alanmin4304

I have one doing that at the moment. So long as it is producing more leaves than it is shedding I wouldn't worry about it. Just remove the dead leaves to reduce the nutrient load

This is a Hygrophila coymbosa stricta flower taken in the moring. You can see the similarity, however they may open as the day progresses.

This is a Hygrophila difformis flower taken in the afternoon.

They are water lillies and they normally have floating leaves. We try to keep the leaves submersed so we are not doing them any favours.

Sterilizing plants makes sterile, inert compost. Sanitizing plants kills the nasties. Treating your plants with pp will probably kill snails and a few other kreebies but I don't think you can kill everything without killing the plants.

Vets can be nice people sometimes. I tried to buy some formaldehyde from the chemist to get rid of planaria and he said he didn't have it but could get it in for about $40.00. Went to the vet and left a message with the receptionist after explaining what I was wanting it for and got what I wanted plus a syringe to measure it with for $5.00

Then there was the time when we went to the meeting with the maf prior to the new import regs and were invited to the "reef smasher's quarantine facility by the two top people from Maf as an example of how it should be done. Eddie and I had a competition called "spot the non compliance" or what would you not get away with in Christchurch. There was water all over the floor from overflowing and leaking tanks, three varieties of fish that were prohibited imports and newly bred orandas and white clouds. All of which you would be excommunicated or circumsized with a blunt knife for in Christchurch. I remember the senior Inspector standing in front of a tank of baby white clouds and going on about how good it was that this man was even breeding neons. All the guys there were importers and had agreed on the way that there would be no criticisms till we got home. Hard not to choke but a good learning experience.

With the technology available today I am almost tempted to have another go but I now prefer an underwater garden with a few fish hiding in the bushes. There certainly are some interesting little marine fish out there.

It is not uncommon for the female betta to get beaten up. They take breeding very seriously (also very prone to dropsy)

The ones used for fighting are not the ones sold round town with fancy fins as I understand.

Diseases have different levels of infectivity in humans and in fish. In humans it may take 2000 to 10000 Salmonella bacteria to give you Salmonellosis but only 1 to 3 Shigella bacteria to give you Shigellosis (bacillary dysentary) Same with fish. You only get lead poisoning when your body is taking in more lead than it can excrete otherwise all is pretty normal.

Since this is about marines I will share what we learned about catching cold water marines from Kaikoura. We got our fish etc from rock pools and off the shore with a net. Packed them one to a bag with a lot of sea lettuce,a lot of air and not much water and put them in a chillie bin with freezer pacs to keep them cool. Treated them with chelated copper sulpate and quarantined them for 3 weeks. The sea water was stored about 6 weeks in black drums then put through a home made UV unit very slowly. Used to put the water in the top tanks and slowly siphon it through the light to the bottom tanks overnight. No technology like protein skimmers. All the tech stuff would certainly help today. Frequent water changes with "matured water".Fed very lightly and away we go. .

The above pic is the flower of Alternanthera roseafolia which is usually commercially grown emersed and is not easy to convert to submersed growth (needs strong light) Thank you for providing the secret password. We are now re applying for our PhD in pic-posting and hopefully will be able to post pics in the future. My friend has now lost his stutter and has stopped dribbling.

That could be a pretty cool native pic.

If you keep the right balance with fish and water changes it will usually do well. The fish produce fertilizer and CO2. I think sometimes we over complicate things.

That should be enough fertilizer.

You could start a florist shop with some of these. Problem is the Echinodorus sp. usually only last a day.

Theeeeen there was the young people at the local fish club (nameless) that got bored with the same old same old and said "We need some new blood in here so we can get some new ideas. We have all the positions sorted for the next elections and we only need someone to stand for President--no probs-- just a figurehead and we have the rest covered." Guess who was the only one elected.

Just curious--- how did you get them lined up nice and equally. I drew the lines on the outside with a felt pen then wiped it off with meths later. Don't see any marks on yours. Great job, I think you will find it great to work with. I made all the partitions including the ends shorter by the thickness of the lid (polycarbonate) and the lid slightly longer than the tank so it is easy to pick up. Killies here we come?

I have made hundreds of tanks and never had one leak---until I made my 6 compartment one for killies---had to reseal it and it is fine now. If a tank is cut square, when it comes together the RTV joining it is enough to seal it and the added seal on the inside is a bonus. I got this cut and it was not quite square and then in the confusion of six compartments I overlooked the fillet in one small area. Works a treat now.

What are you doing that we are not? I would realy like to figure out how to do this but my friend is now developing a stutter and a twitch from bouncing off the walls.

Blue green algae is not controlled by algae eaters because it is not an algae. I am trying to control a bit in one of my tanks at present. I have in the past got it under control using hydrogen peroxide but am not having a lot of luck todate. I have some good killies in there I am reluctant to kill them off with meds. Just have to keep plugging away.

I have only had mine for a while but I think because they are water lillies they probably feed heavily through the roots. I grew the plain ones years ago and had a pretty rich strata for media. Mine are doing OK at present in only medium light but I very rarely clean the gravel so they will be getting good nutrient levels.