Faran

Germany was mentioned in the thread/article on Planetcatfish which was referenced earlier. Caserole has fish from the same line (offspring of mine) as do a few others. A few odd splotches here and there (maybe 1 in 100 fish have a small spot) have been seen in the past, but the colouration seen above results from crossing out with common BNs (ancistrus sp3) and is the reason why crossing ancistrus highly discouraged. As for getting some off me, I've had a run of bad luck with GBA babies in the last few months. I had a huge spawn of over 300 babies in mid-April but they succumbed to an infection due to overfeeding while I was on vacation. I'm hoping for a good batch soon tho!

Wrong wrong wrong wrong WRONG. GBAs and commons are NOT the same species. They're cousins and can interbreed (as can any ancistrus) but just because a horse and a mule can reproduce doesn't mean horse and mules are the same species, does it? I hope this clarifies your understanding but since you're on Planetcatfish already why not look up L144 and ancistrus sp3 and see if they're categorized as the same fish. What may be true for germany isn't the same as NZ. We have older purer stock as we don't have commercial fish farms mixing things up. And as far as borbi goes, if he held any merit or understanding he would know firstly that it's a geneticist and not a 'molecular biologist' that would be able to explain offspring dynamics. And of course, when they're talking about albino BNs they're talking about a whole different fish than L144. You can find pics and info of both normal and albino common BN under "ancistrus sp3". While there's problems with the L-numbers and other redundancies Planetcatfish stays up with all the current info and discoveries and lists and clarifies any confusion over this. They still clearly differentiate the GBAs and albino/regular ancistrus sp3, so that settles that. So here's a question for you - the fry pictured above. Are they from 2 GBAs or a cross breeding? This looks a lot like someone crossed the line somewhere as mine have little to no patches at all, and I own the oldest and purest GBAs in NZ to my knowledge - a 14cm breeding pair. Happy to help.

Aww man, next someone's gonna bring back that pic from last year... or the new exec pic where I look half asleep. Okay, okay, you got me! :lol: :lol: :lol: Sorry david, but no one ever said "just a hawksbill"

Sorry to say they only have one Hawksbill Sea Turtle and no leatherbacks. Pictures of the Hawksbill are in the National Aquarium sub album. Sincere apologies to any leatherbacks that I may have missed!

LOL! Musta turned off my vampire anti-picture cloak for a minute there, foiled again!

Just saw fishy_t's fronnies earlier today "in the flesh" and all I can say is WOW Those pics just don't do them justice.

Thanks Caryl, it takes a lot of time to take, edit and post pics ad you've done a wonderful job. Much appreciated. And I'm pleased to see I managed to stay out of all the pics aside from the actual conference! Woohoo!

General stress from shipping, or the seller just gave you a runty/sickly one. Best to separate into a hospital tank to avoid it getting further stressed, or passing on any bugs to the other fish.

Wish I had time this trip, will definitely stay the extra night next time!

A big problem with purchasing discus that small is that some will end up runted. You'll be best to separate the two or cull the smaller of the two. If they had been grown to proper selling size of 5cm+ the breeder would have had to do this himself, but luckily unknowing buyers are happy to spend $40 for a tiny fish and save him the trouble. So, to answer your question the best solution is to purchase another tank and keep them separated. Otherwise, you can try and figure out some way of dividing your tank to keep them away from each other.

If you went on the behind-the-scenes tour they had some crazy critters that they're raising and breeding as well. Great place and an amazing setup!

While I lived in Holland I had friends with herps and they expressed interest in the green geckos as well. Here's a quick rundown on native herps to help you understand. Ever since the 70s NZ has had a strict and explicit ban on the movement of reptiles and amphibians in and out of the country. This is to prevent the loss of rare and delicate native species like the Green Gecko. In the last 12 years, even keeping them without a zoo license is illegal and can result in fines or even jail time. Some have old permits but most are now expired. If you want to see NZ Green Geckos you're best trying to find some in the EU and can expect to pay thousands for one. On the flipside, herps that are common as mud in the rest of the world like bearded dragons, blue tongued skinks and australian water dragons cost us hundreds or thousands of dollars each. If you are thinking you can save money or time by trying to get green geckos from NZ, think again!

I'm really looking forward to beardies becoming as common and plentiful (and cheap) as the rest of the world. In Europe and the USA you can buy a baby beardie for NZ$50 or less. Then again, in Oz you can catch them running wild. Original plans when we came to NZ was to breed beardies, but never got into it because the one and only breeder we could find 4 years ago wanted about twice the current shop prices a baby beardie....

I have worked with a professional tank maker and made quite a few tanks myself. The silicone we use is Silaflex RTV and it even says on the label that it's safe for aquarium use. Same as mentioned above by Pegasus.

Wow, what an amazing weekend! Thanks so much to the Hawkes Bay Aquarium Society for all the hard work they put in to make life so fun and interesting for the delegates. Conference itself was great and the spoon went to the right person, for sure! Was great meeting some new people and getting to know some of the forum personalities in the flesh. Hope to see you all next year in Napier!

It wasn't me!!!!! was it? I notice that there's a trademe seller of java fern up in auckland. It's already been noted by the plant growers on here that the plants are grown emersed (out of water) and will possibly have a transition period while adjusting to being put underwater which will include leaf loss, etc.

These are some pretty cool black catfish from Peru (even though Planetcatfish says Brazil) http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/sp ... ies_id=965 I WISH it was those guys. Didn't pay them much attention when I was at the importers, was too busy eyeing up the Flash and Tiger Plecs...

oh, is the thermostat inside of the pad? I would have reckoned an external thermostat module with temperature setting and an external themometer which would be in the tank to sense the actual temperature. Like the Stainless Steel heaters... At Switched on Gardner they have an external thermostat module like I described, as well as heat pads and 50W heating cables you can attach to them. It's all more expensive than the Dupla unit though - Module - http://sog.open24x7.biz/catalog/product ... 995f825d23 Heat Pad - http://sog.open24x7.biz/catalog/product ... 995f825d23 Cable - http://sog.open24x7.biz/catalog/product ... a4dd08df5a

Well done! Nice setups with full visibility of the tubes. I think ktttk covered this a couple weeks ago, but if you have good pics it's always nice to share! To make things really interesting, list things like the spawning triggers you used, water chemistry and temps, what you feed them and sex ratios. I found 4 to one a good ratio, actually. Additional males can sometimes cause too much trouble. Would you be suicidal if you had 4 women to yourself? I think he was jumping for joy

Awesome! Keep up the good work, and the careful water changes I THINK mine are spawning after a couple of triggers - big feeds and cold water changes. Can count only 3 tiger plecs in the tank and the alpha male has a really hard time getting in his tube. Female trapped in there perhaps? The camera will tell, as I've set up the tripod and am filming as we speak! er... as I type... Will check on things in an hour...

I think an undertank heater will heat the entire gravel bed evenly and not create the flow of water that undergravel heating will with wires running through the actual gravel bed and creating a current of cool and warm water through it. I suppose if you put a layer of pumice or something at the very bottom it might do the same thing but it's a different design and result in the end. Undergravel heating isn't even designed to warm the actual tank, which is why you have only 40W for a 250L tank. A heating pad will be putting out many times that amount of heat and energy so probably will end up frying the delicate roots when they get close enough. Alan(min) what are your thoughts on the results with a planted tank with a pad?

I would recommend weeding out the tanks current inhabitants of neon tetras (cardinals are fine in higher temps), and the gouramis. The mollies might be okay, but I'd watch them for aggression. You'll want to raise the temp of the tank to at least 28 degrees and start doing water changes twice a week. The more filtration the better, so look into hooking up that external canister filter. Best of luck and enjoy the beautiful new additions to your fishy family!

Soz to hear it, Ira. Is your brazilian puffer okay??? At the beginning of May I came back from a 2 week vacation to find my living room display tank a green disgusting mess. Turns out that the last-minute water change I did before I left was too hasty and I didn't turn the taps back on on the FX5, even though I had double-checked to see if it was plugged in and turned on before we left. Oops. Luckily it's a very well planted tank and I didn't lose anything too important. When I think about exactly how much $$ is swimming around that tank.... Nearly a month later and I can finally say I've gotten the algae back in control.

A check valve goes inline between the bottle and the tank to allow for only one-way flow in the airline. Just a hint here. The standard check valves you buy at the local pet shop work using a rubber pressure valve. This rubber deteriorates with exposure to CO2 and will fail given enough time (from weeks to months). If you want to get a proper check valve look for one that has all plastic and metal innards. If they don't know if it's CO2 resistant, don't take the chance.

Okay, so fungus is a secondary infection to a bacterial infection usually due to damage, so what should be used for treating this? Already two fish dead - a bala shark and guppy - and these two angels and a betta are looking to be on the way out. 60% water change has been done, along with a dose of meth blue...