alanmin4304

If the tank is big enough they will just defend the nesting area, if too small muchabiggatrouble.

I use river sand from the nursary next to pet world Smiths St / Ferry Rd. Wash the coarser stuff and leave the silt in the rest.

The old story---- Do what works best for you.

what I do is buy river sand and seiv the bigger bits out with a large kitchen seive and place them (washed) on top of the rest of the sand to hold it down

I used to breed hundreds of nothos on sand without any problems and I found the advantage to be that you can count exactly how many eggs you have and therefore your % hatch which is a lot harder to do on peat.

I have been out of it for a while (not party pills) and someone more involved might be able to advise. The inspection used to be carried out by inspectors who could take samples and send them away if in any doubt. The problem is that you would need to know enough to have doubts and tropical fish would be a very small part of their days work.

You may have had a vet turn up in response to your enquiry but the inspectors who arrive when quarantining are the same ag inspectors from the airport, not vets.

I would soak it for a few days to make sure you have got rid of the salt.

I used to tip all the water and sand through a seive and had no problem. Would suggest you need a slightly finer seive (and therefore sand) so the mesh size is small enough not to wedge the eggs.

I think the problem originates upstairs. When I imported goldfish I had 7 inspections in 6 weeks and each time it was 2 inspectors and different ones each time so we had to go through the same issues each week. I haven't been involved with them of late but a few years ago there was a couple of guys who were interestd in fish and tried to learn about it a bit. As they got to know a bit they were transfered to different duties as it was felt they were getting too familiar with the importers. Hopefully things have changed--- but I doubt it.

You need to take tha eggs out of the sand and store them in peat.

I understood Boc would not fill private cylinders.

The Wharehouse down here sold small tanks for about $12. They don't stock them at the moment but one up your way may do.

Paint a normal one pink

If it was actually doing anything it would be cooking your eyes as well.

It would be best to treat them in the smaller tank as it would require less meds.

In my experience most of the Maf inspectors might be good at finding a fruit fly on an orange but wouldn't know the front from the back of a fish which is a pity.

CO2 is no use without adequate fertilizer and light. Co2 gives plants carbon which is the building block of organic matter but phoshates and nitrates are also required to build proteins. Like most things in a fish tank it is a whole living system and one part cannot take place without the other. Just adding CO2 will not do much. Flourish excel is another way of your plants obtaining utilizable carbon so you may not need both (or you may not need either).

When taking a water sample from a chlorinated water supply for bacterial analysis the sterile bottles normally contain a crystal of sodium thiosulphate which imediately neutralizes the disinfection effects of the chlorine and its products so that any still viable bacteria can be cultured in the lab. This is the ingredient in the water conditioner. I note what has been said about the pristene water supply of the greater Auckland region but any water drawn from an open water course, catchment or lake is likely to contain a reasonable amount of organic matter and therefore to produce chloramines which can realy only be got rid of with water conditioner.

Tail rot is an oportunistic bacterial disease that is secondary to damage and should therefore be fixed by a double treatment with furan

It is probably a bit like most other things with fish keeping and depends on how much money you want to throw at it. I must be Scottish---I add fish

There may be different types of black algae (mine is blacker and less "wooly looking" than in the pic) but I find it takes a few weeks to kill it off when I get it.

Now there is an excuse: Fish have to be cheaper than kids

I have double dosed with clown loaches in the tank with no aparent ill effects.

It is the various chloramines that will be left and are toxic to fish. I don't know but can guess that water from the Waikato river (with all the population on its banks probably discharging sewage and the farm waste entering the waterway) will have a considerable load of organic waste and therefore will create a lot of chloramines. It may be that your fish are surviving albeit with their gills partly burned. If it burns your eyes in a swimming pool chances are the fish would not be overjoyed by its presence. I wouldn't want to drink Waikato river water unclorinated. The water races in this area which originate from the Waimakiriri river have bacterial loadings that are in excess of the minimum treatment standards required by the Regional Council for septic tank discharges to groundwater (1000 faecal coliforms/100 mls of water and I would imagine the Waikato is similar. The Selwyn River is not fit to swim in let alone drink almost from its source to the sea. Clean/green NZ.