Bettarazzi

Welcome to the forum Steve. We whinge and whine about heating our fish in our comparatively mild winters. It must be a greater and more expensive challenge in Michigan.

Where do you the poster hanging things? I was looking for some recently (funnily enough to hang up a poster) and no one knew what I was talking about.

FIVE kids??? You don't look old enough to have 5 kids. I say make them work for their pocket money. You won't need a barracks system. Just do it the old fashioned way. Low tech, high labour. The kids can do the water changes.

Welcome to the forum Fred. It was great to meet you the other day. Hope you'll be able to make it to a few more of the Vic Betta meets.

I think that might be star grass. Not exactly sure. Don't take my word for it.

Welcome to the forum Jamie! If you fancy a trip into Melbourne this weekend we'd love to see you at the Victoria Betta meeting this Sunday.

Also try KillieOrCory. He's in Canberra and has a fair collection of non-annuals.

@deano look at how the edges of the leaves have discoloured to a yellowish brown.

If you put your ear to the tank you'll hear a little "eek eek eek... eek eek eek... eek eek eek..." sound. That's them crying out for food. If you hear "eek EEEEK... eek EEEEK" they're saying, "have you put on a bit of weight there?"

I wouldn't worry about trying to be too precise. It's only a couple of degees difference. I would adjust the heater so that the highest reading is around 26-27 deg. Also observe the fish. If they seem happy enough then it should be fine.

Humidity is a real pain. I've got mould on the walls of my fishroom. I really should invest in a dehumidifier.

Looking good already. What fish are you planning to put in it?

*lol* LOVE IT! Don't resist just go with flow. The spiral leads to a very lovely place. Promise.

Love the names you gave them. They're very pretty boys.

That's a perfectly good introduction. Welcome! :)

Bump

I use osmocote native as well. I usually put a couple of teaspoons on the bottom of a new tank setup then top with gravel. For existing tanks you can wrap some in unbleached kitchen paper and just shove it in the substrate. I think your block ferts would have been fine if it was in the substrate and you're not using an undergravel. Are there no ingredients listed on the pack?

People are going to think it's an LFS. LOL

Looks great! How much did it cost to convert?

Yeah you have to keep the fry and parents alive for 60 days. They've actually been there more than 60 days but I still need to grow them to full adult size before I can get rid of them.

Oh I'm a long way away from the badge. I'm facing the problem now of raising the fry and trying to stop the parents from producing even more fry. So until I get rid of these I won't be able to move on to the next species. What's in the tank? Lots and lots of platies and bristlenose babies. And quite a few guppy males. The platies hassle the BNs, taking little nips at them. They even take nips at the adults.

Happy Birthday Jess! Hope you've had a great day and wishing you a fantastic year ahead.

Welcome to the forum SFF. Yep I'm in Melbourne.

I would add Prime but it's not going to start cycling until you add a fish. You can add Stability when you're ready to add fish.

I think it's really better to pick the pump AFTER you've figured out the design of the barracks. The strength of the pump doesn't just depend on the height the water has to travel but also how far it has to travel horizontally and how many outlets are coming out of it. I wish I had a foolproof way of figuring it out but I don't. You need to figure out the flow rate of the nozzles you're planning on using. They should state the flow rate on the packaging in litres per hour. You need to muliply this by the number of outlets. That's the final flow rate your pump has to be able too produce. But that's not all. You need to look on the pump packaging to find out what effective flow rate the pump will give for the height that it has to pump. Some pumps will show a graph showing the reduction in flow rate. Of course not all pumps will have this graph. Unfortunately this is where a lot of us end up buying multiple pumps as we try to find one that is strong enough. One way around this is to simply get a pump which is far more powerful than you need. You then need to place a valve after all your nozzles which will handle the excess water flow.