Psylant

Did you try using this? http://www.loaches.com/species-index/pictorial-species-search-index/pictorial-species-index-body-shape-pictures

I have mature S. Petricolas and yoyo/clown loaches together without issues in my 450g, and previously in my 180g as well. They hang out together in the same areas all the time but don't interact. Some species of loaches are extremely aggressive, as are some synodontis species especially once larger and mature. It could just be an issue of not enough tank space for the bottom dwellers to co-exist. How big is the tank?I would be curious to hear what species of loach it is too. Skunk loaches, tiger loaches, blue loaches, etc. are all quite mean. Maybe take a picture if you're not sure. http://www.loaches.com/ is a good resource for most loaches as well.

What kind of loach? Some are very mean...

Canada Post seems fine in my area, but the UPS lady that always delivers... is terrible. I once ordered 2 large computer monitors and I wasn't home. She left them on the front step in plain view for 7 hours, until I got home. I'm just lucky I have a long breezeway and live in a quiet neighborhood in a smallish town.

You don't need CO2 for most species, however it will benefit every plant greatly.

Too bad you're all in Edmonton... I would love to see/talk ponds with someone so I know a bit more for when I get my own place that will allow a pond. I would imagine that as you dig down, the frost line would move down as well, but not as much as you are digging down. I would assume that the further you dig, the warmer the pond will stay. I would put a LOT of gravel/sand beneath the concrete to help buffer from the heaving. I'm just going off of logic though so I may be completely wrong...

Welcome back to the hobby, and to AA

I'm not sure. I don't have that problem with my Finnex Ray II. Mine sits a few mm off the glass. The feet rest on the frame and are about 3mm off the glass. Not much spillage for me. Then again I'm comparing this to my DIY LEDs which light up a whole city block in spillage :tongue:

Almost always available at Home Depot. Lots of color varieties and they all seem to work fine.

I have some Finnex Ray 2 7k as well, and it's a nice light. I've also built my own LED lights from scratch. It's more expensive if you want to get fancy, but certainly rewarding. I also bought some 20W LED floodlights on Friday off ebay. I'll review those once they're in.

No problem. I would guess a huge percentage don't make it past a few months. You're likely making a wise choice. They aren't for everyone!

They both require brackish water. The GSP will need a full marine environment once adult. Don`t bother trying to keep them in a freshwater tank. They will get sick and die shortly. Puffers are a high maintenance group of fish that require special care regarding their diet. Most puffers are not well suited for sharing a tank either... I would not recommend them to anyone unless they were pretty experienced fish keepers and had the resources required to care for one properly. This site is usually pretty decent with their puffer information in my opinion. http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/ug.php/v/PufferPedia/Brackish/T_Nigroviridis/ http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/ug.php/v/PufferPedia/Brackish/T_Biocellatus/

I don't think there's any fish called a "german puffer" to my knowledge. I have a decent knowledge of puffers. Petland would likely only be carrying "green spotted puffers", "south american puffers", "figure 8 puffers" and "dwarf puffers". Try google imaging those names and see if those look right. If not, try describing it and I might be able to help.

I found this project a couple days ago researching CO2 stuff. I'm looking forward to seeing how people like it and maybe ordering one if it's successful after that. I can't afford to place $200 on it right now. Very useful idea though!

My females scrap a little bit too on occasion. I've never encountered much damage from these scraps. I don't think it's something you'll have to worry about unless one is totally dominating the other 24/7 in which case it might get stressed leading to illness.

The Poland order was placed on Sunday night and arrived in my mailbox on the following Monday (8 days total). It's been very hot lately as you know and everything seems to have arrived in decent shape. "wik5858" was the seller and I received her 120 plant package. I don't know how hardy these species are but this is what I ordered: You get 120 Foreground aquarium plants with leaves and roots ( 8 clumps ) 1. Eleocharis parvula - 15 stems ( one clump ) hight 1-3 cm 2. Glossostigma elatinoides - 15 stems ( one clump ) hight 1-3 cm 3. Lilaeopsis novae - zelandiae - 15 stems ( one clump } hight 1-3 cm 4. Sagittaria subulata - 15 stems ( one clump ) hight 1-3 cm 5. Micranthemum micranthemoides - 15 stems ( one clump ) hight 1-3 cm 6. Isoetes sp. - 15 stems ( one clump ) hight 1-3 cm 7. Eleocharis acicularis - 15 stems ( one clump ) hight 1-3 cm 8. Echinodorus tenellus - 15 stems ( one clump ) hight 1-3 cm TOTAL 120 stems of foreground plants ( 8 clumps ) I also ordered Java Fern and Anubias from "Aqua magic" on ebay as well with good results. I wouldn't do this in the winter though for obvious reasons! Try to order when it will be pretty warm outside, May to September or so. In my experience ordering aquarium products from overseas they usually tend to arrive faster than North American items through standard mail haha. One time I ordered a lot of aquarium supplies from all over the world on the same day. 2 places in Ontario, California, China x 2, and Malaysia. The overseas orders arrived first (one of the Chinese ones arrived in 2 days!), then one from Ontario, the one from Cali, and then the other Ontario one... all standard shipping.

I have a Fluval 405, Aquaclear 110, an airstone, and also a maxijet powerhead on this 90g tank. I was going to feed the CO2 into the powerhead intake to disperse in the tank. I intended on running the air stone at night, and cutting off the CO2. Is my thought process wrong in assuming that since plants are releasing CO2 at night, that this would help offset for the CO2 pressure being cut off at night, in terms of pH? I read a very detailed study about HOB filters and CO2 losses were fairly negligible (about 15% if I remember right?). I'll try to find it again if I can when I have the time to search. If I were to cheap out and get a low grade regulator that causes a dump, doesn't the pressure on the gauge slowly diminish and give several days/weeks notice pre-dump? I really don't want my fish to get nuked, but if all that requires to not happen is check the gauge every few days that's totally fine with me.

Thanks for a list of stores. I ordered from theplantguy once a year or two ago for a bunch of anubias species. I have bought some of the hardier plants on ebay from Malaysia/China before and it was much cheaper to do so. The same for that shipment of foreground plants from Poland I just received. 80 small plants give or take a dozen for about $25 after shipping! I assume the same amount from any store in Canada/USA would be at least triple what I paid. I'm hoping I can grab some cuttings locally from hobbyist for a majority of the remainder of my tank. I might have to order a Madagascar lace plant though... They look awesome

Pteronarcys, I have already stocked the tank with fish. It's fairly "overpopulated" by planted tank standards. Rainbowfish, SAE, Roseline sharks, cories, and snails. Thanks for the abundance of information. What I was thinking was to start off extremely slowly injecting CO2 to try to keep the pH more steady. I don't think I'll ever dose that much. It's more of a fish first, and plants are second sort of tank. I just want to give the plants a little something extra and get a little healthier and lusher growth. You seem like you have a lot of money tied up in your setup. I was looking to spend about the price of just the regulator you linked! I am a little flexible on the spending though... I was just going to get the basics, a cylinder, regulator, needle valve, etc. If you refill the tank before the "dump" occurs, aren't you in the clear? Also, if I'm not dosing high amounts of CO2, isn't the end of tank dump considerably safer because the pH would be higher and more buffering capabilities would exist in the water? I've also read that there are some regulators out there that do not dump at all such as yours. I'm in no way knowledgeable about this topic (hence this thread) so excuse my ignorance if these are dumb questions.

The plants arrived just fine for anyone interested. They're very small and probably not as many as listed, but still a good buy I think. I bought the 120 plant package and probably got around 70-90 plants. It should be a good start though and hopefully will propagate and fill in soon.

I'll have to experiment with dosing after I get the CO2 up and running. I mostly get insane amounts of green spot algae, which I've read is usually due to low CO2. I don't think paintball cylinders will work for me unfortunately. Thanks for chiming in.

That's what I figured. That's a little steep but manageable. Do you have any preferred models for equipment, or places with good prices to buy it from?

Hi everyone, I'm an experienced hobbyist, but not so much with plants lol. I just started my first decent attempt at a planted tank, as some of you may know. It's a 90g dirted tank, fairly heavily stocked by planted tank standards. I'm starting to get some algae growth and have dialed back the lights (Finnex Ray II 7k) to about 6-7 hours a day. I think I might want to go down the road of buying/building a pressurized CO2 system but it seems a little daunting and expensive. I think I would like a cylinder I wouldn't be refilling more than about once every 2 months at the very earliest. Function is more important than looks, to me. Does anyone have some tips on how to save money, where to buy equipment, good techniques, etc.? I've read a little about it, but a lot of it is greek to me and there seems to be a lot of different methods out there. Any help would be appreciated.

It can take months or even years to leech everything out of a piece of wood. 6 hours is likely your problem. Boiling the wood, as JayWho has suggested is your best course of action, along with water changes. Boiling will speed up that leeching A LOT and will save you a ton of time.

I once heard from an employee at Big Al's that they MUST use the name the vendor sold the fish to them as. Apparently if an agency goes in there to check their stock it must match with the names sold to them otherwise they end up with big fines. Who knows how true that information is though coming from Big Al's