alanmin4304

Sounds good.

Generally you get what you pay for with prepared food The cheaper stuff in the supermarket is probably made by the same firm as the more expensive one in the pet shop but will not be as good quality wise. Live foods are always good and half the fun of keeping fish.

What is your location? The green and golds have a limited distribution.

Lutino is a term used for a bird that is yellow with a red eye. Albino/lutino is lack of black colouring (melanin). Leucistic is lack of colour with a black eye (still has melanin). There are leucistic green and golds out there and it could be them. They could be worth a bob or twelve because the albinos have been very hard to breed and almost 100% of offspring have bent spines. You can get a partial leucistic such as a black bird with some white feathers or a mainly gold frog with black eyes and some green patches.

If they have red eyes they could be worth a bob or six. Could be albino green and golds.

Welcome

It is normal.

Beardies spend a lot of time during the day basking so you need an enclosure that is long enough to have a warm end and a cooler end so they can pick the temperature they prefer. The heated area is where they will bask in the heat so that is where you put the UV light source and driftwood or similar to get them the best distance from the UV source (depending on the type).

Welcome and enjoy your time here.

That size is the old 12 gallon tank (now about 50 litres) and is way too small and unsuited to reptiles. You meed something a lot longer so you can get a temperature gradient (a warm end and a cooler end) so they can regulate their temperature. I have not kept natives but I think they need a properly ventilated enclosure and to be outside rather than a fish tank.

If you grow echinodorus sp. from cross pollinated seeds they will not all be the same so you will have to decide the best ones to continue with.

The leaf structure of a leaf grown in high humidity is very similar to submersed growth so if you change to a dry environment you will have to do it gradually because the leaves are then different. I used to convert them to emersed by allowing submersed growth to become emersed in shallow water. Many plants like Echinodorus sp. or crypts have a well developed root system where you can cut off the submersed leaves and allow new growth to be emersed. There is the risk that you may lose some but you will find that they will propagate quicker and you can make hybrids by cross pollinating the flowers. You can also grow plants from seeds or identify crypts by the flowers

Treat them like you would plants in the garden, except the roots need to be well watered. I used to water them and let the excess run to waste but if you are watering them in a tray of water you would be best to aerate the water and just have water in the base of the pot so the roots get aerated.

I worked on the theory that they were aquatic plants that were going to become glasshouse pot plants so I grew them in black magic potting mix and kept the roots wet. I grew just about every type of Echinodorus available and a lot of the "more aquatic" stem plants such as Rotala and Heteranthera. I stayed away from most of the very large Echinodorus sp.and the stem plants that were not easy to convert to submersed growth. Just grow them like pot plants and the hassle goes away. There are a few that need high humidity such as Java ferns and Anubius, also the true aquatics such as twisted val, ambulia and cabomba. The only plant I am growing at the moment is Cardamine lyrata which I have in a terrarium with newts and growing very well with light from a cool white energy saver bulb.

I used to grow them in a glasshouse with virtually no humidity. The need for it is a fallacy and only makes for more problems. The roots do need to be wet.

The unanswered questions make good reading.

Tubifex are further in the mud and Lumbriculus are on the surface of the mud. If you get them out of the mud and you touch them lumbriculus "swim" and tubifex retreat into a weee house they carry with them.. The story goes that tubifex carry more disease. In a previous life we used to take heaps out of the river and sell them to the pet shops and everybody had to have some. They were sold as tubifex but would have been lumbriculus. They have cleaned the rivers up now so nothing for them to feed on. People think they live on filth but they feed on the wasted protein in discharges from freezing works etc. You need to get the concentrations up high so they run out of oxygen and come to the surface.

You put the mud and worm mix in a bucket and cover it to keep it dark. As the worms move about the mud settles and you keep tipping the water off. Eventually the worms run out of O2 and come to the surface and you scrape them off with your hand and leave the mud behind. Return that to the pond and the ones that are left will multiply---particularly if you feed them.

Some of us are permanently on holiday and you guys are paying. More correctly those silly enough to pay taxes are paying.

If you want to culture them put them in an aquarium with about 10mm of fine clean gravel and feed on kitten biscuits (higher protein that cat biscuits). Presoak a few and then break them up into a mush and spread them around the tank so they all get to feed. A small sponge filter with an aerator in a corner helps too.

You might be lucky and all the rellies like going to the same places as you.

Does it tell the time?

Mere Kirihimete to yall

Goldfish carry a lot of parasites and are not the best fish to cycle with.

How are you cycling the tank?