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  Yup, this. That and it's great way to borrow good ideas from people.

Not the easiest tanks to stock, both being small but also in having a small surface area for the volume. It's fairly easy to get good flow across the tank, but it can be a struggle to hide kit in them.   Personally, given the 10cm dimension for swimming room you're really only looking at things...

Similar here on the pellets as a primary food option for the tank. Flake just gets lost in silly places, and they seem to enjoy rooting around in places to find the dropped pellets amongst the wood and plants.   They also get their share of the live food that gets put in the tank occasionally.  ...

Some heaters do badly fully upright, as the heat that they create then turns off the thermostat. Shouldn't be a problem if there's plenty of flow over it.   It's worth noting that the thermostats on most heaters are, at best, approximate in their guide numbers.   When they're heating a tank to...

"all it needs is resealing around all the edges" Slightly ominous statement regarding any aquarium. Overall, I'm not sure I like it, but for the £2.20 it's currently running at, the car is probably worth a bit in scrap value. To be fair, I'm not sure who would actually want it, or where they'd...

I love it when the bigger tanks are used to show the smaller fish at their best, particularly natives. Looking forward to this one.

What you're seeing is an active biofilter doing it's job and sending the waste through the cycle into nitrate effectively. The levels you have are fine, they won't cause any trouble, however they're a sign that there's a lot of bioload active in the tank, common in malawi set ups, which will be...

Units will stop if there is back pressure, the ones with ball valves going into a tank work this way, a bit like the toilet cisterns, but they also tend to have a valve that closes off the feed line when the exit line is blocked to protect the membrane from high pressures (they're called things...

I agree, I can't see any way in which that stocking can have a happy middle ground, ultimately the tank size and water conditions will cause the Columbian to succumb, but it may well take the others out in the meantime as it's a far more aggressive fish than they'll be able to handle.

You'll want flow control valves on anything connected to the same line, so you can balance what goes where.   Don't forget the non return valves if the water level is above the pump.

Then they're unlikely to cause much trouble in those numbers.

They will eat softer bits, and may destroy weak plant tissue whilst getting algae off it. Overall they tend to be beneficial, as removing the algae lets more light get to the plants.   Do you feed them specifically?

Did he give you any clue what the chemical was?

Yes, it takes less time to heat 20 litres of water than 35, assuming the same power of heater and the same flow.   Water has a very high specific heat capacity, which means that it'll actually take on a lot of energy to change temperature, and is equally slow at releasing it. The large volume...

It's been dropping in and out. I believe it's not a problem at our end.

pH of 6.0 isn't a disaster. I've got a tank running around that level and we have members with lower levels. Filter bacteria can start to suffer if it drops too far below that though, so do keep a north eye on things.   Do you happen to know if your tap water is regarded as hard or soft? Soft...

Driftwood won't really soften soft water, although it may well acidify it. Water hardness is caused by carbonates or calcium/magnesium salts (depending on what sort of hardness you're talking about), getting rid of them generally requires that you react them with something that makes them...

Ouch. Then that hurts even more.   I know the chances are slim, but have you considered approaching the sellers of the original for a refund?

That'd do it.   Always the way that you get what you pay for. My experience with cheap regulators is limited as I managed to pick up a few German made ones when Sterling was good against the Euro, so they worked out cheaper than usual, but overall the experience is that they're generally ok, but...

Yup, some form of baffle is generally the way forward. They often have levers somewhere on the pump that can slow things down as well, but many pumps get noisier if they run with more resistance.   With HOB filters like that there's also sometimes an issue with the water level of the return, if...

Not the best picture to ID it as it's half not there, but it could be a pogostemon erectus.

A lot of it will depend on what you want the sump to do.   Is it going to function as a filter or will you, as I expect, be using live rock?   Do you want an area for nutrient export/mud/dsb's?   Do you want to hide kit like heaters and skimmers?   Do you want a section as a refugium for fragile...

I have a few 7 foot boles of yew maturing for the long bow makers. Have been promised a bow if they get a sensible number out of them. Useless for aquariums though.

Sorry to hear this. Losing a beloved pet is never easy.

Awww Star, we all go through patches of rough. It can make it tough to remember the good times. You've had a tough run of things, but there's still lots of good waiting out there for you.

I have various bits of collected wood in my tanks. Properly dried they're generally fine, but some last longer than others. Not a problem if they're free and you don't mind rescaping every so often (elder is my culprit for this, as well as willow, but I have loads of it, all old, dry and very...

There are various PAT tests that would hopefully answer this and most electricians will have the kit to do it if you have a friendly one available.   If I remember correctly (and I may not, it's not a field I'm all that up on) it's the leakage current test that would show a device like the ones...

My shots of the moon all tend to end up with it being a tiny speck in the corner of a picture. Turns out it isn't as big as we perceive it to be.

Could possibly have been a mini spike after the introduction, although I'd be somewhat surprised that the biofilter couldn't cope with the addition of 12 small fish given the existing stocking. You didn't lose power whilst you were away did you? A mixture of an increased bioload with a filter...

I'm guessing the swelling is symmetrical.   Might be worth dosing, depending how stressed she is looking, shame that she's not a good pea eater, but then some simply aren't.

This ones about a year old Don, you're unlikely to get much by way of photos, but we can always live in hope.

No worries. We got planning permission, the area filled with dust and I largely stopped messing with it. It also had breeding ellioti tearing the place up. I'm in the process of restarting the quarantine tank (it was turned from plant growing on and quarantine tank to grow on tank) and then I'll...

Our local MA has some huge, but quite obviously juvenile, bolivian rams in, they have some wild columbians in the next tank which are far smaller.   Still think they're lovely fish, need to get my tank for them set back up.

17498 points. Got a bit lost in Russia.

Well I'm with you, if you have access to a stronger acid it gives a much clearer result.

Word of warning, my wife is both a geologist and a vinegar aficionado. She tends to laugh when people mention using vinegar to test rocks, not because it doesn't work in principle, but because it needs a good quality, strong vinegar, which isn't the easiest thing to buy sometimes as what we have...

Old article, but has a bit of simple maths and suggestions for a mix.   http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/RO.htm

I have to wonder what you're trying to fix by changing things. Do you have a problem that this is intending to fix or are you just shooting for perfection? If it's the latter then do remember that the more complexity you add the more there is a risk of things going wrong (although you do add...

Seal in a jiffy bag, ignore until needed.

As SSU says, I was my sponges occasionally. I threw away an old sponge the other day as it was falling apart, but it was about 20 years old.   Otherwise the best course of action is to, under no circumstances, throw away your hard earned biofilter.   Carbon has it's uses, but is generally not...