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  1. No, maintain your normal maintenance routine. 2. If there is, so what.  It's not like dead bacteria is toxic, it's a cell with no life in it... it'll eventually get consumed by a fish or trapped in the filter.   I actually think the worst thing you can do is panic and obsess and try and do...

  that'a a zero reading, API kits are notorious for this.

try and catch them at night after the tank has been in complete darkness for  awhile.  they will be "asleep" and easier to catch

  this.  I consistently get ambiguous 0 vs 0.25ppm results.  If you see 0.5ppm on an API kit then you have ammonia, anything below this is a zero reading IMO

I had Apisto. Agassizi a while ago in a male/female pair, the mail never got accustomed to the tank and was bullied by the (much smaller) female, he sulked in a cave until he got malnourished and then died after a week or two.  The female later passed away as well.  I daresay that your dominant...

  I think if someone was going to re-write the guides then it needs to be split into two parts.   Part one is "here is a list of steps to achieve a cycled tank as quickly as possible"   Part two is "this is a detailed discussion of filter bacteria and the nitrogen cycle"   Part one should touch...

search for "python" - it's a drain/fill hose with a Y adapter at the tap/sink end that lets you drain and fill the tank easily.  I made a DIY one out of garden hose that works well, the only downside is standard garden hose is quite small diameter and for a 2ft tank is fine but for a 3ft would...

If you want to slow down water movement then a spray bar is the easiest method.  Put it just under the waterline and angle it upwards slightly so it ripples the surface and this will help with oxygen exchange as well.  If you did this with one of the filters (the left rear one, have it pointing...

Great stuff!       I wouldn't worry about too much about this aspect..  the media will be fine as long as it doesn't start drying out. Even if you lose a few surface bacteria they exist deeper into the media (which is porous) and will repopulate quickly.  Just make sure you only rinse out your...

Peat only has a minor influence in my limited experience.  If your pH is high it generally means there is a reasonable amount of buffering in the water, so your best bet is to lower it by filtering the water before adding it to the tank.  look for RO (reverse osmosis) on the forums and see how...

I have cheap play sand, never stir it, and gas buildup isn't a problem.  If it is an issue then it is a rare one.

Try one bottle of Seachem Stability.  Seachem are a very good company and I trust their products.   I did a fish-in cycle too and a few days after I started dosing Stability the tank cycled.  While it may have been coincidence there's also a very good chance that it helped.   Keep up with the...

I buy big sheets of the foam material from Jaycar, an electronics store.  it's sold as speaker padding material for the inside of speaker enclosures (it absorbs sound wave reflections that would make the speaker sound bad).  The thicker the better, the ebay link you posted is very thin foam the...

I've read that fish will breed under 2 circumstances: 1) when the environment is good enough that reproduction won't expend energy needed for survival 2) when the environment is hostile and fast reproduction benefits the continuation of the species   these are evolved responses to stress, they...

Euthanised the fish, it was still active mentally but not recovering physically. Thanks for the advice, better luck next time.

I normally never tinker with it, but my tap water is pH 8 and my other tank stays at 8 between tank changes. I've never even seen it hit neutral. Despite a huge water change during the move with pH 8 tap water (dechlor and temp matched of course) it dropped to 6.2 after a day. That to me is a...

nice effort leveling the stand.. looks like you have carpet one thing to bear in mind is that along the edges of the carpet (where it meets the wall) there is a strip of wood with nails in it that the carpet attaches to as a means of securing it. If you put the tank on this then the back part...

Already own a test kit thanks, see my original post. I cleaned the filter as I always do, by rinsing it in old tank water so I don't kill the bacteria. I have been testing for ammonia frequently and it's always zero so there is no problem there. Anyway, I did a large water change tonight and...

I inherited a 3ft tank from a friend of mine, home to a community of fish including 3 large clown loaches approx 7 years old. Moved the tank on Sunday, gave it a good scrubbing as it was caked in algae (friend has a broken wrist and so can't clean the tank). I would guess it's about 200L, we...

I had 2 apistos briefly, in a community tank with several other species (german blue ram, tetras, bronze cories, etc). It did not end well, there were territorial arguments and the apistos never settled in, ended up wasting away from lack of eating and they died. Geoff

The only time I've ever added anything from the beach (sandstone rock) my fish all died the next day, even though I soaked it overnight first. Not worth the risk.

swords are easy to grow, they will survive without added nutrients but they definitely benefit from substrate fertilisation and CO2. I have had good success with both green and brown wendtii cryptocoryne, in fact my brown one grows at 3-4 times the rate of the green one. amazon swords and java...

I don't like the blue look, and since fish can see it anyway there's no advantage to using blue light. I used a single white CCFL tube, it takes 12V DC into a small inverter to power the tube. The CCFL is only a couple of watts, and this is enough to throw a dimmer light into the tank - still...

If you use mineral oil (eg vaseline) on seals not designed for it the rubber will swell and soften. In an o-ring this means the o-ring is now too large to fit properly and the rubber is soft and will tear. So don't use it unless the manufacturer says it's OK. Olive oil is a silly choice for...

This. I know it seems like you're "saving" fish by buying them but what you're really doing is giving the owner money to restock with new victims. The cycle stops with you - you need to approach the owner, tell him how much business you have given him, tell him what he's doing wrong and say...

Amazon swords are good. I have also found Java fern easy to keep, and I have a crypto wendtii brown that is going bananas at the moment it is outpacing the growth of all the other plants which is surprising for a crypt.

I would stick to one "day" with the lights on continuously for 8 hours, it's a more natural cycle for the plants. You won't boil anything by having lights on in the early afternoon, lights will add a few watts of heat to the tank but not significant unless you are really struggling to keep your...

Trying to make a closed system will teach you more about aquarium processes than you ever thought possible. As long as you're prepared to do your homework (research) that is. Yeah a 2.5G tank is hard, but 1 small fish and a snail or two plus plenty of low-light plants and give it a go!! :good:

CCFL tubes. You can buy a set of 2 x 300mm CCFL tubes for AUD$20 retail (not ebay). They use a pipsqueak inverter module and run off 12V DC input. Don't get them wet as the tube side is high voltage. I have mine mounted on my tank lid such that the CCFL is exposed, but behind a plastic...

Not enough air, too hot, stress, or some other change that makes the water undesirable. My BN only came to the surface when I did a water change, obviously the change was enough to make it want to gulp air. But never saw it happen in between times.

I wouldn't be happy with bullet connectors either, they're intended for low voltage applications NOT 240V. Use a terminal strip or what we call "BP" connectors which are used for joining mains wiring. Put your choice inside a junction box. And make sure you use mains rated cable throughout...

Amps kills, not volts. Volts is just a sign of the potential for amps to flow, actual current flow depends on many variables (dry/wet skin, open wound etc).

Algae eaters aren't as effective as BN catfish, BNs actually rasp at the surfaces if you look at the feeding action of both fish it's quite different. My tank has only had green algae since my BN was killed. Bought 2 more to keep it under control!

the bulbs are a funny size, i haven't found any non-aquarium sources but you could try an electrical wholesaler.

You may need to rearrange your filter flow and/or tank ornaments. I did notice more poo when I moved to sand but after getting cories they just keep kicking up the waste until it goes out of sight or into the filter intake. My sand stays clean now and I never "sand vac" I just do water...

You can buffer the pH with crushed coral or baking soda. Raising pH (hardening or buffering the water) is easy. API master kits are known to give ambiguous readings at the low end of the ammonia scale, it's hard to tell 0ppm from 0.25ppm ammonia. Although if you're showing 0.5ppm ammonia then...

To Italy? hear nothing in over a month.. make a phone call "did you get my heater?" italian company replies "what heater?". good luck with getting further compensation. chalk it up to experience and go with a german brand (jager eheim). zee germans are far more reliable :)

If you had the choice, would you rather live in a small 1 bedroom unit in complete safety or a mansion that had no doors and lots of predators that could stop by at any time day or night? This assumes that fish are self-aware, which they are not. They only care about staying alive, eating, and...

I went with sand only, my rooted plants are very hard to dig up, after pulling a sword out I was astounded at how far its root system went under the sand. 2" to 3" sand depth. I solved the problem of "anaerobic pocket toxic death bubble" by simply not worrying about it, and it hasn't happened :)

^^ interesting, hadn't thought about tapping it till it breaks. that requires patience and faith that you'll get the desired result :P I attacked a couple of terracotta pots with a dremel. cut one in half (makes 2 caves) and cut a square hole in another. made lots of terracotta dust and was...