alextret

Just a followup. I moved them outside. They lasted one night OK, but last night it was a bit colder (not sure about the exact temperature), and all four went down. But WCMM that I put in similar conditions appear to be OK (although I'm having a problem feeding them, as they appear not to be used to flake food). And, of course, one gold fish I've put in the system a couple of months ago for cycling purposes is just fine. I'm in Palmerston North.

I'd like to say thank you to everyone for the info, which was quite invaluable. I think I'll put them in one of the tanks I have outside.

Is their a way to find out the temperature range for lepoard fish (livebearer, also known as caudo or dusky millionsfish)? Some claim that it can survive down to as low as 5 degrees centigrade, but I have doubts.

I could not find any evidence of people keeping them in fish tanks. There is a lot of literature on aquaculture, though. Theoretically, it should be possible to keep them. They are supposed to be quite hardy (as they live in dirty, low oxygen water in the wild). I suppose that when they change their shells, a big predatory fish could eat them. Also, I suspect that they would eat anything they can catch, but are not very good at catching fish. So (theoretically) should do ok with neons or similar fish (small enough not to eat them, and fast enough not to get eaten). They do eat each other, so probably one would not keep more than one per tank. Also, they can grow quite large, about a foot (I'm not sure if they would grow that large in a relatively small tank though). They have all sort of development stages, and can be bred in captivity (it appears that the conditions required are very well understood, because of the experience accumulated in aquaculture). Also, they feel fine (and, endeed, require) high temeratures, unlike native schrimp. But, I don't suppose people at Taupo would sell them live.

I'm in Palmerston North

I wonder, why, apparently, recirculaing filter principle is not used in connection with aquaria. (Or perhaps I am whong in this respect). The principle is very simple: a recirculaing filter pushes water through the media several times before returning it back to the tank. See http://www.extension.umn.edu/distributi ... D7670.html I'd like to syphon through several tanks in sequence to simulate a very slowly flowing river, with one of the tanks acting as a sump. If I do it at a decent flow rate, the syphon tubes have to be very thick, resulting in an expensive and unstable system. If I use the recirculating filter approach by sending only part of the flow pushed through the media out of the sump, it might solve the problem (so that I have both decent filtration and relatively slow flow between tanks). According to my culculations, I could replace water in my tanks once per hour (while in the sump the water would go through the media about 10 times per hour).

I noticed that Malaysian river prawns are gazetted as species that can be farmed in New Zealand Malaysian river prawn (Macrobrachium rosenbergii) http://www.fish.govt.nz/commercial/aqua ... index.html So why don't we keep them in aquariums? Or may be someone does?

Hi, Stella, I found that at the gardening center on Cook street (in Palmerston North) they sell river sand that makes very nice looking gravel if washed (it was something like $6 for a rather large, very heavy bag). This is much cheaper than the gravel they sell at Wet Pets (and much more "native"). I also suspect that this river sand can be collected for free, e.g., under the bridge over Manawatu river that's on the way to Massey. I'm not sure if it would work with undergravel filters, though. With your native fish, are you using tap water?

Indeed it looks like the density of daphnia is oscillating. But, over these several months, even at low points there were enough of them. I was not able to maintain a culture at home (once out of the lagoon, they die out in about a day).

I wonder if anyone has an experience of using a tank with an under gravel filter as a filter unit servicing other tanks. Power head installed in the tank acting as a filter is to pump water through a thick layer of gravel and than into a chain of siphoned through tanks. This appears to be one of the commonly considered sump filter designs. I like its versatility (one can adjust the configuration of chains of siphoned through tanks and assign tanks to serve as filters as need arises).

>Wet Pets will tell you, that it is not suitable, and that you must buy a $1per litre of aged conditioned and filtered water from there sumps. Wet Pets have pH higher than 7. So I presume they are not using rain water in their tanks. And they do sell water, so I would not necessarily expect a straight answer. I'll try to contact the local club. Or, perhaps, just try some aged tap water on a bunch of neons and see what happens to them.

How to find out what is used to treat tap water? (In my case, it is in Palmerston North). In particular, is it chlorine or something else (I've heard, there are more deadly options)? Primarily, I'd like to figure out if tap water in the local area is usable in aquaria after letting it stand for a while to loose chlorine.

Thank you very much. It's a lot of information, and very useful one. I take it, all of them are not prohibited. (I figured it out that just because some plant is available, e.g., found in the wild, it does not mean that it is allowed).

I wonder, which of the commonly available plants are most suitable for planting in a pond? People at the local fish shop (Palmerston North Wet Pets) told me that none of the "cold water" plants they have are likely to make it over winter, because essentially all plants that do well outside are banned.

I wonder, what would prevent me from putting a tank in the garden? I'd keep native fish in it. Some of the advantages appear to be: 1) Does not take space at home, and does not raise humidity etc. 2) I can route rain water from the roof through it: it it will get frequent automatic water changes. 3) When the temperature is above 20C, I can cool it down by applying cold tap water from outside, via standard garden sprinklers. I'll need to make sure that it does not get any direct sunlight. A couple of standard beach umbrellas (or, perhaps, just one) should take care of that. I did find a couple of references to garden aquariums on Google, and one picture. Not that many, though. I'm in Palmerston North.

Speaking of the mystery "mystery snails" from Animates: how bad are they on the plants? Is it reasonable to expect that plants will grow faster than the snails are going to eat them (if they eat them at all). Animates do post a warning that mystery snails "will eat plants".

A stupid question: I live in Palmy, but what is LFS? I know Wet Pets and Animates.

Could be of interest for those living in Palmerston North (well, for those who do not know it already): it appears that daphnia is available in large quatities in the Lagoon (the body of water along the Centennial Drive). This Sunday, I could catch more than I needed within five minutes using just the small fish net I usually use to move fish from one tank to another. There is some fish in the Lagoon too, so one could catch some parasites along with daphnia, but I believe that the risk should be rather low.

How exactly did you catch them? Was it at night?

How about a property with a clean stream going through it, and some ponds. Low maintenance and opens all sort of possibilities. Actually, it appears that there are people who have something like that.

I visited the Palmerston North Wet Pets today, and found that they sell inanga for $5 a piece. I am quite fascinated with them. I asked Wet Pets people if I can keep them in a pool outside. They told me that I can not because they need moving water. Also, it appears that inanga jump a lot, so their tank should be thoroughly sealed. Indeed, the aquarium they keep them in has a powerful undergravel filter (it appears to be the only tank they have with a powerhead-driven filter, in the rest they push water through gravel by running air from a pump). Also, they have a stone with bubbles in that tank, so indeed, the water is moving all the time. Inanga, and some other native fish appear to be in good spirits. The "pond" I have is actually some sort of a contraption for bathing children, I guess, should be 300 liters plus. I make the water from the roof to flow through it, so it gets a thorough water change everytime it rains. However, although Palmy is generally rather wet, it does not rain all the time, and there are occasional lengthy dry spells, so my "pond" would not qualify as a surrogate stream. For the sake of the creatures I resisted the temptation to buy some and see what happens.

How do you move tanks? Is there a smarter way to do it than just lifting by hands? I actually had to settle for a smaller tank because I could not figure out, how to carry a larger one from my car. (Yes, shop personell would help me to put it in the car, but once I'm home, I'm on my own.) I found that, at least in Palmerston North, shops selling tanks do not want to be involved in any way at all in delivering them (unlike, for example, in case of buying furniture).

I wonder, what would be a legal way to catch them. Technically, constructing a trap and leaving it with some sort of a bait should be most effective. However: 1) Using a trap could be illegal altogether 2) Perhaps, it is legal, but requires some sort of a license Any ideas?

Well, we have a small Tiritea river flowing through the campus, I never seen any in it (I did see some fish, though). Manawatu river is too murky to see anything in it. I'm also not sure if a specimen taken from the wild would settle well in a tank. I wonder if anyone is actually keeping them in NZ. In principle, they are a lot of fun. See, e.g. http://www.aquatic-store.com/en-us/dept_307.html

Where could I get some freshwater aquarium shrimp, to keep in a freshwater tank? I mean, for their own sake, not as fish food ... I'm based in Palmerston North.