fishy_t

good work Paul!

Nah, I think they are still classed as the dosal(s) cause the adipose is always fleshy... (i think!?!?!)

I can get it for you for cost plus!! You can just go in to the upper hutt one and tell them you are me (I work for one with the same owner in the city so I get my discount but they don't know what I look like ) Let me know if you want to and I'll give you my 'code'

As far as I know the only fish that don't like salt are loaches etc with thin skin. I think the adverage old plec would survive a nuclear war!!

Try calling Mark from the club (pm me if you don't have his number) - he's got a mirco. I think... I've never had to deal with anythink like that but good luck.

Yeah that’s what I meant sorry, was trying to keep it basic for people who aren't so familiar with digestive systems!

Two dorsals help reduce drag. Lots of Pelagic fish (fish that live in the open ocean) have this type or dorsal arrangement as it makes them more streamlined and therefore more efficient. I'm guessing this might be useful for bullies as they often live in rapid water and so being more streamlined means they are less likely to be washed away! But I would say its probably due to the fact the NZ freshwater species are all relatively 'young' (ie evolved/speciated recently compared with most freshwater fish) This means that the Bullies are probably still quite closely related to the fish they evolved from (Saltwater Gobies/Tripplefinns maybe?!) and so have retained this type of finnage... Just my theory anyway!

Can we see a pic??!?!!?!?!??!?!!

Yeah they have an EXTRA long one to digest their vegies

AWESOME Its so cool watching them start to develop their own personalities! :bounce:

Yeah seems odd to me! Lets see what Shell thinks!! ....

Nah mine are hardly ever dark, and the alpha male never is - maybe you are having problems with your water that are temporarily fixed when you do a change? Do you check your water quility?

Thanks Shell, sounds good So you just used frozon ones from the supermarket and defrost them?!

Nah mine is ALWAYS the centre of attention! And if he feels one of the other fish is getting into too many of the photos (or too much food to try and keep this thread on track) he lets it know!

Front avatars are awesome

Haha! Nah I think they're past the tainable age! Well - they my alpha male anyway, he's SO SO SOOOO greedy!

Your own mix does sound the best way to do it I'm sure - I have heard that they shouldn't gulp air at the surface - when I feed them about half of the food sinks straight away which they do eat first and then the rest is pushed down into the water by the filter outflow, but my big male always likes to be greedy and eat some at the surface too... Do you think I should stop him?! He's been doing it all his life and it CERTAINLY hasn't stunted his growth!

hehe sorry! I usually give them tetra Colour Bits which they LOVE... Also daphnia and small earthworms. And they feed themselves algae from their rocks if they want a snack, its awesome to watch them do that

My big guy ate a house fly tonight!!

Hmmm... I see what you mean that sounds a bit messy... but if we 'encouraged' the importers to pass on more info I'm sure it would be possible... PFK (mag. that the link came from) did a campaign a few years back trying to stop the retailers in the UK from selling dyed fish; http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/p ... p?news=174 This worked VERY well and I'm sure a similar scheme would encourage retailers to demand more info from the importers, the fish can't go through more than half a dozen people before getting here so there must be some way to make the info more available... ?!

Do you think we (FNZAS) could encourage retailers nationally to always mark 'wild caught/bred in captivity' on ALL fish sold? It would certainly help us all to support breeding fish and maybe do our bit to curb catching fish from the wild... Although I realise that lots of really common fish are only wild caught (clown loaches I think?!?!) Does anyone who works in a pet shop have any idea's comments on this?

Yeah - at least people CAN breed them, but it's still a shame that our 'hobby' seems to be causing near extinctions in the wild - and so fast too.

Yeah :-?

This is pretty sad http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/pages/item.php?news=1197 This is the part of the hobby that I find it had to reconcile with - I LOVE keeping fish and try to always breed my fish as well as buy from fish breeders instead of buying wild caught fish. But as we all know this isn't always possible... I know several people who have bought these little dudes and I'm sure the people (I know) who have them have more than enough talent to breed them which is great, but its still a thin line Any comments guys? Just so you know I'm NOT trying to point the finger as I think we have all (including myself) added to this problem but I think it’s important not to forget what we are doing to our planet...

True true...