alanmin4304

A lot of the problem is from organics in the water. Organics contain proteins which have amino acids hanging off them, also farm runnoff containing urea etc. You might be surprised what the chlorine demand is.

There was someone selling eggs for chinese on that site that you can be excommunicated for even thinking about let alone mention in more than a whisper. They are not that hard as I am breeding them and have been described as having been dropped on the head as a baby sometimes. Apart from the fact that they don't like being too cold, or too hot, only eat live food and each other they are not too bad. They are even easier when morphed. However I am still not game to send them out of town until much much older. If you could get some locally they are great pets if you don't mind them hiding all day.

Sounds like they are a pair.

You will do better if you seperate the males and females and condition them up for a couple of weeks then do the cold water thing at night and they generally will spawn in the morning.

Out of curiosity, why not ring your waterworks engineer at the local Council and ask them what the chlorine demand of the water is. Councils usually aim to get about 2ppm FAC (free available chlorine) when they chlorinate the water supply. Generally they will have to add many times more than 2ppm to achieve that because of the chlorine reacting with the organics in the water. The difference is the chlorine demand and will end up mainly as chloramines.

As I said earlier. There is little point in removing the chlorine but not removing the chloramine which is just about as bad. The monochloramine will react with any other material in the water (like your eyes or the gills of a goldfish). I just think you should put your fish into disinfectant (chlorine and chloramines) or neutralize them all before you put your fish into disinfectant. the choice is yours realy---they are your fish. There seems to me little point in just removing the chlorine.

They don't breed untill about 2-3 years old

Chlorine reacts with nitrogen and other compounds in the water to form amongst other things a group of compounds called chloramines. All water has a chlorine demand and it is the concentration of these compounds being formed that is the chlorine demand. All these reactions take place before free available chlorine is formed. When you swim in a pool and get sore eyes it is because the chlorine is used up and the chloramines are burning your eyes. This is fixed by adding more chlorine. The most reactive chloramine is monochloramine and this is used to disinfect drinking water in the United States. Add more chlorine and it goes to dichloramine. Add still more chlorine and it goes to trichloramine. When you have all trichloramine, add more chlorine and you get free available chlorine. The same is true in reverse. Remove chlorine by aeration or whatever, and it all moves back to monochloramine which is almost as bad as chlorine. You can get chemicals such as sodiom thiosulphate which you can add and they neutralize the chlorine and chloramines. You can buy these from the pet shop. There endeth the chemistry lesson so have a good day.

$40 is cheap---they are $80 in the shops here.

No

Fert balls are good for heavy root feeders like Amazon swords or Crypts. They are enough micronutrient for most stem plants as well. Iron is good for encouraging red plants to go red but they will grow quite well without it.

When I was breeding cories years ago I had large numbers and seperated the sexes for a few weeks then spawned them in bare tanks. If they are conditioned and you give them a good water change at night they will go in the morning and you can remove the parents (or eggs)

Put some in and see what happens. My frogs are perfectly happy to try and eat each other so I think they would handle them OK.

Livingart---they don't and they do. Many animals leave or are driven out of the breeding group when aproaching sexual maturity.

We can do straight water changes in Christchurch because there is no Chlorine added to the water. If I was using a chlorinated water supply I would be adding chemicals to neutralize the chlorine and other toxic chlorine componds which are formed when water is chlorinated as well as getting the water up to temperature. Why people are prepared to try and get rid of the chlorine but are happy to leave the other chlorine componds which are almost as toxic is beyond me. Or perhaps they were looking out the window during the science lesson.

I thought you would be too busy saving your pennies for a tortoise on trademe.

There are Chinese and Japanese fire bellied newts Whistling frogs Southern bell frogs Green and gold bell frogs Albino green and gold bell frogs The frogs are all from Australia and we have a range of native frogs but I think keeping them could be a bit of a mission.

By driving the chlorine off you are pushing the trichloramine through dichloramine and into monochloramine which is used in the USA to disinfect drinking water and is almost as toxic as chlorine.

River sand is worn round but some other sands like plastering sand and filter sand are sharp

4 X 3 footers would be OK.

I use river sand and it is great. The rivers down here are greywacke which is pretty inert.

You need to be clear what you want. Sphagnum moss is the basis of sphagnum peat and is the result of partial anaerobic decay of sphagnum moss in a swamp. Peat can be derived from any plant material but frequently is from sphagnum moss. You can get dried sphagnum moss and sphagnum peat from your local nursery but they are not the same thing. What do you wish to use it for?

Fascinating, but has about as much to do with the cost of CO2 as the cost of housing has to do with Local Authorities.

It seems the tank is cycled and you can add more fish slowly to allow the bacteria to multiply and match the added biological load.

If they add a bit of lime and sawdust they will get good compost and no flies. Helps to turn them over periodically to aerate them as well.