alanmin4304

Years ago I used to get my antibiotics from a chemist when they reached their use by date. Not so easy today, and he was a fish keeper.

I was in the quary businees---dealing with noise complaints and out in the middle of the night taking noise leval readings. I worked as a health/drainage/plumbing /dangerous goods Inspector in that area from 1974 till 1989. So I was dealing with rural water supplies and septic tanks.

At the mment I am rearing young choc australe from 2 sources to mix them up a bit but chances are they came from the same great grand parents.

I think most of the NZ importers get their fish from places in asia where it is a bit hot fior killies and they don't do well. Europe would probably be the best but who imports from there?

You perhaps should sell your green water to someone who is breeding anabantoids.

I worked in the Chattertons Rd area for a number of years (1974 - 1989). Your water is from around the old 60ft depth and is in the unconfined aquafer. It is therefore directly connected to the surface application of all that fertilizer applied by the now popular dairy farms so I would expect the nitrate to be up a bit. CCC will do a regular series of chemical tests and should be able to give you phosphate levals if you ring up. To get yours tested in the rural area might be cheapest if you can find a friendly pet shop. Not as accurate but a lot cheaper.

It probably is current because the water comes from the 2nd and 3rd aquafer. The water goes mainly towards lake Ellesmere and is about 10-15 ppm nitrate when it gets there but starts around West Melton and is probably less than 1 ppm. The deeper water is not so susceptable to nitrate leachate as the unconfined layers.

Once you have seen the eggs they will be easy to recognise in future. They are hard to confuse with anything else.

Neon tetra disease (plistophoria) usually starts with the red line fading out. One of my books says it can be cured with 2 drops of formaldehyde/gallon. I think this only masks the symptoms for a while and is used by some importers to hold the symptoms off until they can be sold. I can't see any fading of the red line so it may be something else. I would destroy them and put it down to experience, in case it spreads to something else.

I used to have elzeimers but thank got I have forgotten what it is like.

Often the hit and miss is caused by no oil and the wee wheel has jambed and got a flat on it. Barrie sounds like the main man. Once you have the skill you can make all sorts of good fishie stuff from glass.

The 200litre blue drums were used to export sheep intestines (sausage skins) and are therefore food grade. Any container which has been used for food would be safer and cheaper than an unknown new one. I have used the 20 litre booze containers (fill your own spirits) from the pub and they are usually free if you ask nicely. You can also buy taps for them which can be handy.

You need to make sure second hand glass is clean also, or it stuffs up the cutter and then it wont cut properly

Remove any dead leaves as they will rot and contribute to the rise in ammonia.

Usually the inlet pipe gets blocked up first.

They didn't want people to know about them. They said they would be one of NZ's rarest birds if they were a different species and didn't want people trapping them.

I always cycle with fish as I have yet to find the formula for how many dead prawns is equivalent to a pair of live guppies.

They are the old Betta heaters/ thermostats. If there is no water or rust they may still be OK. Don't submerse the thermostat but the heaters are OK. That system could run two tanks at different temperatures. As advised ---make sure the joints are OK. We used the joining strips and wrapped with insulation tape. Phase to thermostat then heater --heater back to neutral. They cannot be earthed. Any sparky could correct me if wrong.

These people were taking blood samples from the trapped oranges and testing DNA. It was in an area near Arthurs Pass. It took me two days to get any info out of them and they only came up when I put it to them that they had a kakariki in their sleeping quarters.

The Alans agree about UG filters. I had a fishhouse with over 50 tanks all with UG filters for a number of years and they worked very well even with very high stocking rates. I gave them up after a disease outbreak because it was such a pain sterilizing the systems. Bare tanks are easier but don't look as good. I believe they should be set up the same way as a trickling slow sand filter used in water supply treatment. That is courser gravel at the bottom and gradually finer all the way up. Forget about the big clean/clean gravel vac and just take the crud off the top. Like all biological filters they only work best when 3/4 full of crud. Some plants don't like them I found, so use something that does.

I rough up the sides of a 2 litre icecream container with fine sandpaper. Put porridge and a tablespoon of sugar in a coffee grinder, add a little water and cook in the microwave into a very thick goo. Spread over the bottom of the container with a wet spoon, sprinkle yeast and add microworm from previous culture and in a few days they are all over the place. Lasts a couple of months and I have 4 on the go always.

Many moons ago, while staying in a mountain hut we came accross a very secretive but intelligent looking bunch of people also staying there. When I enquired as to the bird calls coming from their sleeping area it was divulged that they did indeed have kakariki in a cage and were using them as a caller to trap kakariki in mist nets. They were trying to work out if the oranges were a different species or a colour morph--- I understood they were the latter.

Kaka is parrot is it not and kakariki is green parrot?

Oten it is not the filter media that is blocked but the inlet hose.

Banana plant has floating leaves as well. The problem with floating plants is that they block the light to any other plants (if you want other plants)