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add it carefully during a waterchange or just take a jug of water out put the substrate in then pour back in to bring the level up to where it should be.

Food will take a long time to break down, and can also mould instead of breaking down to ammonia.

Thats a tough one its a tiny tank Id suggest probably the cory's but you will want to be spareing on the food and yeah Id go for substrate. Of course keeping corries only in a tank by themselves is ideal for cory breeding :D

When they are young they can grow at very different rate and within a few weeks the larger ones will eat the smaller ones whole, quite often have the tail hanging out their mouths as well... Lovelly fish oscars :D The only good way to keep the bacteria going is to keep fish in there, and swap...

Also increased light can encourage algae growth and be a cause of green water.

Im definetely going to be in fish stores over the weekend for some live brine shrimp and a new hydrometer I managed to break mine during the week :angry: . Wont be a full fishing trip though as I will be busy reading a new book... I remember my first fry - Oscars :D, my Dad let me take care...

Ive had different experiences with sand the worst was a night mare that can still cloud the tank 5 years after it was setup if the sand gets kicked up! The best after a quick rinse doesnt cloud water at all. Depends entirely on the sand I think. Unfortunately I didnt keep track of what brand the...

I thought I had said in my pms to only go for 1-2 corys to begin with in the fry tank. You can get a full analasys of our local water from the water companies web site, they tell you what they add to our water and waht they do with it etc. As for hercules little friend glad to hear it...

If you go down the ammonia route you have to do a full fishless cycle, you cant mix methods, you cant start doing a fish cycle and add ammonia and expect to get away with it, you will also need ammonia tests so you can tell when the ammonia is being used up and when it gets to 0 etc. Also with...

Theres a maidenhead aquatics at jacks patch garden centre.

Ive owned all but the red devil, Whilst none of those in my experience are plant eaters they can be amazing diggers, and are VERY likelly to dig up a plant and demolish it as they rearrange the decor to their liking :D Most of the big new world cichlids will aquascape as they see fit :D. That...

Every case I heard of on the reef forums involving a DSB crash and the rotten egg smell involved complete tank wipe outs :(, including a couple of friends. Maybe that was just overly sensitive marines, but it was certainly a total loss situation :(.

Heres how I understand it the bacteria that do the final stage of converting nitrate to free nitrogen gas are not 0 oxygen bacteria but low oxygen level bacteria, if the conditions of the bed turn to 0 oxygen you get a different bacteria develop that produce sulphur dioxide and this takes out...

sounds about right, some doctors are really hot on diagnosing problems others just treat the symptoms.

That would be exactly what I would expect to see

terracotta pots were once the standard way of createing a cave for small cichlids to breed in, was a standard in many a community tank a pair of kribs living in a terracotta pot :D

That would make sense obviously there would be no way for me to realistically know what was consuming the ammonia long term, and Ive had no reason to rip out plants and measure ammonia levels to see whats going on. I would imagine it depends on the setup but if there is still a colony of...

Ive never heard of that one before but I have seen existing nitrates in water dissapear with plants added and stay down. I would guess plants would be forced to compete with filter bacteria for ammonia as a source of food perhaps over time weakening the bacteria colony in the filter media? or...

You can denitrate in freshwater tanks using anaerobic bacteria as well, what you need is a suitable media to put in a basket inside an external filter, works on the same principle as live rock in a marine tank although I found when playing around with it that freshwater aquairums respond better...

The levels arent necesarily bad although if you plant up your tank you could get your tank to take that down nicely. Down here in South Devon tap water nitrites are normally undetectable and nitrate normaly under 5ppm. In a well planted tank I normally aim for no traceable levels of nitrate...

A layer of polystyrene under tanks helps prevent this sort of thing. It could well be possible to patch a crack like that Ive patched a worse crack in the base of a 500l tank 5 years ago and thats still holding. But this is only a small tank for £30 secondhand possibly with some spare equipment...

Cory schooling can be weird in big groups they will tend to seperate into species more, although even in the wild you apparantly get mixed species schools, but in smaller numbers even wildly different species of corys will school well, Ive seen tiny peppered corys schooling very well with 5 year...

OK looking at getting in a decent size tank 104"x36"x24" about 1470l Ive got two options I can get a company to come down from scotland and build it on site thats going to be nearly £900 or I can buy the glass and build myself for a cost of around £300. Ive removed and refitted a single panel...

The volume of water would be ok for a semi temporary home for single oscar just about with very heavy filtration, im not familiar with standard US tank sizes, one of my tanks is a similiar volume and 48x15x18. Id happily keep an adult oscar in a tank this size for a few months with very good...

just keep an eye on it then. Marine tanks are bad for causeing rash's due to so many inhabitants having mild stings :D some catfish can cause minor stings as well I believe with their dorsal fins.

I cant remember the name of it now but there is something you can catch from fish tanks and can go years without catching it and then it can strike. No one I know has had it but it can be quite nasty, will see what I can dig around. Cant believe Ive forgotten the name of it :unsure: edit dug...

Depends on the fish shop, some love local bred guppies for their acclimatisation to local tap water, but many shops like their line bred fixed type guppies, I wouldnt expect to get much for them anywhere though, not many places are prepared to give much even in a credit note for guppies. You...

The waste products will be more dilluted but they will still be going through the filter at much the same rate if the new filter is well matched to the tank probably turning over the tank 3-6 times an hour in both tanks, shouldnt really cause any issues. the nutrients will still be getting to...

Yeah a seperate tank with cabomba or similiar in it would help it would also help lower nitrate levels in general which is always a good thing. Get it right and you will get 0 nitrates registering in the system :D Im not sure if I would go for 24 hour lighting over that tank probably go for...

Down here in Devon we still use chlorine not chloramine for our water supplies, so water left standing or aeriated will do fine without any extra chemicals, My families been keeping fish in the local tap water without water treatment chemicals for 3 generations without any problems as a result.

UV tubes are definetely not good news long term for people :D much the same as too much time in the sun. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/...7/en/index.html

putting a tablet in and hoping to fully stock immedeatly is asking for disaster, virtually guaranteeing it. I dont know what pets at home are hoping to test for after 3 days if you havent got anything in the tank there will be no nitrates beyond whats in the tap water already and there shouldnt...

Greenline are superb for plants, Ive had a few batches from them some of which are still going after 5 years!

I wouldnt use any of these sort of products, theres little evidence for them doing much for a tank and these tablets whats the base composition of the tablets? is it going to effect your water chemistry? Is it going to leave stuff in the tank? Theres far too many wonder products out there that...

Do acitinic lights produce a blue enough light for you? they are definetely safe for use, if not a small strip of glass in front of the reptile light would act as a UV filter. As for safety of UV light for fish well its known that too much UV radiation can be bad for most species, fish dont...

The full title of the article by o'connell and gatlin is ". Effects of dietary calcium and vitamin D3 on weight gain and mineral composition of the blue tilapia (Oreochromis aureus) in low-calcium water" Im having trouble finding the original article text, but I would imagine that its very...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?c...p;dopt=Abstract http://www.doctoryourself.com/dvitamin.htm http://www.educacion.uanl.mx/publicaciones.../pdf/9Shiau.pdf http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=2115&page=25 Fish REQUIRE vitamin D in their diet they CANNOT synthesize vitamin D...

In that case you need to start looking at your water paramaters mainly nitrate ph temperature, you need to see if other fish are stressing it etc etc.

How long a black out did you try? Give it 3 days without lights or food, do a good water change every otehr day and see if things look better on the 4th day, dont buy an angel just yet it will add to your problems at the moment, I dont think you want to strip your tank at the momentyou want to...

Get a single angelfish in and that will cure your guppy over population issues ;) Have you checked tap water nitrate levels and cut back on feeding? You also want to check out your lighting too much lighting for too long a time is asking for algae bloom problems. your problem isnt in the tank...