Search results

You'll probably be better off keeping to one or two shoals in the 20G. As with any tank, the bigger the better.

Biggest you can fit/afford.   Personally I'd not go lower than a 20G for small shoalers, but if you can get bigger the effect is spectacular. For instance, in this tank http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SvMFKRiprE

Shoaling fish need just that, a shoal, so you'll be restricted by the need to have several of each type, plus it's well worth it for the colour effect, at least 6 ideally of a shoaling tetra.   As for adding the fish, welcome back to the hobby, things have changed but the shops tend to still...

First question would be, where have you got the space to put it? They're often set up as part of a sump if under the tank, but I've set fry tanks up essentially as refrugiums on a level tank with an overflow running back to the main. A local friend of mine has a display refugium with a mantis...

Quite right too, although it looks as though he chose well.

They're not bad. Not particularly mainstream but nice enough filters.

Sounds like you've got a keeper there star.   Lovely fish.

Plenty of substrates will buffer pH upwards. Substrate is high surface area, so it's got a high limestone content then it may well push the pH upwards. It's quite a useful feature is Rift valley tanks and marine systems, but not so welcome in a lot of other sets. A similar problem comes with...

Looks like CO2 deficiency to be honest, particularly the holes. Or of course flow to spead the CO2.

An inch and a half isn't unusual for an amano shrimp. Females will berry up in good conditions with males present and that can make the rear portions look darker, although you need a fairly complex set for any shrimplets to survive as they need brakish water to start out in.   The claws are the...

Also, the water will almost certainly contain chloramines. The dechlor will bind it, but there's ammonia in those and a daily dose will likely still be showing up from that.

Out of curiosity, have you tested your tap water? Mine comes out of the tap at 0.25 on the ammonia tests.

Well, a plan has been formed. The old 100l has been screaming for a rescape ever since a couple of batches of CA cichlid fry tore the tank to pieces while growing on, so new substrate is on order, the lighting rig is finally being constructed and a mixture of plants from the current shrimp tank...

I've seen scale in fish tanks, although I'd be somewhat surprised to see it around a CO2 diffuser, as it should be a fairly acidic environment at the plate.   Now all sorts of other things will react and gather around the diffuser plates, and some of them need the occasional bleeching to get...

Aye. Need to keep a close eye on that tank for a while. He was gobbling up food happily last night, so it would appear to be something sudden and he's a few years old now, but I wasn't expecting to lose him.

Well, woke up to a sad situation. My last ellioti (which people have been telling me recently may be rarer than I thought) was hanging dead in the tank this morning. No signs of anything, an image of health and the water is crystal clear and parameters as they ever were with 0/0/10 on the...

You can get spare fittings for eheims from many places, google will find you several quite quickly.   By a separate system I meant a separate system with it's own pump and pipes. For more reliable for flow and you can adjust it for the UV without messing with the biofilter.   If you run it off...

You can wash kit in tap water. I've also taken to something TTA (I think) suggested recently for cleaning, which was along the lines of running the filter on a bucket of weak bleach solution (can't remember exactly what he suggested, but that's what I ended up doing, but I also buy dechlorinator...

I remember you. Welcome back.

From my limited knowledge it looks like a rose petal macroalgae. I have a friend growing some in his refugium as he had a similar random start up, thought it was pretty but his fish kept eating it.

Not got a vast amount of experience with the API master kit as I use a different one, I do have a lot of experience of people commenting that 0 reads on nitrates happen a lot if you don't shake one of the vials so much that your arm is complaining, as the chemicals tend to precipitate out...

It was mainly the ingredient list for the remineralising mix I use. Plus a few hints on how to mess with GH and kH if you need to.

I'm not the person to ask. I cheat and use this.   http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/RO.htm

Some of the more sensitive shrimp are quite picky about water conditions. TDS or conductivity are what I've encountered being talked about, along with kH and GH due to issues with failed moults with the wrong levels, rather than being all that worried about pH.   Generally though it's been a big...

Breeding brine shrimp is a fairly complex affair, they essentially eat algae if I understand things correctly and I've known of a few people trying to do it to any scale, with some success but a lot of crashes. How well you'll do with a small set up, only trying to raise a few, I don't know, but...

Basically means that it's stronger than it looks, but has an annoying tendency to rust if you don't keep it well painted and to electrocute you if you don't take care with the electrics. I'm sure LV will have similar experiences to me with the occasional zap from old school kit that wasn't...

That's the scary thing with metal. We're used to working in wood, but square section steel has an enormous structural capacity in compression and in tension, problem is that it rusts if you don't look after it well, particularly as we tend to insist on leaving it in close proximity to lots of...

Is the filter wool filling up? Generally I'd expect to be changing filter wool fairly often in a cloudy tank, as it clogs badly. If it's not filling then you may need to look at the inlet for that filter.

He's gorgeous. My other half draws the line at snakes, and my mother would never set foot in the house again, which, while it may have it's advantages, would be an issue for future child care help, so sadly they're off my options list, so thanks for sharing the pictures.

    I've never seen any issues with purigen and suffering biofilters on any of my tanks. According to seachem themselves it doesn't affect the ammonia itself, but will remove some of the organic molecules that would be converted to ammonia in the first place, so I suppose you could see a general...

5050SMDs? I've got some running under some cabinets, they're nice for background but you'd need a lot of them for any serious lighting punch. There also tend to be issues with lensing them, they churn out a fair bit of light but it's a 180 degree spread, so it needs pointing somehow, either with...

I suspect that my other half will continue to insist that the outbuilding we're yet to convert will indeed be mainly a garage. I suppose we have to put the cars somewhere. I'll be pushing for a good corner of space though.   Looking forward to seeing the rest of your project LV.

There are a few vidoes around. There was one build on here from a food container and powerhead not all that long ago (may have been a few years ago actually).   The issues generally are getting it to seal in a way that you can actually open it again to clean it (which a lot of people get around...

    If you do find a near silent air pump then let me know, I still miss my old medcalf hy-flo. Energy eaters and hot, but the quietest I've used.   No, you're not being stupid. I didn't answer fully. There are also exposed surface area differences and flow pattern differences. There's nothing...

The difference with the mattenfilter concept is that it's slow flow. Makes for a fairly useless mechanical filter but an amazing biofilter, that virtually needs no maintenance. The DIY filter there channels water, so the flow over the media is a lot faster. The HMF isn't really all that...

1 inch has always been regarded as fine when I've encountered them, but people often use 2 inch to get the stiffness of foam, 1 inch ones move a bit. Corner ones, remember to watch out of the curve compressing the inner edge of the foam and slowing flow more than you'd planned.   You could...

The age old temporary tank question.   There are 3 routes you can take.   1) Use this as an excuse to get another tank set up. Great for either convincing the other half/parents, or just for convincing yourself, that another tank is really the best answer. I'd advise, as with everything, the...

I've made versions with the very fine foam I could find at the time (this was about 20 years ago, so e-bay and online from Germany wasn't really an option), so I can't comment on how good they are with the foam that they use but I found even the ones I had to be a more than adequate filter for a...

Angels do indeed grow fairly large. Particularly in height. They do appear in the shops very small, and they are indeed young.   There are species of angel that are larger than the main ones that you'll see in most shops, but that doesn't really help you, sadly there are no smaller ones.   One...

You can follow threads, and change the notification settings to get it to e-mail you if anyone posts.   If you click on your username at the top right you get a menu where you can see your own content, and a list of threads that you're following.