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My scarlet hawkfish sits of it in my marine tank - and then pounces on her prey. Unfortunatley most of the time the prey is imaginary hence her name - Mad Sally.

If you want fish that are kept at a neutral pH (ie most fish) then you could add drift wood. If you want to use water other than your tap water you can get RO water from your LFS (if they sell marine fish). RO water has basically everything removed and is about as pure as you can get. It will...

Those magnet scrapers are brilliant! You just leave one half in the tank and one out. You need never get your hands wet again - unless you want to...

Please don't add fish before you cycle your tank... If you don't know what cycling is there are some brilliant pinned topics. They will save you no end of headaches - trust me I did it the wrong way...

One way of looking at it to see if your tank could cope with the fish waste is to calculate it backwards. How much ammonia do you add to get a, say, 20 rise in nitrate. Then compare this with how quickly your nitrates rise in your other tank at the moment. If your nitrates in your tank rise...

You didn't say that you had been testing them all from the start. The way you have explained things didn't make much sense to me as it was only 2 thirds of the story. I would always recommend testing for nitrItes from the start - especially as you already have some bacteria. If your nitrite...

Oh my god! That's $5 a kilo - compared to my £14 a kilo = $22. Aggggghhhhh I'm living in the qrong country! Why do us in the UK always get ripped off for everything!!??!!

You often get snail eggs attached to plants - how long since you last bought plants? Did it coincide with the appearance of the eggs?

That's why these forums are so good - you can share experinces and make an informed choice. Far better than just reading from a book and doing it beacuse "it must be true becuase it's written down..."

I Think you have you nits confused... The conversion is from ammonia to nitrIte to nitrAte not the other way round. So you would get an initial high ammonia spike. If you are testing for nitrates these will stay low for a while. You would get a nitrIte spike before a nitrAte spike. So...

My first thought was snail eggs too. Don't panic - get something that eates them... My clown loach keeps on top of my snails and also clears up any waste food.

It's got live rock bridged across and round it so hopefully it will remain undisturbed. I gave a bit of thought into how to keep everything away from it so I've used the "barrier method" :rolleyes:

Hee hee - I fed my fish today and thought "doesn't my tank smell like the seaside?" :D

Have a read on the pinned topics about cycling. Keep an eye on your ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels as you may have added your fish before your tank was fully cycled. Do plenty of water changes and keep on top of your testing and you should be ok... Best of luck. I have a chocolate and...

I second that one - water contains very little bacteria and possibly a lot of waste. If you transfer as much gravel as you can and your small filter you can probably get away with stocking half the fish you orginally had. Alternatively you could just transfer it across and stock as much as you...

Is that tank 120 gallon? I thought 48/24/24 was about 68 gal... or do I have a bigger tank than I thought :unsure:

I'd recommend getting it from your LFS - you can pick what you want and leave any that looks a bit poor. The dead rock as a base is a good idea because you need to put your rock on the tank base and it is a bit pointless covering live rock with sand...and expensive. If you get a layer of dead...

Or if you want to get up and running without the water wait you can usually buy R/O water from your LFS. You can get gallons at a time. It is more expensive than "free" tap water though.

If you want somewhere to post piccies I have a piccie posting web site - it's where people can post pics for my horsey forum and link to them. There's full instructions on how to post your pics on there. The address is: Arborwood horse forum - for posting images to link to

Wow! again - lokking good! I bet you'd like the anemone I've just bought - it's white with pink tips and looks like blown up condoms...

Thanks for that Navarre - you explained it so eloquently :D I have a wet/dry trickle filter that has carbon and is also part canister. I also have an anaerobic sandpit - basically I have a corner where the sand is about 4-5 inches deep (but not very wide) where the sand isn't getting turned...

I don't think that sounds too good... You know how you said you acclimitised him for 2-3 hours? Some people recommend 20 minutes and not over 30 minutes due to the stress of actually being bagged. Not sure how true this is but I tend to put the LFS water and "item" in a bucket and add the same...

Did you know that petrol here is about 85p a litre?!?!?! That works out about $1.28 a litre (US)! And there's uproar in Canada about the high prices... My auntie complained because it cost her the equvalent of £40 to fill up her 8l people carrier - I have a 1.9l diesel that costs £45 to fill up...

It's probably due to the shipping costs. Its a big pond it all has to get across... I suspect the survival rate for a lot of the creatures is lower due to the distance.

Well I have done a very bad thing I think people will say. I have bought an anemone. My clown was really ***** (annoying) my leather mushroom off by trying to host it. It would get nice and bushy and then Hercules would upset it. Bad fish! I went to my LFS and asked if there was anything I...

It's nice to hear others' experiences - it proves all the scare stories can be overplayed (not that they are lies though). I have a mandarin psychadelic gobie that I was critiscised for getting as I was told he wouldn't eat brine shrimp and only eats copeopods ao would starve to death...

Don't quote me on this but I'd heard that they can "sulk" for around a week. When I got my leather mushroom coral he wouldn't put his "tentacles" out fully for about 3 weeks and was completely in for at least a week. Not sure how it is for true corals though.

Imagine how we are in England... Figi live rock can cost up to £14 (about $20 - $22) cured and the "bog standard" stuff is about £10 (about $16). That is why I can't afford to set up a larger tank and why I have been adding my live rock bit by bit...

Looking good my dear! That rock wall is getting pretty high...

Now now children I think we're being silly.... :no:

They say if you have 1lb per gallon then you can remove all other biological filtration... Not sure about mechanical filtration though.

Nah not an anti-skimmer club; a pro-frequent-water-change-club :P

Well I didn't quite expect an answer like that... Yes I am serious :*) and hercules loves it.

That happened to me too :rolleyes: I now have a few empty shell scattered about...

You need the nitrites to be converted to nitrates but the high nitrite levels actually inhibit the nitrifying bacteria if the levels are allowed to get too high. Doing a partial water change will give them a bit of help.

I don't know if anyone else does anything like this... But i have put a red and yellow ping pong ball in my tank. My clown has gone mad for it and knocks it all over the place!

If your nitrites are through the roof I would suggest doing a 50% ish w/c. High nitrite levels actually inhibit the bacteria that convert the nitrite to nitrate. If you get the nitrite levels down a bit they will start to multiply like billy-o and you tank will cycle quicker.

It's nice to know I'm not a bad mummy to all my fish. I do at least a 15 litre w/c each week - not sure what this is in gallons.

It's all coming out!! I was slated when I said I didn't have a skimmer and manage with water changes alone (20gal) now I see that there are a few of us... I think that for smaller tanks they are ugly and impractical and seem to be an excuse to water change less diligently... Someone said, when...

You can also feed brine shrimp on it if you want to raise them yourself for food.