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Thanks. What a guy! I assume they're cuttings surplus to requirements. Anyway, as I turn off the lights, I notice that one of my carefully planted pieces of plant is now bobbing up and down along the gravel in the current. Need more lead. Does it never end?

Right, I finally finished. Only kidding. Wife and baby arrived home before I could finish so I had to come back to it. Minerals for the fish from water changes; I hadn't thought about that. Good point, and that alone is a good reason for more frequent water changes. To answer the...

Wow, thanks. Will reply more fully later. 3-4 hours. What am I doing? Surfing this board of course lol. I like to take my time, get distracted (food, coffee, internet). I enjoy doing it becuase it's not often I get to concentrate (sort of) on one thing for so long. Going back to that now.

Real quick off-topic for this thread... What do you use to clean the glass cover for your tanks? I get a lot of water deposits on them which are hard to get off without chemicals. I have used vinigar, but I can't get it all off (or at least the smell), and I'm worried that it will get wet and...

Right, I'm reassured. Read the cycling part. Nothing new to me there, but a good refresher. Read the weekly tank maintenance part. The first para states 'deadly nitrates'. Pedantic maybe, but nitrites are more deadly, and nitrates are okay in small qualtities (and beneficial to plants)...

Amonia = 0 Good job, filters!

Thanks. Really appreciate all your help. A quick read through, and it seems I'm doing the right thing. Will read that and the cycling part thoroughly before I start. Better try not to get distracted by any further replies, or I'll be even later going out and will run out of time to do...

If by nitrogen cycle, you mean the waste matter becoming nitrites, then broken down to harmless nitrates (or whetever), I have a rusty knowledge, but I will check your link to refresh my memory. Sorry, got my NO3 and NO2 in a muddle. Just done a quick test. Here are the results. NO3 (Nitrate)...

Ah, I can't keep up. Need to type quicker. I think I answered Miss Wiggle's Qs before I saw her post. Yes, gotta get new lights (although my plastic plants are doing fine lol). Fine and stable - See figures above, but will measure later (will take laptop down to fish tank). By stable, I mean...

Was writing my post as piranha_tim posted.... My tap water is slightly (0.2 - 0.4) higher pH than my tank water, so I add PH down before adding it to the tank, and of course a water conditioner (Aquasafe) which neutralised chlorine and chloramine. Yes, the bogwood might be reducing the pH, and...

The plants I bought recently are aquatic, and I have successfully used them in the past, Vallis (which just rotted within 5 days) and Elodia (which looks like it's rotting after 2 weeks). Both of these I had in the distant past and they grew and propogated so much that I would have to cut them...

I've been keeping fish for over 25 years, but I'm no expert. I haven't really changed the way I do things in that time, but I'm finding it very difficult to keep things alive; either plants or fish. I used to have great success, with fish breeding and plants doing so well that I'd have to cut...

Old thread revived. Sorry, but I have an update. This place is great!! I searched because I've bought a couple of Glade Flameless Candle by Wisp. They're quite a new design, and I saw the notice on the pack like the OP. I took Enchanted's good idea and called SC Johnson and spoke to their...

Thanks Andy. I'll follow your suggestions.

When I was 18, I asked my girlfriend whether she wanted to go up to my room to see my 3ft tank :devil:. 21 years later, we're still together. Is racing driver a sexy hobby?

I do intend to use two bottles, Wed and Sat/Sun changed as suggested, but the wife had an un-planned stay in hospital so I didn't have time to set up the second bottle on Wednesday. She's fine now, BTW. I'm not getting any overflow, but the scum on the top was getting close to the tubing, so...

How Can You Make This Hobby Sexier? "I'm a specialist in in the biology and distribution of h2o based lifeforms, and the design and distribution of their artificial life support systems." And when you get her home and she realises you keep fish, keep it sexy by doing your next water change in...

Thanks for the advice. Actually, I do have a small tank (12 inch / 30cm) but don't have any kit for it so it's not in use. Asuming I've got a tank, how would I use it? Would I use water from the main tank (in which case, what's the point), or set it up with fresh water and cycle it before...

The Plec looked fine and health. Got dark and listless when affected by the internal bacteria, then perked up a bit before dying. The fish I have bought have included Cardinal Tertras, Red Eye Tetras, Sucking Loach, Pepper Corydoras. From 3 different LFHs. Current fish are 2 Cardinals, 2 Red...

Acclimatisation: Float the fish in the bag for at least 10 mins, then very gradually introduce tank water to the bag over maybe 30 mins, before letting the fish out. Quarantine: no, I don't have a quatantine tank.

I had a thread a while ago asking the same question. The conclusion seemed to be that I had old tank syndrome. I thought I had solved this by doing large regular water changes. A few weeks ago, I inherited two fish from my Mum, a Plec and another I have yet to identify. The Plec looked like...

Wow, it's so easy. I didn't get round to setting up my first one until Monday, and I was getting 1-2 bubbles a second. I didn't have any difuser, so I've connected mine to my powerhead with the valve turned to almost off. It gives me a burst of tiny bubbles every second. The currents in the...

Thanks for the tips guys. I'm usually super cautious when introducing new fish anyway. Perhaps more cautious than I should be. There was no rush to get the fish from my Mum's tank and into mine, so I thought I could give them the best chance by matching the pH of the tanks first. Can't wait...

Ah, I see. Amazing what you can learn here.

Too late aaronc, I took a copy. :P

Thanks very much for your replies. Nry, I'll start slowly, even though my tank is five times the volume of yours. I'll probably go for a ladder, rather than a diffuser (see below), so I hope pressure won't be a problem. I will be using 3 eventually. I just need to drink more coke. I didn't...

Thanks for this excellent, concise guide. It's exactly what I need for my first attempt to follow shortly. If my house blows up from the pressure, my lawyers will be in touch :rolleyes:

I give up! You've convinced me to try this new-fangled CO2 thingy, and I want to go the DIY route because I can't really afford the £60 plus I need to get three canisters for my 250-275 litre tank. I want to get set up asap. I've read various threads, but I still have a few questions...

Thanks T1. I'll put them on the list. Maybe I'll get 5 or 6 cardinals, and 3 or 4 platties. That would more than double the numbers though. Being a big, mature tank, does anyone think it would be too many at once? Thanks for the advice.

Right, that's another thing off the list. Liquids it is. Thanks. :good:

Thanks. So that's what sucking loaches really are. Mine was very shy, and would run and hide when you entered the room. Not aggressive at all. Re the mail order option, I'll give that a miss, thanks. :good:

Sorry, I stand corrected. :blush:

In my experience, undergravel filters have not hampered plant growth. I have had plants (including Vallis that roots and propogates by runners) that grow so well that I have to cut back and throw away excess monthly. Regarding CO2 I have no opinion, since my methods are somewhat oldSkool and...

I don't know, but I suspect that the wood will absorb the bleach, then leach it into the tank. I soaked my bogwood for ages before adding it to the tank. Maybe the chlorine in the water I used killed off any spores, maybe not. I take mine out and scrub it with a washing up brush (not the one...

If it's water-tight, it's air-tight, so it won't run efficiently. If it's second-hand, make sure it has the filter pad in it (if it needs one). There might be a place for it on the bottom where the air goes in. You could put it on something solid (rather than something that would vibrate like...

Hi Folks, I've been keeping freshwater tropicals for 25 years, but consider myself a n00b compared to you lot. I have a few questions for you. I ought to give you background first. I have been trying to correct 'old tank syndrome' for the last 10 weeks. New fish and plant didn't last long...

I think that's a video card driver, another .dll file. Are you getting problems opening any type of documents? So far, you've only had problems with drivers, which is very odd. If it was a disk problem, it would probably affect random types of files. My first guess would be some sort of...

I also use a Fluval, but mine is Fluval 2. BTW, I buy Fluval 3 filter material, and just cut it in half to fit. It's cheaper that way. What a cheapskate!

Have you checked the cable from the router to the modem, and it's power cable? It's a very odd problem. What about doing a firmware update of the router? There'll be an option for this in the router's configuration pages. Before buying a new router, can you borrow one to make sure it's your...

I don't know whether this will work or not, but it's worth a try. I don't know what the file you refer to does, but I guess it's something like (Windows) NT OS Kernal. Anyway, go to Start, and click Run. Type sfc /scannow (there's a space between sfc and /scannow), and click OK. Have your...