alanmin4304

I would doubt red poll---they are sparrows that spilt the raspberry pudding down the bib. Haven't seen skylark chicks since I was a kid it Central Otago and used to spend hours going the opposite direction to the mother with the broken wing. The pictures do look very similar.

It sounds like the filter or the guppies will eat the fry if they hatch. If you want to raise them you will need to remove the eggs and raise them in another tank.

Do cuckoo chuck the smaller siblings from the nest?

Thrush?

There has been some sold normally and others as high yellow. I have not seen them all but the high yellows might as easily be called low blacks as the yellow seems the same but they have less areas of black when young and this may mean less black dots when older. I understand that higher incubating temperatures can result in less black as well and that Maf may be interested in where the hi yellows came from. The ones I have seen I would describe as low black and certainly show no resemblance to the ones you can see on the internet which could be described as really high yellow.

I would have thought that a 6kg cylinder would last years.

They had probably been here for some time but had not been bred till 3 years ago I think. Correct me someone if need be.

Only if you want to grow plants.

Perfect.

Hate to say I told you so. I learned the same way. At least you have fertile eggs so should get it right next time. They love a cold shower.

Some of the aquarium peat is imported higher quality stuff.

It is dehydrated peat made from the anaerobic decomposition of sphagnum moss and that is all.

If you read the proposed guides for importing they talk about testing for diseases where there is high risk or where there have been deaths over a certain percentage. If you have problems with 10000 neons you could possibly lose 1000 before the testing kicks in, but if you bring in 10 rare and expensive (possibly high risk) fish you only have to lose one. It comes down to risk and a numbers game. These people have to make money to stay in business and that is not easy at the moment. You are welcome to see if there is an importer out there prepared to take it on but there is good reasons behind why many fish that are on the approved list are not imported. These things come and go as importers come and go so it is possible that someone will come along who is prepared to give it a go. Chances are they would want good money because of the risk. I wish you luck and hope you can get what you want.

Use what is available at the time---they all work

Reality number 3: If you are a large scale breeder or importer and you "sell at the back door" the shops will not buy from you because they cannot sell the fish they have bought from you. If you don't sell you go broke. If you were to arrange this you would need to do it through a shop I would think. You would also need to work out who pays for the $4k or more for disease testing that may be involved. This expense is shared over a whole shipment when the majority of the shipment is bread and butter lines and that is why importers do that. This may change as more bread and butter fish are bred locally.

I have used the peat in the big yellow bags (still do but for breeding locusts now) You can put the peat in a bag in a box filter or in an electric filter and run it till you get the depth of colour you want. All of these things are basically producung tannic acid, the only difference is the type of other stuff present.

I have used teabags without a problem, also oak bark and water from streams on the west coast that are brown from running through leaf litter. Pretty much the same thing. Wouldn't suggest coffee though

I understand that a couple of generations ago all the offspring of leos in NZ had the same father. NZ native lizards generally do not travel far and so the populations are very inbred or line bred depending on what view you take and they do not seem to have had any bad results from that. There are different colonies of the same lizards all over the place and each will have slightly different characteristics. The lizards that were retrieved at the border were not able to be returned because they did not know which of the slightly different colonies they had come from. The second lot were returned because a guy had done a study of them and knew from their individual markings exactly where they had come from. Call it line breeding or buy one from somewhere else and hope they are slightly less related.

You need to remember that importers are in the business of making money by importing fish. Generally they will import from a known and reliable exporter and generally bread and butter fish that they have a good chance of getting through quarantine. That exporter may not have the fish you want so they would have to import from another exporter and that increases the risk. I remember Phil Collis saying he had sent thousands of dollars to an exporter and got no fish. It can be a risky business and I have been trying to point out some of the realities. You would be hard pressed to find an importer who wants to take all the risks so you can have a fish you have dreamed about. It is also unfortunately a fact that many importers, wholesalers and retailers perceive us as a threat because they think we breed fish and sell them to each other rather than buying from them. This in the main part I think is a flse fear but for many I think it is a fear just the same.

I have used click clacks and also filled the whole incubator with vermiculite for turtles. Both work but you need to open the containers about once a week to provide O2 and to keep an eye on the humidity.

If it was easy as, all the importers would be doing it and be rich as.

An importer can order all sorts from a pricelist and find: Fish ordered do not arrive. Fish ordered come in a different size and price. Fish all die in Q Many fish die in Q. Testing for disease costs heaps. Often people want high risk fish but don't want to share the risk. With all this going on it would be a very risky businees.

The other one could get pretty scary

Most lizards it is suggested to feed nothing bigger than the distance between the eyes. Miniature mealies or neonate locusts might be better.

Don't forget that they are nocturnal so probably more active at night rather than when you are watching during the day.