Solve A Dispute

[Forestpisces]

Personally i think it is no buisness of yours or anyone elses to judge him as he has ALOT of experience and has bred everything from cories to discus in his time.

So in your first post you're asking us to give our opinions and now you're saying you don't want our opinions? You also say we shouldn't judge him or question his methods but you have already illustrated that you yourself have done the very same thing.

I was going to suggest abit of a switch around for him, maybe lose an angel and the plec

Hypocrite.

What on earth?

There is a difference between judging someone and advising them, and as for the last quote i have no idea what your talking about

I was too suprised by the gudgeon as i thought they didn't live all that longand and are predatory, i have since seen this guy and he's given the shop his angels and i persuaded him that the dwarf rainbows (if his gudgeon doesn't pass away first) may end up as luch to which he did admit that he had had to replace a few so he says he's moving them to another tank, we had a long chat and i did ask him how he'd made it work for so long and he said he had no idea just luck. I also asked him about setting up a similar tank and he said if he did it again he's choose between the firemouth or the convict ( despite them both being females ) and not add the rainbows or plec. He said his plec has since died so i've asked him for a water test and he's happily agreed to do so.
I'm almost sorry for starting this topic it just seemed a bad mix of fish to me and overstocking so i wanted to know how to advise him best. Alot of the advise has been helpfull and has helped me help this man but i don't see why i should be insulted for pointing out irrelavencys.

Thanks to everyone who helped, i really would like to hear more peoples opinions on the tank as it fascinates me and what everyone else would do in my situation but this topic is going downhill so i think it's best if i don't persue it.

Guess next time i'll just keep my mouth shut and my head down.

 

[Curiosity101]

It sounds like you had a positive effect, and also it sounds like this guy doesn't reseach compatibilities before buying fish. So despite 40 years experience (which is clearly how he's able to maintain such a stocking healthy/water wise), he certainly would benefit from a bit of research.

I am really glad that things have gone ok for him thus far, but I'm guessing that plec probably wasn't fully grow and he's lost a few rainbows to the gudgeon.

Oh well. Seems you've lit a spark in his head though and he's having a think about things. Which really is all you wanted to do... so well done.

 

[theshadowinc]

Also you say you have 60ppm of nitrate, yet still dose KNO3? I did this as well when I started off with EI, fish were never bothered by the high nitrates. But still you are suppose to adjust EI to your tank. 20-30 ppm of nitrate should be your target range and in high tech planted tanks we would rather not have excess. Especially excess of only one nutrient. I would expect you get nitrates from your tap or you are dosing way too much KNO3. If it were me I would cut KNO3 from what you dose. This is what I have done, since 20ppm comes out of tap. There's no need to add more. Too much will create problems.

I stick with what I said earlier that I see no problems with the stocking provided all the fish get along. Sure if someone new came here with no experience I would say they are overstocked, when you have been at it for a while you learn how to manage higher stocking levels and maintain stability. It sounds like he knows what he is doing and the OP said his water tests fine.

60ppm is not leathal to fish at all, when a store says it needs to test this colour and not even mention the ppm its a store to be cautious about. Later the person told me 0 across the board. Guess what I doubt anyone actually has readings of 0ppm Nitrate in a tank that is well established. So the gaurentee doesn't apply to any of the customers unless its a brand new tank! 60ppm in a planted tank isn't uncommon most try to keep 30ppm some don't even test there water because of the fact that test kits are unreliable. (obviously seeing that you need 0 across the board is an imposible establishment for almost anyone) As far as the planted tank goes I start off usually after a water change 15ppm and it rises by the end of the week to 60ppm ie my guess is the plants are not using everything up that I feed it and I am following the proper way of doing it this is why in a planted tank we do a water change of 50% weekly we assume its overdosed!

Also when I changed stores and the first thing on my mind was to pick the persons mind a little bit asked about water conditions whats Ideal and whats normal and what is leathal, fist thing out of his mouth was 0 ammo and 0 Nitrite and 150ppm of Nitrate is leathal, having steady 100ppm will lead to issues down the road, and maintaining 50ppm and under is ideal! This is also a fish guy that doesn't sell common plecos at his store and before you buy something usually asks what tanks you are running and asks for pictures. To me I love showing my tank off being planted he got to see it and guess what out of 20 people where I live that have a planted tank I am the only one without problems and he thinks its because of my substrate and also the fact I dose with EI and run c02 cranked! (Always have buckets of plants for him at the end of the month)

Usually for planted tanks what works for one person doesn't always work for another, the same princaple in why we do not cycle a planted tank but in a fish only we must! The good thing is this person has open there mind and allowing and understanding he needs to restock properly and move some out etc! Really all that wanted to be done here is mentioning a few things to the customer without getting them upset to where they would actually think Guess it worked