Faran

Hiya Angel, saw you in the chat room but we never got a convo going NZ native tanks are way cool. About the cloudy water thing. Did you just set up this tank? When tanks first get dechlorinated there's usually an algae bloom which causes cloudiness. Refrain from water changes and it should go away in a few days. Your tank will still probably go through the cycle process and this may damage your fish. If it's an established tank then it could be something else. Glad to help, just ask!

There's a few products that you can purchase to combat nitrites and nitrates. Since your tank is well-established I actually recommend them, but for people with new tanks LET THEM CYCLE, DON'T USE THEM!!! Two products that can defeat nitrate/ite spikes are - Prime and Nitra-zorb. Prime is a dechlorinator that can be used at 5x the standard dose to wipe out high levels (almost immediate) and Nitra-zorb is a bag that you put in your filter or just drop in your tank and it absorbs the levels slowly. Good luck!

Don't fret, most people end up breeding convicts as fish food anyways

Hi jazsaxman and welcome to the forums. Where in the world (or NZ) are you? Name brands mean little to the experienced fish keeper as most of us switch to a much cheaper and just as good standard flouro bulb. The main things you want to look for when selecting a bulb is the kelvin rating. Many others have covered this topic before, so instead of re-hashing the same old info I'll just put up a snip of another thread -

I think the lighting would help plants about as much as moonlight would. No affect whatsoever. The whole purpose behind night lighting is to allow for late viewing of nocturnal fish and to give the fish some light during the night hours. In the real world fish usually have some illumination available to them 24 hours a day. In tanks in the average house they're subjected to up to 12 hours of complete darkness which results in the inability for nocturnal fish to see at night and for diurnal fish to sleep and still be aware of surroundings. Thanks for the Warehouse heads up, guys. I'll be getting some strings and setting up night lights in the fish room now

Fluke Tabs were very common and easy to find in NZ but the company that was importing them (Brooklands) weren't selling enough to make the import license a profitable investment. Check your LFS and see if they have any left in stock. Be careful though, it's known to be deadly to BNs and other catfish.

Give them a few days and they'll be chasing each other around and having bubbas soon after that. Do you have anywhere to put a LOT of baby convicts??

Agreed, the same goes for my 3 yo-yo loaches. With a large number of bottom feeders they WILL learn to come out during daily feedings, but some will simply hide until night and eat whatever scraps are left over. How many clown loaches do you have, exactly?

In my opinion all the syptoms appear to be similar to Muscular Dystrophy in humans. I had the opportunity to be a volunteer counselor at a MS summer camp for a week of every year when I was in the States and it's almost exactly the same. Young are not usually affected but as time goes on the muscles become weaker starting with the extremeties and working slowly more central until death due to chest muscle paralysis is the result. Spinal deformaties are a common symptom as well. This is a genetic disease and not infectious. Then again, it could simply be a bug that causes the inability of the absorbtion of nutrients from foods. This would explain the bent backs in females (inability to recover after child birth) and the slow wasting of males with no other symptoms. Before jumping the gun and trying to pinpoint the cause on pure speculation from observations, a true scientific study must be undertaken with a control group and a infectious group and the methodical observation of carefully observed groups. This would establish a definitive answer of whether it is infectious or genetic....

It's great to have another local join the club! 2 tanks going on 3.... sounds like us about 5 months ago. There's just sooo many fish and so little wall space, right?!?! Well, since no one else has mentioned it there's a local fish club called KMAC that you can join and will really help you with the hobby. I've met SOOOO many great locals through there and the help and assistance they've given... well, it's amazing really. Oh, and you can get a 10% discount at pretty much all the Local Fish Shops aside from one corporate chain. If you need anything to help set up your new tank (plants, fish, etc) just ask in the Private Trade and Exchange and see if you get any bites! Again, welcome to the site and we hope your stay is a pleasurable one!

Mornin Paul, As you well know, there's no such thing as a silly question, just silly answers Killies can't really be kept together in community tanks for the simple reason that most females are a dull grey and hard (near impossible) to tell apart when mixed together. This is from what a VERY experienced Killie breeder (caserole) told me when I asked him the same thing. As far as temperment towards each other goes, I'm not sure. I'll leave further answering to the pros!

http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/bamboo ... t8825.html Had a thread about it in the past. I believe the best thing to do is leave it out to cure then waterlog it, but some people there were saying they just cut it and weigh it down. I'd try drying it out first...

Wow, a little late for this info. I had BBA in a 40 litre tank and after some research online I found out that Algae Rid (by aquarium pharmaceuticals) was the answer. I double-dosed three times and all the BBA was dead. It took a little while for all of it to clear off the rocks but it hasn't come back.

Hi Jude (and Ian), I'll see about stopping by to take a look this afternoon if anyone is in and you haven't sorted it yet. I needed to make a trip out to Wai anyways to pick up some water containers. Yes, you'll be starting a cycle again probably but with Chris and Paul so close hopefully you'll be able to "borrow" some filter media to make it a short one. Heck, you can probably borrow a filter from one of them (or I might bring one with me). Good luck and I hope you don't lose any more fish while it gets sorted!!!

They're all golden coloured and stuff, but I really don't think the GBA would find the Rainbow shark ATTRACTIVE.... Just playin, I understand what you mean. The question was posed a bit funny though.

Ours LOVE Discus tucker.

I've had a lot of experience with both from modding computer cases back in the day. LED has a strong piercing light that seems to go deeper than CC. CC is good for background lighting but not really for an illuminating effect. I was at JayCar yesterday and saw a bendable blue LED strip (that's probably water resistant as well) with a molex (12V) power connector. My idea is to get a timed power supply to switch between the LED night lighting and the solenoid valve for a pressurized CO2 system. This requires a 12V solenoid rather than mains power, which I was able to find on eBay. JayCar is pretty handy for electrical/electronic bits and peices.

Well, I see that you've gotten the point about exactly how much you're paying for them by the change of title but just to re-iterate - you're actually paying mostly postage. The culture itself is at cost price. For that you can whinge to the NZ Post who seem to be constantly raising prices to the point where I can small items couriered almost anywhere for less than postage rates these days. On that same note - raise your prices, Tammy! Make a little money if you're gonna go through all the trouble. Yes, people COULD just bury a potato for a few weeks and get a free one, but I'd rather not play with rinsing a rotten old potato and harvesting whatever is left and I'm sure many other people feel the same. Proven CLEAN cultures are worth much more than just postage.

Cultures @ $5 with free shipping that I can only assume costs $3.50 with standard post.... minus the 50c success fees... that leaves a margin of $1. Assuming you're using free containers and ingredients, that is. I pay for oatmeal and yeast and the other stuff myself so I'd actually be paying people to buy them off me at that price. Yeah, I won't be competing with you anytime soon and have to :-? at anyone complaining about your prices for a culture on TM. Personally, I paid $15 for my starter culture at one point.

Shredded lettuce in a jar of previously boiled water in the cupboard. "T" found this useful site - http://animal-world.com/encyclo/fresh/i ... #Infusoria

Niiiice site. Thanks for that post, I'm sure a few people will give that potato trick a shot. I'm just learning how to culture en masse and hope to be able to compete with MRSkz (the lady selling the microworm culture you mentioned on TradeMe) some day. Nah, that's her baby these days. I'm just playin

Hey Colleen, Tetras usually have eggs and young fry that are sensitive to light... I mean, they die if they get direct light sensitive, not just get a tan. Due to this, it's pretty hard to breed tetras "on accident". Happy fish in good water conditions usually get around to spawning, but getting viable fish raised from that starting point is a long and painful process sometimes. Unless you're like Billaney, that is. He raises fry like a pro

dimsum, I hate to break it to you, but even if you keep the water at a certain temp outside the ambient air temps would still fluctuate with the seasons. Turtles have very keen senses that tell them when the sand will be the right temps, so they won't try breeding when the air temps (and I suppose amount of sunlight) doesn't keep the sand warm enough to incubate the eggs. Mind you, this is common sense, not experience. I've never even owned a turtle but studied sea turtles when living in the Cayman Islands.

I'm trying to do the SodaStream CO2 to regulator thing and it just don't seem to jive. Gonna go have my reg looked at. PMed ya about it, suphew.

Uh, I don't think he'll be able to adjust plans this late, but I'd PM ryanjury and ask him to get a few extra cockatoos for you. He's a great guy and happens to be the breeder of my 4 cockatoos.