Faran

:whistle: Nice ones, Ronnie - got any spare tomatoes or SS's?

mmm, yummy. first problem - I use a peice of garden hose as the diameter is greater and allows faster water flow for the big water changes. second problem - when you fail the first go and end up with water in the hose that more than likely gets to your orfice before the water starts the gravity feed.

You gotta go real fast, like a ... job. Scares the hell out of the fish tho. I'm back to suckin an prayin I don't get a mouthful... No wise-cracks, aye!

Yeah, they go pretty fast. I think the last two cockatoos I know of around here are getting treated for white spot and being sent down to Invercargill Hopefully someone else around here has some! Quick question - who sold you a firemouth and a hap as "dwarf cichlids"? There's quite a few people in KMAC that have cichlid tanks that will take them from you when you're ready... or Hutt Pets might swap. I'd check with the KMAC members first tho. As for what to put in I HIGHLY recommend rams (again) :lol:

:drool: - darn - no little smiley for that one.... Dang bro, that's a gorgeous fish! (freshwest)

hiya, the shell will definitely bump up your pH. Now as far as rainwater water changes.... unless something is seriously wrong with NSW rain, the pH should be neutral (7.0) so water changes will only drop it a bit. Try adding some peat to your gravel or some peat fibre into your filter to fight that pH rebound from those shells. Good luck!

klayman - boiling water would pretty much kill the bio anyways. Also, water loses the chlorine when raised over 32 degrees anyways (instant break-down).... so boiling water wouldn't have chlorine anyways. Good lookin out tho!

Hi LS, Are you part of our local club yet? Haven't met you at any of the KMAC meetings. Giant Danios are pretty tough and dwarf cichlids aren't typically agressive, so you should be fine. The firemouth and giraffe hap are definitely NOT dwarfs and could cause trouble later on down the line. I'd keep them together until you have problems but if you have a place to put them more permanent, go for it. Where did you see cockatoos? A member of our local fish club named Winston was selling on some Blue Rams that he bred. We got 4 of them and they're amazing (currently in with our discus). Highly recommend trying to get some through him over spending $18 each at the LFS. Have fun with the kribs, they're cuties. If you need an adult male albino down the line, Hutt Pets has had one for a while now...

I was chasing my guppies around for a good 10 minutes (even after having the lights off for an hour) and didn't get good pics of the guys I wanted to shoot. I'll put up a few pics though... This is a nice delta male I got from boxersrus - not necessarily a strain but the metallic blue/green on the body with the snakeskin tail is a NICE combo. Tail is small, but I hope to breed better ones. Yellow King Cobra/Snakeskin - body usually has more black patterning, lights were off This is a brand new delta male and he was a present from lollipop9 - has a yellow/orange tail with a few lines and dots; but the body has a white leopard pattern, really nice. Bad picture, he wouldn't hold still. That's it for now!

Basically you have a ton of plant food and not enough plants. Between the flourish and CO2 system you have a bunch of extra nutrients going in and since the plants don't use it up the algae is. By the way, Flourish is supposed to be used only once or twice a week.... I'd get some more BNs...

Just compare when Heather brings her girl down I'm thinking you'll end up with a couple....

Hi there! We have the same tank and yeah, the hood filter is noisy-as. First question is - do you have the tank filled up to the max water level? This should be just below the middle support bar. Next question is - how long have you had it running for? We noticed that it was VERY loud when brand new and quieted down a bit once the filter had some "gunk" in it to slow down the water flow. As for filtration, I think that power head pushes 1000litres an hour, which is plenty for that 215 litre tank. We added another external filter simply because we have Discus in there and very very good filtration is needed. Have to say, fitting another filter through the very very small hole they leave for power cables in the hood filter is a difficult job and I recommend doing it with as little water and decorations involved. The powerhead gets in the way and it's overall not very fun as we REALLY didn't want to start cutting apart the hood. So, good luck with it, let us know how you get along! Here's our AR980 - http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/new-di ... t7892.html

LOL BK. Only in America! I think the argument that goldfish have been kept & bred for hundreds of years vs the 30-odd years that tropicals have been kept is a great point of what will happen to tropicals in the future. I just hate the idea that with genetic manipulation of the fish breeds they won't ever be able to be re-released into the wild if the original colony is destroyed. As for Discus, we really are changing the way they look. A rounder profile is desired and eventually we're going to all end up with big floating dinner plates that would really BE dinner if they ever went native. Balloon Rams? Don't really see a point in breeding the little cuties into a shorter form, they're already small enough. But hey, I'm sure if guppy and betta breeders have their way we'll soon have fish with 3 tails and spikes, so how can we knock the breeding of just another mutation? But when it comes down to it in the end - anything that prevents a species from surviving in the wild is unnatural. Take that as you wish.

If you copy the URL for the pic into the browser address bar and click "go" then you should come across a page with only the pic on it (if the URL is correct). Right now we're getting -

The main sexual dimorphisms are: Males have longer rays on the first 3 originating rays of the dorsal fin, and also have much brighter/varied colouration. Male has patches of yellow, pink and blue on its body and not as much gray. I also heard that the red extensions on the tail fin are longer in males, but it's hard to tell when you only have one, aye?

actually, that was pass as in, PASS! I'm not too sure yet. You should be able to tell males from females as early as one week, but I sure can't! Seriously have no idea until the gonopodial formation at 4-6 weeks. I plan on sending my females over to an all-girl tank with perhaps some fry on the other side of a divider. Still learning over here as well, so hopefully someone with more experience (I know you're out there!) can come along and set us straight

LOL Wok... anything that involves another partner would be a twosome... a male and two females would be a threesome. But ANYWAYS :lol: We have 4 blue rams and find that they'd be much happier with only one male per tank. Did some reading into the Bolivian Rams and it seems they're about the same as the Blue's. Males set up a territory and females are mobile. My advice, get a female. If you have two girls you'll be fine and if you have a male and female you'll have a pair.

black spot in the grey fry.... pass!

Hi PJ, Common practice is to separate males and females as soon as you can sex them. This way the females never get "hit" and store sperm. As you probably know, female guppers can hold sperm packets for quite a few months and so therefore complete isolation from males in order to strain breed is necessary. Once you have decided which male to breed with you just pop them in a tank together for a few days and let nature take its course!

King Cobra/snakeskin are the same thing. This pattern generally refers to a wavy line pattern on the fin and/or body. Leopard refers to a pattern that includes a majority of spots rather than lines. You'll see the male here: has a majority of spots in his patterning, therefore he'd more likely be called a leopard rather than a snakeskin, but it really is all the same, just a personal preference on naming The only true difference in guppies is a round tail and a delta (boxy) tail. Other than that, all the colour strains are just pretty names!

Good news for the Invercargill crew - MRSkz has a shipment of fish heading down and stopping by WGTN on the way. I've arranged to "donate" one of my yellow king cobras to pop in and get sent down with the rest of the box. So be sure and have some nice virgin females ready to go when he gets there so you can pass him around and have lots of snakeskin bubbas!

LOL, I just told him about the same ones yesterday

Tru, he is a snakeskin, isn't he? If it's more straight lines then it's called a grass guppy.... can't really tell from that pic though.

Mel - good luck! Werner - I think PeneJane is trying to get some snakeskins going in Invercargill. She got some from the LFS and they died from Ammonia Burn. If you really want some all of ours are babies so I'd have to buy some from the LFS here for you ($7 each) and courier it down. A lot of trouble, but some guppers are worth it!

Here's a pic (blurry, but you get the point) of a girl I picked up today from lollipop. (Yes, it's a gyrl, she was poo-in)