alanmin4304

They sound like planaria (flat worms) caused by overfeeding. Feed less, clean the gravel and they should thin out. They are harmless.

Got mine--thanks

Fin rot is bacterial and if you are having no luck with treatment you might need to try a bacteriacide like furan 2. It also contains meth blue which will help with any oportunistic fungal infection which often follows fin rot.

Sagittaria subulata will grow to 500mm with good light CO2 and soft music. S. microfolia in my tanks is usually 30mm but no doubt would be a bit taller in the right conditions. It is about 50mm when grown emersed. E. tenellus tenellus (the very fine leafed one)requires pretty good light but the others only require moderate light. I have microfolia growing with 60 watts of flouros at 500mm water depth 17 hours/day.

There are a number of ways to tell Sagittaria from tenellus. When flowered by growing in shallow water or emersed all Echinodorus sp. have bisexual flowers. That is the stamens are around the outside of the female part of the flower. Sagittaria sp. have both male and female flowers and they are quite different. Also tenellus has one central vein in the leaf and Sagittaria has three veins.

There is also the Common Chain sword Echinodorus quadricostatus which is lighter green and has a larger and more rounded leaf tip.

There are a number of dwarf chain swords. I think in NZ we have Echinodorus tenellus tenellus, E. tenellus latifolius and another that I don't know the name of (possibly tenellus parvula). There is a dwarf sagittaria (S. microfolia---not to be confused with and smaller than S. subulata) which is often mistaken for tenellus and looks very similar to the unknown one. Latifolius is sold periodically on Trademe. I have them all, but grown emersed and in short supply at this time of year. What plants do you have available that you could bribe me with. They would need to be good.

Plecos + plant = Happy Plecos + no plant

I have 1/2 dozen but they are all still small and as I bought them.

Gypsum is probably the reason why the hills are falling over in China as well.

Another thing is to have enough gap at the top of the tanks to get good access and to have the tanks a width that you can get at. Most of my tanks were 2ftx 2ft and various heights. Insulate the hell out of it to keep your running costs down. The number of people who quickly get heaps of tanks then as quickly give the hobby up when the power bill comes in is truely astonishing. Try do do it properly the first time. After I built my fish house I was broke and started breeding in 5 plastic baths which were damaged and cost $5 each. From that I got realy good hot dip galvanised box section stands and built my own tanks. I still have the stands today at another property and they hold many cubic feet of timber (and the odd tank). Good luck.

It will not increase the pH but may make the water harder.

It is calcium sulphate that reacts with water to return to gypsum. It is virtually insoluble and at worst would increase the hardness in your tank.

There are some who do. I have baby Japanese fire bellied newts at present but they are a few months away and I don't wish to post them.

What fog is right. Many moons ago when I was young and silly (now just silly) and used to run many miles in a week, I was running up Ferry Rd From Sumner back to town and at the Radley St bridge I overtook a whole line of cars (and I was only jogging). The front driver had his head out the window to see and asked if I would run in front with a torch so they could all go faster. That would have been smog and think what that was doing to a joggers lungs. Thats my excuse for giving it up.

If he did all the things you tell him to do you would call him a whimp and race off with a macho rugby player who abused you and came home drunk all the time. Men are from mars don't forget.

Wok's don't

You can order it but you may not get it. Many fish are allowed to be imported but are not, either because they are too hard to get through 6 weeks of quarantine, or the exporter does not have them, or there is a limited market for them, or all sorts of reasons.

Keep your hands off the flies.

I use red disco light bulbs for $7

I can't claim to have done much. I planted the water area out heavily just in case and it paid off. They range in size from small tadpoles to fully developed legs so either they grow at different rates or there was a number of different lots of eggs. How inclined are the adults to eat the young or the big offspring to eat the small? There doesn't seem to be limbs missing like you get with axis.

I have put them in another tank (good excuse ) with a large rock in it and a bare bottom so I can feed them up and they can come out of the water when they metamorphose. Since then I have only briefly seen one. They are all under the rock and I have yet to buy a round the corner camera.

I have it in one of my tanks and double dosing with flourish excel controls it.

Many years ago I was investigating a case of psittacosis which a whole family had contracted from birds bought from a local pet shop and the Dept of health wanted me to arrange for the destruction of all the birds in that shop. Being a bird lover I spoke to the vet who was looking after the infected birds. He felt it was needed to destroy some birds but many were saved. He checked all the birds in pet shop and persuaded the Health Dept to leave them alone. He also informed me that the disease was present in the wild pidgeon population in Christchurch. The reason given to me for banning the importation of turtles was salmonella and that is present in populations of sparrows, chicken, cats, dogs, lizards and many other animals so the reasoning seems a little false to me. Having said that, my brother freaks out when he comes over from Queensland and sees I am breeding red eared turtles---they are shot on site there. It would be nice if some real reasons were given for some of these restrictions because if you tell lies (as many do ---like: "If you touch that again Johny it will fall off") PEOPLE END UP WITH NO RESPECT FOR THE LAW AND WILL SMUGGLE STUFF.

Some idiot released the rainbow loris around Auckland but a bigger idiot was the one who released trout and salmon then charged a fee to catch them on a line and torture them for a while. This gives the fishing fraternity more clout than the fish keeping fraternity and therefore all the laws about importing or keeping fish are done with the protection of trout and salmon in mind. There seems no concern that these introduced fish are competing with native fish for food and are indeed feeding on their young. The business of importing parrots is being handled the same way as any government handles a problem. If people complain you set up a committee to consider it and 2 years later release the conclusion when everyone has forgotten about it. I agree with BK that they are not realy considering the issue of importing parrots. A similar thing is happening with importing fish. They have established a new regime and it is becoming very difficult to keep previously given approvals let alone establish a new one. And the influence will come from the fishing fraternity who would like to see fish importations stop.