Bettarazzi

It's low pH that kills guppies I find. I've had several guppy losses when the pH dropped so I know about the bad fish keeper feeling. pH can drop over time for several reasons, the main reasons are: - your tap water might have low buffering capacity ie low general hardness - rising ammonia levels. Get test kits for pH and ammonia. They're the basics and will really help figure out what's going on. You just want to make sure the nitrogen cycle has completed. General hardness of your tap water you can get tested at the LFS it won't fluctuate that much. I find guppies much less tolerant of low water quality than bettas. You need to give them a 10-15% water change every week without fail. Once you're sure the water quality is perfect then I guess it could very well be that there's something wrong with that strain. I don't know how you would identify this just looking at a tankful of guppies at an LFS without knowing the source and how inbred they are.

You do indeed!

I would be looking first at water quality as a more likely reason. Did you monitor the nitrogen cycle? Check pH? What decorations have you used? Some of the coloured gravels are in fact toxic.

Really struggled to motivate myself to finish this. In my defence there have been just a few other things stealing my attention eg organising Australia's first ever IBC International Show! However, I have advanced a little bit further. Still not finished. You can see a clamp holding it together. Lots more screws to go in. Need to cut boards for each level. But it's reasonable enough progress to post a pic, no? Or do you guys just want me to hold off until it's all done? This rack will hold 15 x 2ft tanks plus 2 x 200lt food grade plastic containers which will be for ageing water.

Oh my gosh! Look who's crawled out of the woodwork... Geddit? See what I did there?

Wow! That's HUGE!! I'm not a fan of uninvited snails. They just take over and they do increase the bio load on the tank. I don't think snail poo is quite as problematic as fish poo but basically it's still poo. I'm not sure how many snails is too much. I generally get sick of them before I find out. Maybe you could sell the big ones? Shame to just kill them. I'm sure people would take them off your hands. Especially since you seem to be able to grow them giant sized.

Ahh now you have to tell who this crazy man is. Welcome!

Welcome Ben. Sorry for the slow approval. Been just a tad distracted with financial year end. Have you hooked up with the Sydney Splendens Society?

STR are usually gorgeous but yours seem extra nice.

Good work Les. During the selection process did you try to keep the females virgin until you chose a male for them? Or did you use a group spawning method?

Currently I'm only using a single 20 litre bucket for ageing water. I do have four of them though in case I need it. But I ... ahem... don't change water as much as I should. I can get all the bettas in beanie boxes in one go if I don't do 100%, the other tanks I just rotate. It really depends what's in the tank that I'm changing water for whether I worry too much about the temperature. Also depends how cold the water is. A drop of a few degrees won't really bother most fish. When I finally get my fishroom finished there will be two 200 litre food grade plastic containers that will be used for water ageing. They will sit at the top of one of the racks and will have airline, and possibly a carbon filter (haven't decided if I can't be bothered with carbon). The room is heated so the water will be the same temperature.

Happy Birthday Ness! May your day be filled with JOY and presents and *lol*

You need a fairly fine gravel, say 2-3mm. The Kelvin rating just affects how the tank looks to humans not whether it will grow plants or not. 10000K will give the tank a bluish cast which some people might think is fine. 5000-6500K is what most aquarist look for to get a balanced, pleasing look. For plant growth you need to know the Colour Rendering Index (CRI) of the bulb and maybe see a colour spectrum chart. You want CRI to be above 90 ideally. Plants need a colour spectrum which is high in red and blue. Green plants need more red, red plants need more blue. HC needs enough light to reach the bottom of the tank. Light gets weaker as it passes through water. So that usually means more bulbs.

No I thought you were following on from my comment about what would happen if my rack collapsed on top of me. Why would you be going to jail? :P

Oh by going away you meant temporarily as in holiday. Not passed the mortal coil. Oops. LOL Yes instructions good. I don't trust my friends. Anything happens I expect to get a phone call myself.

That page isn't nearly as active as we are. :sniff:

Nah... once I'm gone I'm not going to give a stuff. *lol*

Yeah I have to say I use my iPhone a lot. But it really doesn't do well in low light situations.

Not sure single digits counts as a splurge. :P

He's ditched us for Facebook Snap!

It has the capacity to hold 15 x 2ft tanks. And 2 x 200ltr water ageing tubs right up the top. About 1.3 tonnes of water in total. If it collapses on top of me... think of me fondly. He died with a fish net in his hand.

I haven't finished the next rack but I did force myself to make a start. Okay that's enough. Shut the door all the heat is escaping.

No, I'm sure melbournebetta didn't mean for you to soak in bicarb and vinegar. I'm sure she meant soak the tank after cleaning to remove any residual chemicals or bleach. But it's not really necessary if you rinse well. Bicarb and vinegar is a safe alternative to cleaning chemicals. It's anti-bacterial and easily rinsed off. They neutralise each other pH-wise. I reckon what you've done is prefectly fine. You could go ahead and setup that barracks. Make sure your camera is fully charged. You're going to want to brag about it when you're done. :P

When you first said ghetto I thought it was a typo. Now I'm curious. What's a ghetto in this context?

I haven't vacuumed the gravel in ages. I only ever used to do it when I was using an under gravel filter. The old style gravel vacs just had a large cylinder attached to a tube. The pressure in the larger part is lower so the gravel doesn't get removed but when it's working properly the gravel churns around in there and gets washed while the lighter debris flows out. A stocking would just stop that happening. So all you're doing is siphoning water not cleaning the gravel. In a planted tank you don't really want to disturb the substrate. There are aquarium specific siphons that have a bulb just like that fuel one and similarly priced. I'll scout around eBay and see if I can spot the kind I'm talking about. Here you go http://bit.ly/16GU9SJ