johnsmith

Will this stuff grow with just room lighting ~ 8 hrs/day

Wow, it looks like you have the same stand as me. I thought mine was an original

Swimming with clamped fins is usually a sign that the fish is stressed out. What it's stressed about could be a few things: water quality, aggressive tankmates. Rams are somewhat sensitive fish and can be difficult to house. The standard sol'n would be to put it in a quarantine tank but not everyone has an extra tank around. Other than I'd say watch them for a while and see if anything in particular seems to be stressing it out and check your water parameters if you have any tests available.

Thanks everyone. I thought I read somewhere else that ABS wasn't fit for tanks but I can't argue with experience. However, if PVC is cheaper then that's likely what I'll go for if I need it.

PVC pipes are safe for tanks, right? What about the other type I've seen at HD, I think it's a three letter acronym starting with A?

I would say so. Her throat does't seem to be bulging very much but there could be only a few in there.

Rainbow cichlids have been impossible to find in Calgary so that might mean they'll also be difficult to come by in Edmonton. I was told at two places that they wouldn't ever get them in b/c there isn't enough interest.

Nice firemouths. As weird as it seems I've always wanted a firemouth / swordtail tank. Even though they're two of the most common fish I've never made it happen.

I've only heard that phrase once before. It will be nice having a new store south of memorial/17 ave.

I'm pretty sure I've seen them at Franco's but that was a while ago and they were albinos. As for price, I don't remember, maybe if you're lucky they'll still be 30% off -roll-

There are jungle, spiral/corkscrew, italian, and tiger vals. I know for sure the jungle vals get very tall, I'm pretty the spiral vals do also. I have tiger vals and they aren't filling out very much or growing very tall. My spiral vals are. I don't know anything about italians.

I have 10 danios in with my pair of apistos but I wish I didn't. They're not causing problems though, the female apisto pushes them around. I'd rather have hatches or tetras just because danios are spazzy and can be nippy. A school of 10 is nice, 6 is the min for any of these schooling/shoaling fish.

When I saw the slightest bit in my planted tank I added a school of tetras and fed more (obviously, 8 fish eat more that 2). My intention was to raise the nitrates, but in a less accurate way. That worked for me. I haven't seen it since.

FWIW, at least one of the triple reds they had at Golds also had a very deformed mouth and several of them looked a little off. The guy I got has one lip that is larger than the other so I'm not sure if that's normal or not.

I did this in my old 40g. I did everything on your list except remove the fish. I just left them in there and everything went well. It was a while ago, but I think I might have taken half the gravel out and added half the sand. Then a couple of weeks later I took out the rest of the gravel and added the rest of the sand. I think I did it that way because I didn't want to lose all that bacteria at once. I'm not sure if a couple of weeks is long enough for the sand to get seeded with bacteria or not? All I know is that my switch went off w/o a hitch.

I have 10 danios I'd be happy to get rid of. I'd love to trade for hornwort or java moss

I have 10 danios wasting space in a 10g and I'd like to put them in my 90g but I have really nice diamond tetras in there and I'd hate to see the danios shred their fins. Do you think danios are really nippy or will they keep to themselves?

I had something like that on driftwood before and my cons loved it. They ate it all up.

I'm definitely going for low light, the problem is that with a 90g I need at least three bulbs just to get me up to 1wpg and I'm not sure if I have room under my hood. 2 T12s would at least get me to 80w but I guess I should try to fit 3 T8s under there.

What is the better choice for growing low light plants? T8 - 32w or T12 - 40w

Silly question, but are cellulose sponges okay to use in the tank? It isn't antibacterial and it's noname so I doubt it has anything added to it, it just felt weird (the cellulose I presume) so I thought I'd ask. Better safe than sorry

Sounds like the problem they had HERE. That isn't good. I'm IE and am not having these problems.

That sounds pricey. What does it cost you to feed them per month, if you don't mind me asking? The other important question would be what size of tank do they need, for the types most commonly found in Calgary? Would a 90g cut it?

All these pictures of rays and the fact that Gold's often has them at a decent price has me curious about the possibility of keeping them. Could you point me to a site with some good info on keeping rays?

I can't help out with the electric shock method, but one thing to keep in mind is that slower is usually better. Once you start chasing them around with your net they get way too jumpy. Just move the net as slowly as possible, they seem to react less to that.