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There a lot of conflicting opinions to wade through, but for me it worked great and I will be buying more for my next tank. Though I do appreciate the price is the main drawback. In the UK I notice a lot of places are doing a buy one get one free offer, so I am guessing that they are starting...

I know I keep harping on about this, but Caribseas live sand is great. Looks good, comes in a multitude of colours and sizes, cycles quick and does not require cleaning. Only down side is the price, but that was something I can put up with for not having to clean it alone. Can put pics on of...

+1I woke up the morning after the male (see avatar) had placed the eggs in the nest to find 6 danios killed in action while the male protected the nest. What I last week was move the nest and male into a homemade netted box attached to the inside of the tank. When the fry became free swimming...

I have the same issue and resorted to 30/70 mix of tap and RO water. I think most RO water these days are remineralised, but if not you can add a supplement that is safe ne easy with each water change. My tap water was 14GH and pH 8.2, the mix has has resulted the aquarium stabilising at 6.5...

Does anyone have experience of breeding Colombiam tetras, as mine are behaving a bit strange lately, in a good way. They appear to be shoaling much more than usual and there is a lot of tear arsing around. Can anyone advise?

No takers, I want to compare results and get opinions

Two questions, what "plant nasties" are produced, and I thought 3ppm phosphate was high and it was supposed to be about 0.2ppm So for a medium planted 200 litre tank, 50cm deep with twin T5 lights with reflectors, can I get away with flourish or should I be getting CO2. I have only been adding...

Ok, woke up this morning after 48 hours of spawning and there is no eggs, so i assumed they had hatched. However, I cannot see any fry either. Have the eggs been eaten or are the parents just very good at hiding them. The parents also to have moved places in the tank as well, so I suspect they...

As above question states. I bought some of this last week to reduce phosphates in my tank as stag algae was going mad. It is expensive at £25 for 473ml but it has done a cracking job of reducing my phosphate from 4ppm to 0.5pmm in a week, and all my algae is dying, hooray. It also claims to...

I add ferts weekly and have just started adding Flourish Excel daily, so do you think this will do the trick. I am still trying to find out what the effective wpg is with reflectors and T5's

Latest update, eggs are still in tact after at least 36 hours and the parents are still fanning the eggs. So I guess there will be fry in the morning, question is how do I feed them in a community tank? Any advice please.

Thanks all for the ideas, I really like the look of the galaxy Rasporas but need to get the planted side sorted to their satisfaction first. I am still thinking of a largish shoal of cardinals, maybe 15. And upping the Colombians to 10 as suggested. Would this be pushing my stocking level?

Hi, the two main ones I want are Eustralis stellata to replace my cabomba Carolina at the back of the tank. But the main one is Micrantheum Umbrosum at the bottom of the tank in a corner to grow over the end of my driftwood

Please can someone help me work out if I have the required lighting necessary for high light plants. I have an Aquael 200 litre tank measuring 100w x 40d x 50h. With this I have two 39 watt T5 tubes with reflectors. Looking at the watts per gallon calculation, this works out to 1.47 wpg...

I'm glad I did that exercise, the RO pH is 6 with little or GH. I think I will have start alternating between tap and RO to introduce some pH buffering into the tank. I would be happier doing a weekly dose of something to minimise phosphate than playing around with pH buffers. I think...

Do you know, I've always assumed RO water to be 7 so I am going to check now and will let you know

So do you think I should upgrade to next size up, which I think is 54w. This will give me 2.08wpg of T5's which should be enough for any plant, but may require CO2 addition as well. Should also mention that both tubes have reflectors, does this also make difference?

Hi again. They are duel Aquael T5/D and the tank is 50cm deep, how does this change the light requirement? I am aware that T5's are better than some others for plant growth, so does the type of light affect the wpg, is there a correction factor for the type of light. So many questions, sorry.

Bad news, that leaves me with 1.5wpg when i need at least 2wpg to grow Micrantheum and Eustralis. Thuought i may have got away with the 1.8wpg it calcualted out as using UK gallons. Thanks anyway

Sorry, I should also have stated that since the initial fill I have done weekly 15% water changes and substrate cleans using RO water. I use RO due the tap water beeb 14 GH and 5ppm phospate. The decrease is probably due to this and the amount of tannins my two big lumps of bogwood gave off...

Alls well that ends well, good luck

The ammonia, nitrate and nitrite tests have to be left for 5 minutes after addition of the reagents, pH is immediate. I use these tests and it does stress that when doing nitrate the 2nd reagent needs to vigorously shaken for 30 seconds prior to addition, and then the sample tube needs the same...

Can anyone recommend a good very close shoaling fish for my 200 litre planted tank, preferably colourful. I have thought about cardinals, rummy nosed and neons but wanted to know if anyone else had any suggestions. Tank parameters as follows, Water: 25 degrees, 0 amm, 0 nitrite, typically...

The instructions should be clear in the manual, what test kit are you using?

I am a newbie to fish keeping, but IMO your tapwater is fine and this should be used with no buffers at all. The ideal aquarium water is one where you dont add any additional chemicals. pH of 7 is fine for most fish and does not need adjusting, but test regularly for pH & KH as this will...

Why would the pH increase from the tap to the tank, is it a coral sand substrate?

As the title suggests I have just started adding flourish excel to my 200litre planted tank, but have recently read that this will mean 50% weekly water changes. Is this true as I do not want to do this level of change on a weekly basis, I want to stick to 15% change that my fish a very happy...

Can someone help me out with this as it makes a 20% difference to watts per gallon value, and I am trying to work out if I have enough light for certain plants that I would like. Also, if I need more light, is it a case of just buying higher power tubes or is it more complicated than that...

I like this alot, and I've just noticed you have used the same background as myself. Except you can't really see mine (above) because of a bacterial bloom lol

Thanks for the advice guys. Latest update is all good news so far, all eggs are still there and been guarded diligently, noticeably more by the male as the female always tends to be out and about giving the other rams a hard time. I can only see about five white eggs out of I guess 50 light...

Looks pure blue to me so should be zero ppm, on the assumption that it is indeed an API kit

Lets try this picture instead. Would really like to replace the Cabomba with something at the back of the tank that is attractive and bushy, advice welcome

Had to resort to digging out my old laptop. This one was taken the day i partially filled and planted, notice howclear the wateris even though no rinsing was done A bit closer in and a close up

Hi Primous, would love to. However, I am operating off an iPad and cannot work out how to do it. I should also mention that my sand is white, but it far better, cleaner and finer than any other sand substrate that I looked at. Will try to get a pic on again! Help would be appreciated

Cracking, this was exactly the kind of answer I was looking for. I didn't know about the 1w per litre guideline, thanks