Yanagi

Means your cycle is progessing lol I need to get me a pH pen one one day. If you can find a test kit that does <6 pH let me know, 'cause as far as I know most don't and the only other option is a pen. Or an in-line pH monitor but I can't see myself spending that much to know something as relatively insignificant as pH.

I just watched the video. Wondering if it actually consisted of a mouthful of crabs or there's something funky in my tea... Um, I hope this is the first and last time I ever say this but; congrats on the crabs... :)

I combine it for 3 reasons, 1 to keep costs down, 2 to add sand into the gravel, some plants rather like a sandy base and 3 to give it a more natural look with all the different colours through river gravel. Depending on what you go with, I certainly wouldn't mind lending a hand, LOL. No difference re the tetras.

Red Sea Flora Base! I use it in all of my tanks. Buffers to 6.5-6.8 and it's been well over a month and I'm still not dosing my community tank with anything other than potassium (which I started doing a week ago..). It also won't leech ammonia. I combine it with natural river gravel/sand mixture. Usually about a 50/50 mix. I have a tank with very similar dimensions but it's actually a bit narrower. I think it would look pretty interesting to mostly plant it out with vallisneria and chainsword, toss in a couple branch-y pieces of driftwood (gold vine perhaps) and pop in either a pair of angels or a pair of small discus and a big school of ember fire tetra. Or! You could put in a little powerhead down one end and make a tall river bed style tank with some rainbow fish. OR! Make a really interesting rock scape and chuck some little cichlids in there. OR!! Make it a paludarium with some frogs and little fishies... I have too many ideas and not enough space. Someone lease me a factory and some fish tanks...

Hope you have a good one. :D

Everything I could say has already been said but toss in another thanks to Lisa for her time and dedication to the forum and a warm welcome to Bettarazzi as our new admin, now everyone run riot in 3... 2... 1...

We keep our Apistos in 20lt litre tanks at work. They seem happy and horny enough. I still wouldn't put them with shrimp though, lol. I was going to suggest honey gouramis but they are quite active little things and I don't think that size tank is fair for more than one. If you're going with Apistos stick with fish that will stick to mostly the top levels as once Apistos go into breeding mode anything on the bottom/mid section is going to get harassed and chased away.

Happy birthday Serkan, have a good one. :)

Happy birthday Les!

Apistogrammas! Enough said.

I spent about 20 minutes and got some REALLY GOOD shots... Then I realized I hadn't put the SD card back in the camera and the cable went missing long ago... Well that was smart. Can't get them off the camera now. Here's some quick snaps instead. Caption contest anyone?? lol... This is Pidgy. The other 2 didn't want to come out from behind the driftwood and plants. This is what happens whenever I go stand in front of the community tank... Food tiemz?

So this morning that starved Apisto was dead. 3 Others are looking a lot better now that they've settled in, they're swimming around and went nuts over the blackworm I chucked in. The other very skinny one is just sitting in the plants looking terrible. The Red Spot Eruption (Lets call him Ernie?) and the Pidgon blood (Pidgy?) ate some blackworm but the Reflection D (Big D) is just hiding in the driftwood pretending I can't see him. Pretty pleased with how he looks but he's still not fully coloured up, he's very drab and coming back from being black. I'm not sure how long I'll keep them in quarantine for... At least a week. I want to put them through a course of Sterazin, plus they will be getting medicated food (dimetro and praziquantel). I might even hit them with Big L's wormer. I can do that over the course of a week but it might be better to do it over two. We'll see how they go.

Perhaps we need to step it up with the wholersalers* then because as far as I'm aware, we don't get any sort of credit or refund when fish arrive looking more dead than alive and this is not the first time it has happened. In cases of mistaken identity (they sent us a 'pair' of apistos that consisted of two different species... Hm.. nice work on that one, guys) they do send out replacement fish and DOAs do get credited but yeah.. Not sure what the protocol is with fish in my Apistos condition. *It's not any one wholesaler guilty of sending fish in poor condition though some are far better about it than others In other news... The Angels aren't as big as they looked, hahaha. I kept the smoky black and the zebra for now. Things are a lot more peaceful right now and my Whiptail is happily munching on stuff on the glass instead of being harassed by the platinum (I swear she had a vendetta against the whiptail.. strange fish!). I'm not happy with the colour/pattern on the pigeon blood discus but what can you do... Maybe he/she'll grow on me. The Eruption looks quite nice and the other one has been hiding in the plants all day so I haven't really had a chance to get a look. I ordered; Pigeon Blood Pattern (5cm) Red Spot Eruption (7cm) Reflection D (5cm) This wholesalers '5cm' is a lot larger than another wholesalers '5cm' which amuses me a fair bit.. :P

There's nothing that can be done once it turns up at our door step unfortunately. We can't just say 'Hey, send one of your guys to come pick up this fish, it's half dead.' It has to go somewhere and then someone gets to ream out the wholesaler for it later. I had all of these fish specifically ordered in for me so I had to take them regardless of the condition they arrived in, still in their wholesaler bags. <_<

The one pictured is definitely beyond saving. It can't swim. It's sliding across the bottom of the tank on its side... That sure didn't happen in shipping. I took a video and I would love to copy it onto a flash drive, hurl it at the wholesaler and ask if they think that is in any way acceptable... One; how did the fish get into this condition... Two; why the @#$! would you think it's acceptable to put that fish in a bag and send it to a shop... Three; AND STILL CHARGE MONEY FOR IT?!??!?!?! :censor:

So not happy with the Apistos. One is so skinny it looks like it'll drop dead within the week. Most of them are skinny to some degree. Into quarantine with the discus they go... The discus look ok from what I can see. The Red Spot Eruption looks like he's fantastic quality, the other two are so-so, we'll see how they colour up. Oh how I wish I could name and shame.

These Altums are almost fully grown already, my tank's 2ft tall so they should be right in here. That Platinum Bimbo is one fiesty little chick! She definitely needs to go.. Not a big fan of her head shape anyways. I have plenty more tanks already sitting around but no real space to show them off and no fish room/shed/garage I can put them in (your set up is amazing btw, can't remember if I commented on your thread or not). I'll try and get some pics of the Viegitas in the bag/s once I get them home, hopefully they look as good as the google pics... Or better, better would be good too. See the Smoky black and Zebra are probably the most aggressive fish. Especially the Smoky black and they're both male I believe. I can't bare to part with them (just yet) so I'll take the 3 others back to work and see how the Altums and the current residents get along. Maybe the change to a huge pair of Angels will get them back in line and behaving. I hope. :sad:

And the evolution continues... Today I've got 3 Discus arriving at work along with 5 Apisto Viejita red neck gold (or something along those lines.. I was going to go with something else and got talked into the more expensive fish at the last minute LOL). The sad news, I'm taking all of my Angels back to work and swapping them for an almost full sized pair of Altum Angels which were a customer trade in. I'm hoping this will cut down on aggression in a major way. A few things have changed.. My breeding pair that I've been idolizing since day one have had a split, broken up and the male has run off with that platinum bimbo from the other side of the tank leaving the koi female in despair, she's been taken down a few notches on the hierarchy and has become quite aggressive towards everyone else. She and Curly will be joining my fathers tank due to an injury on the female and the fact Curly is um.. Curly. (For anyone not on my facebook, my dads tank got a major clean out by me and I added new fish the other day and no losses so far so I think it's safe to add these two). I'm seriously debating keeping the smoky black and the zebra as I just LOVE the colours on them, plus the zebra still looks like a primitive coloured fish. There's no reason I can't say 'this isn't working' and take them back to work another day... The thought of not seeing them every day does make me rather sad but the aggression is getting annoying, especially when they take it out on the other fish like the gouramis and discus. That's just not acceptable, keep it in your own social circle! Anyway.. The new discus will be going into quarantine in a 2ft tank (hopefully they'll fit, we'll see if they're any bigger than the 5cm, 5cm and 7cm they're meant to be) for a while but the Altums will be going straight into the tank. Indecision is a terrible thing. Am I doing the right thing? :mellow:

You know the Delicates are one of the larger blue eyes? A trio or small group would be fine. I'd just be a bit worried about them jumping. edit - The tiny gouramis totally skipped my mind. Licorice or Sparkling would be super nice too... They are more sedate fish and smaller as well.

I think some spotted blue eyes would look really nice. :D

Ergh, I really didn't want to be spending money on fish after my xmas spree... Sorry for the thread hi-jack, lol :blush:

Oh my god no way. You don't mean red crap (red back) Manacapuru Angels?? These?? What size and how coloured up?

Happy birthday Matt! :dance:

*jumps into thread* Someone should go take pics of someone's fancy angels and give me a price.. just sayin... My angels fry never lasted long if that makes you feel any better, Matt.