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want to try peat as a substrate for my sterbai breeding tank because i have had no luck yet. what peat do i use?
have not found any aquarium peat for sale on net or in any of my 4 local fish shops.any idea where to get some? thanks!

I've talked to discus breeders who bought their peat at home improvement stores in the garden center. They used it as filter media and not substrate, however. I imagine that you could find a way to sterilize it (oven, boiling?) before adding it to your tank. I haven't done this personally, however.

Why use it at substrate and not in the filter? I assume you're looking to soften your water?

have got some killifish aswel and been told to use it for them to breed in. plus my ph is 8.1 so is abit high. and thought cories liked soft substrate? i have fine gravel at the mo.

I have used peat as a substarte once when about 15 years ago. I used for breeding small characins. I used the pure peat from the garden center, the hard part was preparing it for the aquarium which took about two months. If used in a filter it doesnt matter whether it sinks or floats as you are putting it in a bag. All I did was take a pair of stockings and filled them full of peat, tied them up and put them in a bucket ( deep ) i weighed it down with a large peice of slate and waited. Change the water everyday, to remove the tannins which initially turn the water black, you will always get a brown tinge which is what you want but initially this is black. Once a week I removed the slate, if the peat floated i put it all back and continued. If it sank then i took what I needed and set up the tank. It worked perfectly.
I hope this helps, I dont know if i did it the right way but it was successful for me.

I set up a small peat-bottom tank for breeding blackwater tetras a while back. While this particular set-up probably isn't suitable for cories (except possibly of the pygmaeus group), you might still find it interesting.

http://mikes-machine.mine.nu/blackwater ... g_tank.htm

The aquarium was running for a bit over a year, and at the end the "mat" of peat was still holding together quite well, although the top centimeter or so had dissolved, and the smell when I removed the peat "mat" left no doubt swamp gas and hydrogen sulphide had been produced under it.

The water in the aquarium got so black it was more like coffee than tea. I basically could never see the fish in there. The effect on pH was initially *very* strong, with pH dipping under 5, but tapered off over time.

In short: it worked, but there's room for improvement.

I don't really think that a peat substrate will help you to breed C. sterbai. If you can give us a clue to the water parameters you are keeping your C. sterbai in, this may help to determine what may be the problem.
pH = ?
GH = ?
Temp = ?

Ian

Any peat used for aquarium purpose [and I'm not disagreeing with Ian, that we need to understand your aquarium water to advise you correctly - and peat may not be the solution] should be PURE PEAT - not with added "nutrition" like much of what is sold in the garden centres!

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Mats

just tryed to check my water quality but batterys in my PH meter have died coz i left it on! d'oh! will let you know asap.