midgetwaiter

GE 2 should be fine, you don't want something with acrylic in it, too soft.

I don't have silicone on any of my bulkheads, if you get the washer in there right it shouldn't leak. If you are going to put the silicone on there again make sure you take as much off of there as you can with a razor then take the rest off with some acetone from a paint store. You might want to rethink this setup. A closed system like this is just an accident waiting to happen, it might not be the bulkhead that is your biggest worry. Your canister could crack, your o-ring could fail, your hose could come off. To many points of failure. You don't have to build an overflow, just a vertical pipe in the bulkhead so if something does happen you only loose a few gallons or something. Good luck.

I should have mentioned, if your water source is treated with chloramine (eg Edmonton) rather than chlorine it is important to use a good conditioner whenever adding water.

You are way off on this. Until recently I haven't used a water conditioner in 3 years. I suspect that even with the increased amount of chlorine I've noticed lately it is not really a big deal. Chlorine is naturally a gas, any disturbance in the water at all will cause it to out gas very quickly. I top up my taks directly from a pyhton, I have never had any problem. I do water changes this way as well with my FW tanks, the SW ones I do with buckets so I can mix the salt.

The US and Canada has exactly the same law. It's just that US customs has chosen to interpret the law differently and therefore don't allow importing of farmed animals. This only applies to asians, I am pretty sure jardini and black / silver arrowanas are legal in most places, I think maybe Florida has banned them because they could live quite comfortably in the natural waterways.

I've used the same stuff a bunch of times. Once I had a pretty nasty outbreak of Brown algae at first, much more than usual. I think it may have been caused by extra silica from the sand but I could be wrong. Albert is right it won't add any extra calcium to the water but if you are using local tap water rather than RO you won't need to worry unless you have a whole bunch of stony corals or something.

That's just the thing they don't eat fish in the wild very often, they eat at and above the surface of the water. The causes for drop eye are really not known, even fish on a good diet that is not usually looking up seem to develop it. I had pretty good luck with using ping pong balls to keep mine amused. That did teach him how to smash apple snails though.

We have some really good small compacts at Riverfront, I use them on my small saltwater tank, they just might fit your fixture. You can find a 5 gal flourecent fixture, Hagen and All Glass both make them but they are very expensive (>$50) so almost nobody stocks them.

If yo are going to use a sump the best thing you could do would be to put the other fish in a refugium that is connected up with the main tank. You could have it under or beside the main tank. A 1 foot silver will smash that egg crate if it feels like it. when it hits three or four feet.... Really though you don't want to feed your arrowana fish anyway, they do best on bugs and chinks of shrimp.

Melafix isn't going to do anything with an internal parasite. Aquarisol may work but it is also hard on the fish and the bio filter, copper is nasty stuff, if you aren't sure of the problem I wouldn't use it. Are you just trying to keep the 2 discus? If so I'd strongly recomend you change your setup. Keeping a non mated pair can be almost imposible. Discus need to be alone or in larger (5+) groups usually. You do see people get away with it sometimes but it is very unusual. Try splitting them up first. J-ROC is probably right on the money. A

Just a heads up Ryan. I think you will find that your new fishes colour will fade out quite a bit. The pictures make it hard to judge size but I'm guessing they are 2-3 inches. If so they are showing adultish colour way too small. The real give away is the colour on the face and lips, see how your new fish have that bright red colour compared to your original turq? They have been fed a colour enhancing food, probably hormone based or prawn eggs. There is nothing wrong with them or anything, you should just be prepared for a change over the next few weeks, they will fade. Your original turq is vey nice btw.

They don't like bright light much and they really don't like stuff going on overhead at all. Give it some time to get used to it and it'll calm down.

I've never owned an Ehiem but I will say that a lot of people who's opinions I value swear by them. I'm wondering why you will only consider a canister. The thing I'd be concerned about with those fish is mechanical filtration. Basically no canister is going to do a very good job at picking up waste, they don't move enough water. You would probably be much better off with an Aquaclear 500 added to you existing filter. Id there a specific reason you don't want a HOB?

Hmmm, I can't think of anyting off the top of my head. What do their stools look like? Any white stringy stuff? What are you feeding?

LOL, so that's where those went. Nobody was buying any of the high end ones then all of a sudden there was a bunch gone. I managed to help unpack all of these bettas and only take home 1 pure white short tail, I was so proud of myself. Glad to see they found a good home. Aaron

I'd like to add another vote for the Aquaclear. The thing that always gets me about the Marineland filters is that silly carbon / mech pack that you have to change out. I have Aquaclear sponges I've been using for 7 years. Also, and I am really not saying this to start a flamewar or anything, but I don't think the BioWheel is good for anything at all. It's a gimmick. Glad you got the AC

Just an idea for when you do your sump. Go to the dollar store and get some plastic wash tubs, the ones that are 20cm x 20cm or so. Then go and drill a bunch of holes in the bottoms, use these as media trays in your sump. Fill the top one with foam or floss, then balls, then rock or something then carbon. You just have to rasie the bottom one off the bottom of the sump so they drain and you have a full on modular drip tray system for very cheap.

Vantage are you sure you have it open all the way? You have to turn it and pull down for it to siphon, they are a little sticky at first sometimes. If it still doesn't work you can bring it by Riverfront and we'll sort it out for you. Aaron

Thoise kribs look great man. Have you had them spawning or do you just have females?

Hey Michael, I'm the Riverfront guy that helped you with the Pigeon Bloods, it's nice to see that they settled in well. You really weren't kidding about the Cobalts, I might have to go check them out. Aaron