our Setup My Tank

How about a school of about 6 Tiger Barbs, and in case of the Pleco how about some Golden Plecos, they take a long time to grow and they will look really good with dark gravel, with the tetras how about some black tetras, I also agree with the Glowlight Tetras they look good, with the Gourami, I would go for a couple of Flame Gourami's as they have a lot of character and get along well with littler fish. To help clean the surface a couple of Sailfin Mollys are excellent for that job, I would offer you some but I am in Australia as I have about 150 of them., You could also put in some, Albino Corydoras the help keep the bottom clean and would also look good with the gravel, anyways hope you like atleast some of my ideas.

love the idea, but not the idea of having the plugs on the back either, as said above. The stand looks like it will be a good design, what size & type of wood are you looking to use for the entire design?

hey all, Just a little thing you could do, with your tank aswell, and it looks good. Is to place Blue Neon Strips around the Outside of your tank so when your watching TV at night with the light off you can have the Lights around the tank on aswell. Most Auto Shops have them for a reasonable price and they can be attached to a small trasformer to pluginto the wall. I seen this in a display at a LFS and it looks amazing. especially with the Discus.

hey sorry for the delay. We have some good spots and some bad spots to live for water quality, for example if you live out bush and only have Tank water you probably have a harder time breeding, but if you live in the suburbs, with Town Water, it is all pretty good. Ph is pretty neutral, the water can be fairly hard in some areas though. but all in all it all pretty good. We dont use any ph chemicals or other chemicals except dechlorinator, and on the rare occasion may need White Spot Remover (Because of Clown Loaches ). What type of fish are you pondering over?

what our bristlenose catfish breed in is a small clay pot about 7-10cms in length, 8cm width, and an opening of about 2-4cms. they love it as the can protect and fan the eggs, turn around inside and stop anyone else from going in by sitting in the entrance. I will try to post a picture of on in the next day or so. Currenty we have a batch of eggs in with the male and about 100+ fry in the tank ranging from about 2-4cms in length.

In one of our LFS they had a Clown Knife in with a Saratoga, some large Silver sharks, 30-35cm Black Ghost Knife and an Fresh Water Eal. they all went alright and he was about 40cms in length. Sadly but happily they sold him to a local breeder that had a lovely female waiting for him so hopefully there will be a lil one in my tank soon.

From what I have been told, Red Forest Jewels are also very easy to breed from, I'm not sure if they are a chiclid or not though

Hey Caper, Finally my partner and I finally have a Digital Camera to play with so here is an actual picture of our Black shark (so the aquarium says, I'm still not sure it is) But if any does recognise this fish as anything other then the Black Shark, it would help a lot to find out a bit more about him/her. There you have it.

Hey Toughchicken Love your Royal Whiptails, I have one thats about 20cms head to end of the tail.