Born at Helensville, dad was in the RNZAF for 30 odd years, lived at Hobsonville, Ohakea & Woodbourne. Left NZ early 80's to follow the family to Australia. Always had a "thing" for animals while growing up back home with the keeping of parrots & skinks & gecko's as well as the family cat & dog. Never missed the opportunity to visit zoos & wildlife parks when possible. Don't remember (getting on in years!) seeing many fish tanks while growing up as the only fish I was interested in was for the pan! A friend of mine here in Oz breeds tropical fish for a living (35 plus years now), & thru him have developed a "thing" for fish. I really love the catfish & currently have a couple of plecostomus & a synadontis eupterus in a standard 6 footer & some clown loaches & a bumblebee catfish in a 5 footer. As you can imagine there's heaps of room to add more. Have kept the more popular species like oscars, angels, rams, tetras etc but have developed a love for the catfish. Have another 6 footed with just some feeder fish in it-which leads me to---REPTILES! This 6 footed used to be home to a freshwater crocodile, but moved him on when he got to big for the tank, & the feeder fish are used on baby venomous snakes. I know I have issues ha ha, my real passion is Australian snakes. I keep around 90 odd snakes of which 80 odd are venomous. Thru the various herp forums I can across the NZHS website which lead me to this forum. Have been impressed with some of the members on here's setups (both reptile & fish) & some of the species that you are allowed to keep over there. OMG! leopard gecko's & land tortoises, both of which are illegal to keep over here, & then I saw some pics of a shovelnose cat & arrowanas again can't keep over here. Be good to move back home but giving up all my snakes is not on the cards just yet. Thats enough waffleling from me Cheers everyone, Good stuff.

Welcome to the forum.

herps are cool, it is just a shame we can't keep any snakes here.

Welcome to the site. You can lust after leopard geckos and torts while many here would kill for even a look at your snakes. For me they scared me stupid when I went to the zoo in Melbourne.

Thanks for the welcome, wouldn't be many of us Kiwi"s keen on snakes & alanmin4304 next time in Melbourne look me up for some closer experience with snakes, I too was scared stupid at first but it's all about education. Cheers.

Welcome to FNZAS :dnc1: Can you get red ear sliders in Australia?

Welcome to FNZAS :dnc1: Can you get red ear sliders in Australia?

They are illegal but I believe there are some wild populations down here in Victoria. Any exotic reptile is banned in Australia-but you can have exotic cats, dogs, fish & birds to name a few. I remember growing up raising hedgehogs over there, can't have them here also. Cheers

Wow, do water dragons roam freely where you live? :spop:

I miss my snakes like you wouldn't believe (Wagga wagga NSW) 2 meter olive was my best mate. But the wife wanted a change so we moved here, now im keeping leopard geckos dragons and skinks, not the same but at least there herps.

Welcome to te forum, i would do anything for snakes to be allwed in nz! And since they arent, i guess im moving to australia after my schooling haha

welcome newbie

we'd love some snakey pics to drool over (except alan haha)

Wow, do water dragons roam freely where you live? :spop:

No, I'm in the suburbs, but within a 30minute drive there are some.

& Rabbit I can understand how you feel about your olive, very impressive snake, had 3 around the same size but as you know they get big

& then require bigger caging. I got rid of them & then up sized--a Scrubby! 1 large snake is enough.

Welcome to te forum, i would do anything for snakes to be allwed in nz! And since they arent, i guess im moving to australia after my schooling haha

You won't regret it

& Sophia, will start a thread of my snakes & other pets

Cheers everyone

got a heap of familly over there anyway so ive been there enough to know i really want to move there for sure haha. soo many animals everywhere. herping must be fun over there!