Marty

Year end sale??

Hey Harold, Wondering if you have or will get some dwarf rasboras? Like Boraras maculatus for example, or others? Thanks!

I've had great experience with Eheim professional series filters. I've had a Pro 2 for years no problems. Never tried Rena filters. I've only heard consistently bad reviews on the Fluvals.

Yes please do share. What would you buy?

Good advice given, but I'll add my experience. You can mix the tropheus species (duboisi and moorii) as they will mostly ignore each other and other fish that don't look like them, but amongst themselves they need a group of at least 10. Although Trohpeus will mostly ignore other fish they are boisterous and constantly active, so that usually stresses out more mellow fish.

I've seen these at Pisces Pets.

rummy nose tetras are the best schooling tetre in my opinion. I have had rasboras and cardinas among other tetras, and they school when you first put them in the tank, but after a few weeks they stake out territories exactly like jvision has described. Currently I have cyps, angels, and discus in a 90G with cardinals, and rummy nose. the cardinals will school occasionally (being smaller in size than most other tankmates), but the rummy nose are always swimming around together.

Have you had better luck with the HAGEN GLO T5 HO fixtures?

As far as I know the prefix "neo" means new... Probably has something to do with when they were defined as a genus is my guess. So Lamprologus was defined, and some time later the genus Neolamprolgus was defined to encompass new species being discovered. Edit: According to the Wikipedia articles Jaykit cited Lamprologus was defined by Schilthuis in 1891, and Neolamprologus by Colombe & Allgayer in 1985. So if you believe wikipedia I think that is ur answer...

I saw those Fluval Ebi tanks for shrimp at Pisces. They are very cool! It's on my short list of things to get... Everything you need is in the box. Just add the shrimp and water!

If you don't plan on having plants with high light requirements I suggest you go to Home Depot and pick up a shop light fixture. Home Depot Link It is 48" and takes 2 bulbs. They have full spectrum T8 bulbs there also. $10 for a 2-pack. If you plan on having more growth/plants (or plants with high light requirements) you need more wattage. I suggest the Hagen Glo T5 HO system. The fixture itself is not too bad in terms of price, but the bulbs are expenseive, especially compared to the shop light package at Home Depot. I've heard the Coralife fixtures don't last too long because the compact ballasts are not very durable. Unfortunately, if you want good plant growth you need to spend the money on the lights.

I get mine from fairdeal. Within a few days of getting it my BN was inside. There are many other hiding areas in the tank so the pleco musta chosen the clay cone for a reason!

Talk to fairdeal! He has really good ones I've had success with, and at great fairdeal prices:)

Gah! I hate that algae slime! I find that it turns up when there is too much light and/or nutrients in the water. If the plants you have in the tank cannot absorb enough nutrients to establish a good balance the slime will appear. The fact that you moved gravel (with poop) and what not from another (probably larger) tank also makes me think that there is an excess in nutrients in the water, and the small Edge tank has not established a balanced cycle yet. If you rinsed the gravel before putting it into the Edge then my theory could be wrong. :eh: I've had success with manually removing the slime, and reducing an hour or two off the light timer.

Looks neat! how long have you had it setup for? Looks like the plants are growing really well under the CFL spirals!

Great post covering your experiments! Couldn't have asked for better info! :thumbs:

I use the Lithonia Lighting 4' Shop Light on a couple tanks with great success. I get them at home depot for $36(LINK.) I also get the T8 bulbs from Home depot too. They are 'Daylight' colour so they work really well with plants and waaaaay cheaper than the bulbs you get at the fish shops. If you have a serious planted tank I would suggest you spend the extra $$ on a quality bulb, because it does make a big difference... My tanks only have anubias and val so I don't need fancy lighting for that

Great advice everyone thanks so much! I find that many fluorescent lights (compacts or tubes) start to lose some colour over time and turn yellow. Based on the advice from you guys I will use the spirals to setup a 10G planted tank based on this method: LINK Now I just gotta find some good substrate that is shrimp friendly and a small foreground plant like Hemianthus callichtroides sp. 'cuba'

This might be a risky approach considering this is a discus tank, but my suggestion is putting in a Haplochromis sp. "Ruby Green" (LINK). I had a similar problem with serious hair algae growth in a planted tank. After a few weeks of having the ruby greens in the tank ALL the hair algae was gone!! They love that stuff. I should also mention that there was a bristlenose and a large siamese algae eater in the same tank and they didn't touch the hair algae. As a precaution for the discus and other community fish you have in there you could get a small female ruby green to temporarily put into the tank and take care the the algae problem, then remove her. I would imagine other Haplochromis would have simliar affinity to the hair algae if you have a preference or easier access to another variety. My personal experience was with the ruby green type.

I picked up a couple Philips brand Mini Twister Compact Fluorescent bulbs from Home Depot yesterday for a light hood on a 10G tank. The bulbs are said to be 'Daylight' colour (or 6500K colour temperature) and are 13W (60W incandescent equivalent) at 900 lumens. My questions is... has anybody had any experience in using this type of bulb for growing plants??? I plan on using them in a 10G planted tank, and I figure two of these bulbs at 120W equivalent lumens should be more than enough to have lots of growth in a 10G. Thoughts?? :well:

Albino bristlenose! I find the albino variety is more active than the regular type. I have one of each in the same tank and the albino is constantly cleaning day and night! Whereas the regular brown one is hiding all day long and only comes out when the lights go out. Maybe it's because the albinos are more domesticated?? Got my albino from Fairdeal's stock, and will probably get another.

Between 1 and 75... Depends on a few things... Mainly those mentioned by Wingin' It. Hehe. :smokey:

Just an update: I bought one at Big Al's. They don't carry the Mag-float brand anymore for some reason, so I bought the Underwater Treasures brand one. It was $15.99 also, and it works reasonably well to keep the glass clear of brown algae between times you can get in there with a metal scrapper tool. It is not very effective with the green algae, but the magnets are super strong (very painful when they pinch your fingers!) and the soft felt on the outside magnet is good to do double duty and clean the outside glass. I got the medium size one cause my glass is 10mm thick. This model floats so if you lose the inside magnet (which never happens) getting it back is easy. Going around to the different walls of the tank is pretty slick too since the magnet is so strong! Cheers Marty

Thanks everyone for all the great advice!! I think the consensus is that they are pretty good so I'm definitely going to go pick one up. Great advice I'll keep that in mind. Exactly what I plan on doing. That seals the deal for me! :well: Probably more effort than it's worth... The smallest one is only $7.99! They are only 15.99 at Big Al's for the Mag-Float medium size one that's good for 10mm glass... That's not too bad! The mega ones get more expensive but you have to have a huuuuuge tank with super think glass (i.e. over an inch thick!!) Here's the link: Big Al's Mag-Float

Anybody have any experience using algae magnets to remove brown algae from 10mm thick glass? I've been looking into the Mag-Float Magnetic Aquarium Glass Cleaner but I'm skeptical if they work well. Currently, I use a metal scraper that works fine but since the tank is about 2' tall I have to get my arm right into the tank to get at all the algae. Just wondering if the magnets will work for keeping up with the algae.