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I kept a culture going for 6 months but it got contaminated with small leaches that readily reproduced in the gravel until there were so many I got fed up of trying to pull them out. I fed left over fish food and it seemed to work. I put some into a small corydoras Habrosus species tank and...

Hi folks. I have two oase HeatUp 50w heaters, both of which have the same fault at about 2 years old. Where the heating element is crimped onto the connector there is corrosion. Secondly, the thermostats seem really temperamental and tend to stick in the off position. Better than on I...

You make a good point. I've never really bothered with ice before but lost a load of young cory pandas I'd bred in the heat wave last year. This 240 litre tank has got a load of Cory's including pandas and some cw041s that I'm trying to breed and I didn't want a repetition of last year...

Thanks for the suggestions. I've got 9 tanks. 3 display and 6 breeding tanks. All the ice cubes we had went in the little breeding tanks. On my day off I did the weekly water change with cool water. Whilst I was at work we had to get inventive and got caught out by apparently sealed bags...

Hi folks Yesterday my tank hit 30 degrees and the Mrs decided to put an apparently sealed bag of frozen Brussel sprouts into a 240 litre tank to cool it down. I came home late from work, all seemed well and I just went to bed and didn't pull the bag out. This am the tank was milky and stank of...

Thanks for your replies. Sharp decor - its smooth fine gravel over the JBL, unipac samoa. Google doesnt bring up anyone saying its a problem. Redmoor root, a thin branch of which has disintegrated after 3 years in the tank. Dragon stone holds back the deeper section. I've not noted sharp...

Firstly sorry for the long post. I'm hoping some cory or fish heath enthusiasts will make it to the end and offer some advice. I have had an issue with my panda corydoras for a few months. I started with a small group of adults which then laid eggs in the tank and a steady trickle of fry have...

Ta aquaculture had a few different types in middle of 2020. No idea what they've got now, but worth a ring. I don't think they update this page often but it gives you an idea of stock they get in. http://taaquaculture.uk/Fish%20_Sales_Online/Anabantoid-Asian.htm

If its got to be second hand I'd look for a juwel. My rio 125 was bought second hand in 2006 and it is still running. They're good tanks, but did seem to have high numbers of light units failures at one point. My original T8s are still going strong. Just be cautious of cabinets that look to...

Tank is looking great. Are you pleased with the rescape? I use a python. The long versions or extensions can get pricey. I have decided that if I need to extend mine I'll probably get some cheaper pvc pipe and a pipe connector.

The Home series of superfish tanks work like this. Maybe it's the same? On the home tanks you press the light button and it ramps up to full light over 20 seconds or so. Each successive press steps the light down by 25%. There are blue lights which do the same, but only two steps. You can use...

It's £10 per year for the digital BKA membership. You get a newsletter every now and then and the fish and egg list, which as you correctly say has been suspended temporarily over winter. I think they're working on the members area of the website as there isn't a huge amount. Theres an...

Another option. Skip to 2 mins. These eheim diffusers have a felt pad and the grey cap screws in and out, crushing the felt to adjust the amount of bubbles, but they get a little finer too when screwed in. Annoyingly I can't find a video showing this aspect well. The bubbles in this video are...

I've been raising nothobranchius and fundulopanchax fry this way. But have been able to change water and feed. If I were to leave fry for a few days I'd make the container large, pack it full of moss and put floating plants with fine roots in that the fry can pick through. Water lettuce...

Another vote for filter off for microworms, and also baby brine shrimp/ live daphnia. Can I suggest for those forgetful people like myself, at the same time you switch the filter off you put an alarm on your phone. On two occasions I've been distracted and forgotten to switch the filter back on.

This was exactly how I first experimented with co2. I placed the plastic cup (in my case) in front of the filter outflow to ensure plenty of flow under the surface. As the process relies on diffusion the intention was to try to keep the co2 concentration gradient (gas to water) as high as...

Thanks for all the suggestions folks. I fed some to some fundulopanchax gardneri I have, before accidentally seeding another tank with aphids. I hadn't thinned the plants for ages so this weekend I went with plan B and washed a few and binned the rest. I decided to run a very fine net around...

Hi folks. My tanks have become host to these little insects living on the floating plants. There are loads of them. Other than just binning the whole lot, does anyone have any fish and shrimp friendly suggestions for getting rid of them? They love the frogbit, which is a new admission and...

Glad you got it working again. They're just a plastic box with sealing rings. Unless they're damaged/cracked it should be possible to repair them.

The eheim Pro 2s leak into the head via the priming button seal. I've not got a 2080 but this youtube clip suggests the pro 3s leak here too. Skip to 1 min 15s.

From what I understand the difference is the pump sits before the filters, or after. So again it's a difference between negative pressure/suction (pump after) and positive pressure (pump before). The resistance within the system will be roughly the same, and its the resistance to flow that's...

Farage's garage! Can the parking zones also be named after infamous quotes? OK Mr Stobart, go past zone "If Brexit is a failure I'm moving abroad", left at "I never promised it would be a huge success". Then park up in row Z of "Easiest deal in history". We'll see you in 3 days.

I've not used them myself as I have started mixing rain water with tap, but Spotless water could be an easy RO back up without forking our for an RO unit you won't use for long periods. The website says Bury St Edmunds or Ipswich when I type Suffolk into the location search...

I think zozo's suggestion will be the most fool proof. We don't know if this air is coming in via the uniseal or coming out of solution, but both are driven by negative pressure/suction. Pumping it through the heater and filters will be positive pressure and avoid the issue. Downside would...

Thanks guys. Apologies for the late reply. Been busy at work. I was trying to approach the water conditions in the shop I bought them from (TA aquaculture), which was pH just under 6 and very soft. I take the point that they'll probably be happy as the water comes out the tap. The F...

Can you see the trapped air within the heater? Or are you inferring this from the fact that the pump burps every now and then as a load of air hits the the impellor? This is a variation on Ian Ms post, but another possibility is that the heater seal is acting like a venturi under negative...

Hi folks I have a fluval spec 19l set up about 18m ago with tropica soil. Tap water is pH 7.5, kH 4-5, gH 8, which has been used in the tank since it was set up. Tank water recently had gH up at 15. Not sure if it was ferts and lack of water changes, or maybe some crypt melt (possibly from...

That's interesting. I had a pretty chilled out betta in a well planted tank full of cull cherry shrimp I felt too bad to cull, but who had started breeding like mad. So I took the cowards way out and thought I'd try a betta knowing he may help with population control. He'd stalk them fairly...

https://www.spotlesswater.co.uk/news/story/stevenage-pure-water-filling-station Stevenage have a spotless water if that's less faff.

If all vloggers only produced content when they had something worthwhile and/or useful to say, there'd be a whole lot less crap on YouTube. Having a small amount of quality content isn't necessarily a bad thing. Unless you're making a living off YT advertising income.

I recently visited a MA coming from Daventry towards Rugby. It was very well looked after, clean tanks and healthy fish. Not sure if it's a new shop. Its mainly marine focussed with loads of frags and soft coral plugs. For tropicals the fish selection was much better than others I've...

That's looking really good. Well done.

Even after a couple of months neglect it's still looking better than anything I've manged to create. The shallow tank next door looks interesting too.

Have you seen the Great Ball contraptions? If you like it look at Akiyuki's channel on YouTube. The GBCs he makes are incredible.

There's always some talented person out there that seems to make it work :) In the video (start at 20 seconds in) you can see someone filling upturned plastic bottles with co2 and growing plants pretty well. I doubt it'd produce a thick carpet of HC. But still food for thought.

http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/algae.htm I followed this guide when I had blue-green algae. I did a blackout, followed by better flow from an external filter rather than the juwel internal, adding ferts (TNC complete initially, but now use APF easy EI) and adding floating plants. It worked...

FYI, these are from the same tank pictured above. I had a massive clear out as there was a thick overgrown mat covering the tank. Plus I'm trying to get rid of the duck weed. These plants were stuck in a bucket in the conservatory (and rediscovered today!) in case my friend wanted some more...

I've had water lettuce for a couple of years and it occasionally does this. I'm sure it's a nutrient deficiency of some kind making the plant sacrifice the leaf. So consequence of poor growth, rather than cause. For me it seems to affect the smaller plants, which is why I thought nutrient...

The only other plant I'd add to the above is limnophila sessiliflora. It gets a little leggy in very low light. But it's really easy to grow.

Sorry rca, I forgot to quote. This is how to remove the filter case for Majsa, not how to remove the sides.

. Skip to 5 mins. I don't know how good your Deutsch is. You can see its fixed with silicone sealant and the narrator shows you what she did to take it out. Veil gluck :)

Do you feed anything else other than what is within the pond water?

I agree with the above post. If someone else has been looking after the tank my money is on them having overfed the tank. Reduce feeding, give the tank a good clean, gravel hoover and get rid of uneaten food. All of which you'll do as part of a refurb. I doubt that the snail problem is...

Have you just filled the tank with water or set it up? Two of my friends have used manado and found it quite light when planting. If you search on this forum you'll find posts about it. It might be something to consider if you've not opened the bags yet...

I think it's intended to make more space for biomedia, that he happens to sell.

Hmm. Apparently not. I can find T8s to fit most, but not all juwel lengths. But none for juwel T5s. The article on James' site had tubes going into an over tank luminaire not a juwel tank. I can confirm that the t8 590mm (sometimes called 2') cheap lamps fit the old rio 125. But it seems...

@alto I had a look back at Tom's previous posts and the concensus was that co2 distribution was the common problem. So is the complete strip advisable simply because of the opportunity to redesign the tank from the ground up? Or is there an issue with old substrates and algae? I ask as...

http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/lighting.htm Check out James planted tank site. Cheap tubes will also grow plants well. I get my T8s and T5s from lampspec. More money for plants and a substrate.

If the tank and water smell after a filter change it does sound like ammonia is most likely. Are the fish OK? My only other thought to those offered above is uneaten food. Are you feeding the guppies a lot of food which is sitting around, or getting sucked into your more powerful external...

I thought this youtube video from TA aquaculture might interest people. It shows how they grow their own emersed plants and how they use plants throughout the fish house.

I used to live on a busy road in Coventry and saw several new roofs turn from bright fresh concrete tiles to a dusty brown/grey in no time at all. I can well believe that the tiles are encrusted with pollution. Daphnia will be the canary in the cage.

Here's how you can fit reflectors upside down. It does make the tank illumination look a little odd. This is what my tank looks like doing all the stuff I mentioned. Although usually there are more floating plants in a mat covering the surface. I thinned them out yesterday. There's BBA...

There are different ways to do it with pros and cons. Given that your time is limited going with what you have seems sensible. Especially given that it looks like you've got a load of crypts that'll be fine on low tech. I moved from a rather unsuccessful high tech to low tech and kept the...

Thanks guys. I'll give the grass a miss then. I think I'll try putting some daphnia in still to see how they survive before using it for the fish. Unless people suggest otherwise. I need to keep the lid on it otherwise my kids will drop things into it. The pond is already full of stones and...

Ive got the home 40 and the flow out the filter is also poor. Partly because the pump output is low, partly because the plastic housing it sits in upsets the flow out the filter and makes it dissipate. Mine came with a comical 2" spray bar. You can pull the end cap off the spray bar and...

I was in the same position a few years ago. I'm very happy with how the tank is now (rio 125). When the house falls quiet after the kids have gone to bed I'm glad I have my tank to sit next to and enjoy. Plus as the kids get older they'll sit and look at it. I agree with advice above...

This is my Rio 125 on 2 T8s. Theres a fairly thick mat of floating plants so it looks darker and greener tinged than it would without the floating plants. They're daylight colour ~6500k cheap tubes from lampspec.co.uk. They're called 865 tubes...

Sweet Knowle Aquatics and TA aquaculture are both excellent shops that are vaguely local to me, so I've not needed to use their mail order. But I wouldn't hesitate ordering from either as the quality is great. If you like killies this is the list that TA aquaculture put on their Facebook page...

I stared with TNC complete and moved to the aquarium plant food starter kit, as its cheaper in the long run. You get EI salts and a macro and micro dosing bottle. Mix the salts up with some boiled tap water and the dose to add for full EI is on the bottle. It's very easy.

Our water butt water has a slight yellow tinge and has traces of nitrite and ammonia in it. It has been installed for about 3 weeks, coinciding with the end of the sunny weather. The first few showers filled it half full and I emptied it from half to a quarter (the tap doesn't sit at the...

I've bought nitrile o rings from ebay for an eheim flow indicator and something else, maybe tap seal? Im sure I had to buy 5 or 10, but not 40. But it was cheap enough not to worry. If you've already had a quote from the engineering place did they say what size and material o ring they...

I wonder what I'm doing differently then. Mine seem to commonly have a waft of alcohol smell. Initially probably from the culture seeding the fresh one. Then it gets less after a couple of days, then picks up again. The low odour period in the middle is only a few days. If I don't harvest...

This was my rough copy of that system. Yoghurt pot rim is trimmed to allow a little shallow slots that sits below the water line. The pot sits upside down on the feet created by the untrimmed rim. Cysts go into the yoghurt pot, covered by a Tommy tippie lid that has finally found a use...

Biomaster 250 in a rio 125 cabinet. This is the older style one that is not full width, vs the new style that has cabinet doors under the whole way across. Door shuts fine. The shelf has to be removed. Again I'm not sure if the newer cabinets have removable shelves. I'm sure Google or...

I've noticed a big difference in all my fish since feeding regular live brine shrimp and microworms. I have to switch off the filter to stop them being swept away. Tetras, endlers, Corys all feed on them and seem a lot more interested in food. Although the tetras have started being fussy and...

These are lovely little fish. Just be aware they'll hybridise with your guppies. Purists would advise keeping them separately to preserve the lineage. I personally wouldn't sell any on as pure campoma 42 as you'll never know if there are hybrid genes in the group now. Same goes for...

I'd check with your local shops before setting a tank up in the garage to raise the guppies. I wasn't as fortunate as Milla and ended up giving away 70 odd black bar endlers, which were far better quality than the ropey skinny guppies a couple of places had on sale. I considered selling them...

Update. Its been a busy month. The house had turned into a corydoras panda breeding production line. The parents are still spawning regularly. They've changed habits and are placing eggs more on the large crypt leaves now. The fry rescued from the filter have grown rapidly and are now mini...

I've used them three times for bits for various eheims. I've never had any trouble. When I cracked the head of an Eheim Pro 2 I called them and he took the time to try and locate a part for me, which was only available as a whole head. I think their main site is fishpetsreptiles, or something...

I agree. Having previously used a coarse prefilter to get more flow, I've gone back to the fine ones originally supplied. The bottleneck became the fine orange foam in the top level of the cannister necessitating cleaning. Flow isnt (subjectively) noticeably different.

Which newts are they? Native?

My local place in Coventry had labelled bags that they provided free for this.

FYI you can get the roof material tested to confirm if it has asbestos in it. We had an insurance claim as someone running from the police fell through our garage roof like yours. The insurance company tested the material, presumably because forking out for professional asbestos removal is...

Update. The two young pandas are doing well. Conort2 was absolutely right. I've found another, smaller fry in the pile of leaf litter the parents use to spawn in. It occasionally ventures out then goes back. The leaf litter is a pile of alder cones in various states from cones to stripped...

It's a small tank so the other way would be to raise the tank up instead. Polystyrene sheet or similar. That way you'd make it more of a straight run from filter to pipe. However, I think the loops are a good idea as there will probably be less stress on the ends of the glass work than with...

It's a critalprofi I presume from the title? I've never had one but filling up the head with water and leak when you switch the pump off sounds like more than just needing priming. On eheims this happens when the primer sealing ring is failing. It might also explain why is difficult to...

Thanks for the advice guys. I have let them go in a smaller tank with less potential predators. Water chemistry virtually identical. I took a long time acclimatising them just to be on the safe side. I'll let you know how it goes. I'm wondering whether to leave the sponge off the cannister...

Some other options, a 19l spec or a home 40 both long established and home to some shrimp and a female endler in each who fight when together. Water in the 40 is virtually identical to the tank they're in, the spec has aqua soil and alder cones so pH is 7 KH 1-2. Or should I stop over...

Main tank mate concerns are the rummy noses and a single blood fin tetra. I've seen the former tear a small cherry shrimp apart who decided to float down through the group. There's also a corydoras pygmaeus with a stumpy tail who has received a nibble at some point from something. He's...

Looking in the bucket of sludge that's come out the filter there are some tiny little white worms and infusoria type things flicking about. I'll try to see if I can syringe any of these in as presumably some of these have sustained the fry so far. All suggestions gratefully received.

Hi folks. I found two corydoras juveniles while cleaning out my oase biomaster 250. I estimate they're just under 10mm long, the panda masks are fairly clear to see. I've put them in a fairly decent volume tropica plant bag and floated them in the main tank. My plan is to keep them in this...

TA aquaculture in Birmingham have a few pictures and descriptions of the construction of their fish house. Includes a description of their rain water collection, but picture doesn't seem to be working. Also their first fish room video on YouTube gives a brief look at their shop rain water...

http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/lighting.htm I get lamps from lampspec.co.uk in similar colour spec in the James' planted tank website linked above. I've had several deliveries from them and no issues. Dont know whether they're open currently with covid.

To answer your Q, will more biological filtration be of benefit, I'd say just use what it came with and spend more money on plants. I've got this biomaster 250. I've: Drilled extra holes in the pre filter bar - not convinced it did much Chopped up the coarse blue foam to make some coarse...

Mange tak :)

Anyone know what this is? Is it a cotoneaster? The tiny white flowers shed petals constantly. These are blowing into our new pond and being eaten by the fish. I was wondering if its poisonous to the fish, which cotoneaster seems to be. New shoots/foliage look different to the rest of the...

From what I can make out the main flow is now a siphon directly to the sump via the green 16/22 that is poking out about half way up the stand pipe into the overflow box. If you switch off the return pump/power cut and water level in the overflow box falls, does the syphon break and restart...

I had this with a superfish home 40. The plastic cover has a gap around the edge and an amano escaped. Thankfully the Mrs spotted it scrambling across the landing carpet and chucked it back in the tank. I think it was just opportunism. There are cherries in the tank that are fine. Could you...

I'm not sure what your plans are for the sump, but if it's simply to keep kit in away from the display part without anything too fancy then checkout page 3 of this Journal on ukaps...

Agree with the cleaning comments on the edge 46l. Also catching fish is tricky, even more so when there's plants etc to snag on. Do you need to use a plug in light timer? When I got a couple of nanos I wanted the flex but rely on timers for lights, which the shop assistant told me didn't...

https://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/features/free-tank-decor/ This might be of interest.

This was in PFK a while back. It gives you an idea of expected differences between stated and observed flowrates for various head heights.

Do you already have some 16mm fittings/glasswork that you want to use? If you are trying to compare different brand filters then I'd caution against assuming that the flow rates will be comparable anyway. The differences between manufacturers stated vs actual flow rates may well make any...

... and then tell us please. I'm sure lots of people would be interested. If you step down from 19 to 16 it makes sense to me to keep the 16mm section as short a length as possible.

Hagen Poiseuille equation will tell you the principles. I've tried to fit your numbers to the equation, but maths isn't my strong point. An abbreviated version: Flow = Pi x pressure gradient x radius ^4 -------------------------------------------- Constant x...

Glad you have it sorted

Assuming it is the filter body that is cracked its worth trying to repair it. You have nothing to loose apart from time and a couple of quid in acetone. Eheims are made of ABS plastic, not sure about fluval. You can repair ABS with pure acetone, which you can get from boots from behind the...

The old gravel style ehfisubstrat falls through the holes in the oase biomaster filter baskets. It's just big enough to be workable, but just small enough for a few annoying bits to fall through when cleaning. :)

Ta aquaculture is a superb shop. Well worth a visit, with fish you'll rarely see anywhere else. I enjoy the way they have plants just dotted around their fish room to see what works. I enjoy the pond guru series below on making a wildlife pond. Especially the hibernaculum and the way he...