Evolution

Metal Halides work very well with plants, better than any other type of lighting and especially in deeper tanks. However, they cost a small fortune to run as they use huge amounts of energy.

Thank you, my drawing was meant as an efficant way to use your sump as a bio-filter. The bioballs are designed be used out of water and are practically useless when under water. Hope it helps!

It looks as though the prefilter on the far left is next to impossible to access or atleast difficult, especially on a regular basis. If the black stuff in there is not a bunch of bioballs, but some other media like the stars or sponge blocks, then I suggest you remove it all and just put bioballs in there above the egg crate and leave the rest of that far left chamber empty. Doing this you'll not have a need to access that area for long periods of time, but with other media it will clog easily and just be ineffective. Then, using the very next smaller chamber at the bottom of the sump where the water from the first chamber travels next to... err here... Please forgive my spelling errors. Where is the drip water entering the tank? Is it anywhere near the drain exit?

How many gallons an hour does the drip provide?

No not at all, I feel great! LOL You asked what we think... I noticed that your wetdry (biological filter) isn't functioning well the way it is set up with the water line as high as it is. Basicly as it sits in the picture it's just a sump with almost no filtration other then the tiny bit of black stuff on the left. Also, I was wondering if you were going to get a bigger tank because of the size all those aros will get and being the RTC can get 300lbs and 5' and will eventually be big enough to eat a full grown asian aro! I only ask because I have to build a 1000+ tank for my rays and one for my electric eel as it will get 8' and it is already 3.5' and growing about 3" every 3 months. As for the swapping OUT the silvers for Asians... I just missunderstood, sorry for the confusion.

That is a nice looking tank! Are you going to get the sump working properly? It probably just needs some flow adjustment? Who would trade an Asian aro for a silver aro? And damn, a RTC, I take it your next tank is going to be over a 1000g?

That male is spanktacular! His caudal looks similar to A. vajita

First!

Ahahaha here I thought I was about to get cyber punched by the big guy again!

You sure it's a male?

Here is another perspective... Lets say I work at a LFS and I'm paid $20 an hour and I spend 1-2 hours a day talking to people about the zebra pleco for sale and 4 days go by before it sells, because I'm not going to sell it to just anybody... it would cost the LFS a $100 - $160 to pay me to sell it. It takes me less than 5 minutes to sell 6 red wag platies and 6 neon tetras and I'd sell them to almost anybody (requirements pending). Here is another perspective... The zebra pleco lands in the store that day and before a price can be put up a reg walks in and wants to buy it... "how much?" "$300 but I'll take $25 off for you" "$50 and it's a deal?" "deal!"

Watch out for the rainbow sharks, one usually sends the other out any possible opening in the conopy.

I understand your concern. They first started arriving in Canada around 1988 and selling for about $750 in Big Als, Toronto. 10 Years ago they were selling for about $100 at Big Als, BC. In the past two months I know of 30 CB that have sold in Calgary. These 30 are the first that I know of that have been available in the trade for ten years. In the 10 to 15 years that the wild caught were available, you'd think breeding colonies would be set up every where as these guys will always have a demand and sell out! But, they are rare and CBs are very few and far between as very few people have been able to consistantly produce offspring. Also, going from egg to 1.5 inches, which these 21 are, takes a very long time; they are very slow growing fish. Add to that, they do not ship well, because they fight like cats and dogs and they have very high heat requirements- shipping from Indo gets very expensive. Not to mention the wholesaler, who provides 75% of all the fish in Alberta has to pay his staff for watching and feeding and caring for them (they are well paid) and he has taxes (huge amounts) to pay and rent ($25 a square foot in a 20,000 square foot building) and heat and gas (beyond imagination) and all the other huge costs of running a business that supplies this province with the majority of it's fish. Then there are the stores that sell them to the public and they have an even more enormous cost of running business. So price is relative and dependant and doesn't have anything to do with greed, but is how business is conducted in this country and pretty much the free world. These fish a rarer, harder to breed and raise than Appendix 1 CITES microchipped aros!

IMO that is the very best beginners book out there.

How long have you been playing with FW?

Good good, a fw invert section will be frequinted.

They're baaaaak! Expect $250-$400 price tags around Alberta. (21 CB from Indo landed in Calgary this morning)

I look at it as more of a desire to improve upon things. Certainly not trying to step on any busy with everyday life toes, Jason.

angie, I just want you to know that I think that your idea is a very good one, one that could benefit this board very much. I collect books and the Discus books and magazines that I have alone exceed a $1000 in value to replace brand new. There isn't a single fish book in my collection (and I have hundreds) that focuses on a single species of fish that is greater than the discus section, none even come half way close, and I'm not a discus nut. My point is, your idea is valid as discus, are the most writen about species of all time and comparing them to the fish they were compared to was kinda silly. This board would do very well with a discus, an arrowna, and a stingray forum as well as the two others I mentioned, but as it is, the board is not set up this way. I am sure your opinion is valued and it's not the intention to brush you off like you have been. To be honest, and this is myself included, new people are usually the ones that come in and try to change things, but we really do not, at first, understand the undercurrent of how things flow here. Establish discus dialog in the SA cichlid forum and take it from there. If that takes on a life of it's own, then address the idea, if not, then it will fade away to what it is now and the board continues the way it does now and as it is intended to. P.s. it's Evolution, BirdWater!

It's a beauty!

Very nice A. madagascarensis, do you refridgerate it?

/signed

The nutralizer is just that, a nutralizer, then you need a stablizer, which is all practically useless in Calgary's hard water without first running the tap water through a RO system. Honestly, do not adjust the pH of the tap water or the tank, just use straight dechlorinated tap water, your fish will thrive. Something you may want to understand is that when pH rises like what happened in your tank, the natural ammonium within the fishes body turns to ammonia and kills them.

West African!

Keep the tank bottom bare, feed 5 times a day and change 75% of the water once a day. Be it, this all depends on the amount of fry to gallons of water.