alanmin4304

Well you learn something every day. I have bred hundreds of them and have never seen that happen. They were not kept in coke bottles though.

If they are in seperate coke bottles how would they be getting their tails bitten. Fin rot is a bacterial disease and neads to be treated with a bacteriacide. fungus is an opportunistic disease which can invade damaged tissue and can follow finrot. keeping fighters in small containers without enough water changes can cause finrot and other problems.

It is available but usually not cheap. I have seen it in pet shops and on trademe. Soft acid water and strong light I think.

So were those that got them nicked.

You can tell touphened glass by looking at it through polaroid sunglasses. If you look at normal and toughened glass you will see straight away.

My guess is that it is simply an inert media used around the roots in a hydropnic system just like rockwool or other inert media. The food in hydropnics comes from the liquid they are in contact with so it should be similar to gravel but more expensive and lighter.

That's the one. Gets cold out there without a dry suit

I found one in Kaikoura hiding under my car and went to put it back in the sea. A guy came along and said he was from Doc. I thought "ellow ellow what are we doing here?" He explained that when they are moulting they have to stay out of the water. This may be what happened here and it could not escape to the water as you would expect but got harrassed on land. Lovely wee guys if they don't bite you.

I agree. The difference between pH 7.0 AND pH 7.6 is not great over two weeks as the scale is logarithmic and it is at the lower end.

Is it the gold on their back that makes the leps so expensive?

I am advised that it is available in NZ and is used for under floor heating. If you use that you will need a thermostat.

They both need pretty good light I think.

just to show that I don't hate Mrs Google, here is part of an article. I have edited it a bit because it was about turtles but the science is the same for fish. I understand that the term "water hardness" originates from how hard it is to get get soap to lather. The more calcium or magnesium ions present the "harder" it is to get the soap to lather. Return to World Chelonian Trust Main Page for more Turtle and Tortoise Information Water Chemistry: pH, GH and KH What are they all? - Scott Thomson Copyright © 2003 World Chelonian Trust. All rights reserved Related articles: Understanding Biological Filtration - Jody Karlin -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Introduction : The water chemistry requirements for turtles are often underestimated. At the same time it needs to be acknowledged that they are not fish and hence are not susceptible to going belly up from a rapid pH change. Some species do benefit from a more exacting regime, and it can be said that there are health benefits, even if indirect, from careful monitoring and adjustment of these water quality parameters. First of all I will define these terms as I think we all probably have some knowledge of what pH means but some detailed knowledge is required. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Per Hydrogen (pH) The pH of the water is a measure of the balance between the Hydrogen (H+) and Hydroxide (OH) ions in the water. I think most of us know that low pH is acidic and high pH is alkaline or basic. Hence a pH of 5 is slightly acidic water, a pH of 7 is neutral and a pH of 8 is alkaline water. For the budding chemists the equation is as follows: pH = -log10[H3O+] All right enough of the chemistry but there is an important point here and any mathematicians will see it. The pH scale is a logarithmic scale. In other words a pH of 6.0 is 10 times more acidic than a pH of 7.0 and a pH of 5.0 is 100 times more acidic than a pH of 7.0. As a keeper you need to be aware that it is not a difference of 1 when you go from 6.0 to 7.0. Ways to lower pH Filtering water over peat Add bogwood to the tank Inject carbon dioxide CO2 Use a commercial acid buffer Water changes with softened water or RO (Reverse Osmosis) water Ways to raise the pH Aerate the water, driving off the carbon dioxide (CO2) Filter over coral or limestone Add rocks containing limestone to the tank or use a coral sand substrate Use a commercial alkaline buffer Carbonate Hardness (KH) This is an area where many people get confused. One of the reasons the term alkaline is avoided a bit and the term Basic is used for the pH scale is because this reading is measuring the alkalinity of the water. It is not the same as alkaline. The alkalinity is a measurement of the waters buffering ability, or its ability to absorb and neutralise acid. Clearly the more alkalinity or the higher the Carbonate Hardness of the water the less likely you will incur pH swings in the water. It is therefore important to get this figure reasonably high to stabilise the water. Exactly how high you want your dKH (degrees of KH) will depend on what pH you choose to use. To people keeping fish from the African Lakes this is the life and death of their fish. Those fish live in very stable high pH conditions, they do not like change and the conditions can be difficult to imitate. Fortunately turtles are not quite so sensitive. However, I do think that basic fish keeping can teach the aquatic turtle keeper a thing or two about water. Ways to increase kH Adding sodium bicarbonate (baking soda). One teaspoon of baking soda added to 50 liters of water can raise the kH of the water by approx 4 deg dH without a major affect on pH. Adding an air stone to increase surface turbulence driving off carbon dioxide (CO2) Adding commercially available products to increase buffering capacity Ways to lower kH Injecting carbon dioxide (CO2) Use reverse osmosis (RO) water. You can mix tap water with reverse osmosis water to achieve the desired kH. Adding commercially available products to decrease the buffering capacity. Do not use distilled water as it has no dissolved salts and hence no buffering ability. Add a small amount of acid (eg uric acid) and it will shift the pH very rapidly. It is also highly osmotic and will react with the turtles renal system. General Hardness (GH) This is essentially a measurement of Magnesium and Calcium ions in the water. Again it is measured in the German degrees of hardness scale or parts per million. This is what is generally meant by soft and hard water which are terms people should be familiar with. The table below shows comparisons between parts per million, the dH scale and the generalised concepts of soft and hard water. Ways to increase gH Adding limestone to the aquarium (this will also increase kH which in turn will increase pH) Adding calcium carbonate will raise gH and kH Ways to reduce gH Adding peat moss to your filter Use commercially available water softening pillows or a water softener (this removes calcium and magnesium ions and replaces them with sodium ions. Many people feels that this is an unacceptable method of softening water as many fish that prefer soft water don’t like sodium either. Mixing tap water with reverse osmosis (RO) water. General Hardness Table 0 to 4 dH 0 to 70 ppm Very Soft 4 to 8 dH 70 to 140 ppm Soft 8 to 12 dH 140 to 210 ppm Medium Hard 12 to 18 dH 210 to 320 ppm Fairly Hard 18 to 30 dH 320 to 530 ppm Hard

I use a 40 watt light bulb. It works for me and is cheaper and easier. I don't think that stuff is available in NZ.

They can look a bit different when grown emersed or submersed. They are grown emersed commercially but if in the shop for a while can start to take up the submersed form. They could be both be Lilaepsis, but I don't think chain sword (Echinodorus sp.)

The one on the left looks like Sagittaria subulata and the one on the right may be also but my guess would be Lilaeopsis. The same plant can grow differently in different conditions. Sagittaria subulata can grow to 500-600mm tall in the right conditions. Both plants are pretty rootbound which will be stunting the growth rate.

I was discussing the very first post.

Who will be marking the test? Watch my lips. Hardness is a measure of the calcium and magnesium ions in the solution. Carbonate and bicarbonate stabilise the reaction and act as a buffer. Bicarbonate stops more cations from forming an insoluble carbonate and taking the calcium ions out of solution and therefore decreasing the hardness (or availability of Ca++) hence two seperate terms--KH & DH. Mrs google does not sit on the right hand side of god--her husband does. Have a good day ya all.

Soap is sodium stearate and the stearate locks up with the calcium and magnesium ion to form an insoluble scum in your bath. The soap will not work until all the calcium and magnesium ions are used up and this is a measure of the hardness of the water. The original test for water hardness was a titration against a known solution of soap---it will not froth until the hardness has been locked up. Detergents work regardless of the hardness because one end of the molecule is soluble in water and the other in water. Bicarbonate and carbonate alkalinity has nothing to do with the hardness itself. You can make the water harder by adding any soluble calcium or magnesium salt such as calcium chloride.

My point was that hardness is a measure of calcium ions (usually) but baking soda produces alkalinity and acts as a buffer rather than increasing the hardness. If you want to increase the hardness you need to add calcium ions (usually)

Come on LA you know it is easier to look at it through a microscope and make inteligent grunting noises than it is to shovel it.

They are the neonates. That is what you want to be producing to feed your lizard babies. If you buy breeders it will still take a few weeks for then to start producing neonates.

Keep it dry and the floor clean or they will lay their eggs in the bottom

That is the advantage of when alzeimers sets in properly---some of them forget to come to the party.

If hardness is a measure of the calcium cations (mainly) then if they are locked up as calcium carbonate they are no longer available as a free ion to create hardness.