Recent content by plebian

I've seen some sights in my day. It's difficult to say what was the most impressive. I experienced a night of lightening storms in the Sonoran desert in Mexico; and a crystallized forest in southwestern Germany one winter; a full moon night above a frozen lake surrounded by leafless trees...

Hell, it's that warm in our air conditioned house sometimes, because the A/C can't keep up. Just saying. The hottest I've ever been is when a buddy and me were trying to hitch a ride after crossing the border at Mexicali (with our surf boards). I checked a thermometer at a gas (petrol) station...

That's the consensus. My swords are unusual in that they are a very lanky variety, hybrid no doubt. And this has nothing to do with lighting. They were originally grown in pots, presumably in a greenhouse, and they've changed very little in the 6 weeks they've spent submerged. They are almost...

In my experience, nitrate test kits are unreliable. I've used API, Tetra, and Salifert tests all producing different results. I've recently been using Tetra because their test requires 4 steps and takes longer, under the assumption that would mean greater reliability/accuracy. That doesn't...

I kept mine is relatively soft water with no issues whatever, though I only had them for a few months before the jewel killed them all.

I spend less than 2 hours a week maintaining my aquarium. I'm a lazy aquarist and wouldn't even keep fish if it required much more than that. I'm also cheap. No RO equipment. No expensive filters or filtration media.

I guess a bit of bad luck on my part. There's an LFS here that specializes in cichlids, wild, farmed, even rare - but I've never seen this species being offered. I live overseas so the Florida seller isn't available to me. Regardless, it seems strange this species isn't more widely available...

So there are breeders? Why have I never seen this fish being sold anywhere, other than the ones I purchased 30 years ago?

So the mystery remains. I walked through every page of "Aquarium Altlas" (Dr. Rudiger Riehl and Hans A. Braensch) I purchased shortly after getting into the hobby and couldn't find anything that matched. Chromides come the closest, but there's a color mismatch. The fish I owned were a brilliant...

I did some research awhile back and there was one species that was supposedly peaceful, relatively speaking. I purchased a single individual that I thought matched the description, but decided not to risk it and gave to an acquaintance. He had no issues with it, but he was keeping it with larger...

I once owned a single Pelvicachromis pulcher, more commonly know as a kribensis. Very nice, supposedly peaceful species, though I have no idea how it would interact with others. I previously had a 55 gallon tank that was occupied by 3 very small cichlids, a species I don't recall (it was 30...

Discus love black worms, live or dried. The first time I kept discus I supplemented their dry food with live black worms. They loved the worms without becoming addicted to them. I think I may have just been lucky. I've had the opposite experience with both frozen and dried blood and tubifex...

I agree. It's a good idea to have a backup. In this case, the problem I see is that his current filter is already overkill with respect to water flow. This is one of the reasons I'm a UGF advocate. With any other system, excepting sumps, it's extremely difficult to house enough filter media for...

You don't mention stocking, water changes, or feeding. The Fluval should be more than enough filtration for aquarium unless you're overstocking, overfeeding or feeding dirty foods, or slacking on water changes. Assuming you aren't doing any of those things, I would replace ALL of your filter...

Discus are a lot easier to keep than most folks make them out to be. First off, they don't require soft water. I've grown out numerous juvenile discus in water with a TDS of 300 ppm, give or take, without any issues. This is true of pretty much any "soft water fish". I've also kept wild caught...