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I build my own tank stands and surrounds all genuine solid spruce :D. If I didnt do all my own tank bits Id choose black over fake wood.

The interesting thing with an undergravel filter is that instead of being a filter under the gravel, the gravel IS the filter, giving a huge amount of filter media. Despite them being out of fashion and even I havent used them in years they are in fact a good solid form of filtration that has...

If the eggs turn white they are normally infertile, it can take 3-4 spawns before the angels work out what they are suppsoed to do. I dont know why people think angels arent aggressive they can be very aggressive even when not breeding. Liquifry doesnt feed eggs the original liquifry you put...

Fish that wont come for flake I often feed with alternative foods like frozen blood worm etc, defrosted in a glass of tank water before chucking it into the filter flow, the way the worms travel through the midstream of the water will encourage even fussy eaters to go for them :D

Fish are not at all fussy about things like that. Breeding guppies back to their own parents or grandparents or brothers and sisters is the way most fancy guppy strains have been stabilised. Ive got a strain of guppies going from some fish I brought about 6 years ago there must have been a good...

22 species that I can remember at the moment although the total is probably far higher than that just been keeping fish too long to remember them all + 3 types of shrimp + anemones + coral propagation etc etc

The floors in my house bounce! badly! Badly enough for the surveyor to notice excessive deflection. Floors under baths should be double joisted! alhtough some wont be if they were built without indoor plumbing. Dont get me wrong in some houses Id have no problems whatsoever with a 5x2x2 weighing...

The water companies probably use colorimeters, the cheapest version of those I can find is around $335. I will find it hard to justify the cost of one of those for around a year. And Im not planning on setting up many more tanks certainly by that time I hope I will have all my long term tanks...

its not just the ability to hold the weight for 10minutes its the weight over 10 years, and what happens when you have a leak :D.

My living room is the same, the front wall is taken up entirely by the bay window so no corner there to put a fish tank the other two corners one is filled with a door to the kitchen and the other a window overlooking the back garden. I like the trigon tanks, but have no suitable corner.

What sort of substrate do you have in the tanks? Quite often with acidic water the substrate \ rocks act as a buffering material until the calcium from them is depleted and then the ph crashes. It can take a good few months for that to happen.

Thats kind of difficult to answer as it depends entirely on the construction and layout of your house. In my house Id be wary of it especially in the wrong place. Although its an old stone built victorian house, I consider the joists very undersized (4x2 in some rooms!) My brothers place also...

I believe the sustainability of wild caught ornamental fish stocks should be down to the governments of the countries where they are caught. The ornamental fish trade is an essential part of economic stability of many communities. I believe it does have its positive aspects for the local...

Thats simply not true at all. There are many things that will "uncycle" a tank, anoxic conditions in substrate, over night power cuts, ph crashs, high temperatures causing oxygen starvation, many tank medications, high levels of copper, mercury and other chemicals in the water. Insufficient...

Does anyone know of a brand of test kit that goes down to very low levels of ammonia for fresh water tanks? The lowest I have at the moment is API which accurately goes down to 0.25, Im looking for something with more resolution at the lower end perhaps 8 steps between 0.25 to 0 mg/l. The...

Unfortuantely you cant always blame these things on age. My sisters boyfriend I believe he's around 21 and was responsible for wiping out my dads biggest fish tank back at easter, including three breeding pairs of sevrums... My mum and dad were taking a week on holiday, he came in the day after...

I tend to hold one net pretty still and use the other net to herd them towards the stationery net then scoop them at the last second with the sationery net. The fish dont seem to have any fear of a net thats not moving. Bigger catching nets and smaller chasing nets can help as well.

Hmm, something where I can keep red tail cat in a suitable size tank that a colony of discus, tetras and cory's would be able to reproduce fast enough to keep up with the red tails consumption! and of course with suitable viewing methods.

I would put in a guess of 250kg+, the 8x3x2 tank im looking at building the glass by itself would weigh 300kg thats 10mm glass and double based

Massive difference Julii is spotted the trilineatus has more regular markings:D You can actually often find them mixed and pick out the species you want, I believe theyve probably been cross bred so much in the fish farms that you just pick the type you like, most will be hybrids anyway! This...

One day if you stick with fish long enough you will start shaking your head at LFS labels with latin names for corydoras julii and trilineatus :D, Identifying species can be hard, and many LFS just go with what their wholesaler tells them, who in turn often only go with what the consolidators...

got hengeli here I believe they stay a little smaller have a slightly different body shape than the harlequin, I just liked the fact that they were something a little different.

You need to compare your tank nitrates to your tap water nitrates, no amount of water changes will take your tank nitrates below tap water levels, its not at all unheard of for people to have high tap water nitrates. 15% water changes wont reduce your nitrate levels by huge amounts lots of...

Ive had more sucess with plants using sand than I did with gravel and under gravel filters. My plants do well in sand, some of my plant stock is 5 years old! and been kept in sand all along. Ive never used CO2 yet.

Yellow labs are one of the few malawi's I would consider trying in a community, they are amongst the most peacefull out there, but to be honest it does depend on the individual fish, a yellow lab is nowhere near as much a guaranteed disaster as a male lombardoi :D Unless your silver tipped...

Its largelly about the money. Although generally with more agressive types of fish raising together from young can cut down on problems. Theres the simple economics of transport and holding and feeding costs, its far cheaper to breed fish and raise them for 2 months before shippping them out 200...

Second hand large aquariums generally arent worth much at all here in the UK, largelly due the hassle factor of moving. Here in the uk Ive picked up a 500l tank for £20 and a 1000l for £30 I think the biggest tanks that fetch money second hand are about 5'x2'x2' basically if two men cant move...

Use to have one of the axelrods books years ago it was very good back in the day, leant it to someone and never got it back :(.

Carbon if Im running it it gets changed after a couple of weeks, but dont run it often. Foam never! Ive got some of the foam in my filters is over 20 years old, just clean it out every water change and off you go again. I dont run gravel any more, when I did it was an essential part of every...

Finshed it around midnight saturday thought the book was generally pretty good, had no real problems up until that last chapter, perhaps it was just because it had got so late, but the last chapter seemed as if it had been written a week before printing as a afterthought or something, Im pretty...

Do you know what your tap water nitrates and phosphates are? some people have plenty high enough levels in the tap water they do water changes with to cause constant algae problems.

Salt water stuff is famously more difficult to keep, definetely not for the beginner, as to how expensive it is, well the fish are far more expensive, and theres far more expensive high tec kit available for marines. Theres quite a few people who control lots of aspects of their tank with...

Marine is sea water fish - salty, tropical fish refers to freshwater tropical fish. Its easy to get confused though as most marine keepers keep marine fish from tropical areas.

Depends on if you are looking for an integrated system like juwel or a basic rectangular tank. Boss aquariums do some nicely priced tanks and many LFS deal with them. http://www.bossaquariums.co.uk/

Its worth noting that although Ive never used Tonic salts, Salt dips work on a different theory the theory there is that the parasite cells are less resilient to osmotic pressure changes and the cells burst in the sudden changes, whereas the fish cells have stronger cell walls, its a stressfull...

Using dechlorinator is the safe responsible thing to do allegedly. People like to know they are doing the "right" thing. I live in a chlorine treated area and dont use dechlorinator at all, I tried it for a while 5 years ago and didnt find it made any diferrence. I cant comment on chloramine...

Something not many people know about guppies is that in the wild they are often found in tidal estuary areas. It a trick of the trade to keep guppies in brackish conditions to keep them alive longer. Guppies are very adaptable, Ive kept them in conditions from blackwater ph6, to full marine...

African lake cichlids like nothing more than to have lots of caves in which they can hide when they feel threatened without nice secure caves to hide in they can become quite nervous and shy, as with many fish they become braver when they know they have more places to retreat to. The more places...

Salt Water dips are easy enough to do heres a link which I found to some instructions on how to do a dip http://wernersponds.com/sick%20fish.htm Ive not followed those instructions before I would normally just do 5 minutes in water thats came out of my marine tank. mollies do benefit from salt...

Im afraid I dont do fishless cycling so I wouldnt know for sure, but I do know that uneaten food in an aquarium can grow a nasty look mould \ hairy fungus and that it doesnt turn to ammonia as fast as fish will do it. I believe some hair products contain ammonia but I wouldnt trust them in my tank.