alanmin4304

Gambusia are called mosquito fish and are live bearers used in Asia as live fish food, hence the odd one has come into NZ with imported fish. They are distributed world wide because they were thought to feed almost exclusively on mosquito larvae, but they are actually not that good at controlling mosquito larva and will eat all sorts of stuff. Our dearly beloved trout and salmon fishers have no doubt convinced the Maf they are bad critters. I don't know if they are or not, but they are certainly not legal. Calcium oxide will kill them, and everything else as it uses up all the oxygen, but I am not sure how you get the life back into the water. A fish friendly Vet might have an idea on that or an alternative. I think you would need chemical control to completely wipe them out. Good luck

I used to feed infusoria a little and often but get them onto brine shrimp as soon as possible and they will take off. Microworm in between is good also

I don't know anything about your black sand but if you want hard alkaline conditions you are giving yourself a real challenge starting with sand that will go acid. I would think you should use a mix with marble or sea shell to increase the hardness and pH.

Fruitfly media 1 10oz sugar, 7ozmeal (oatmeal,cornmeal),3oz brewers yeast, 1oz agar. Will store dry and 1oz = 28.4g. Add7oz to 20oz water and boil 5 mins. Stir well. Add 5 cc Nipagen M (methyl parahydroxbenzoate a common preservative available from the chemist) and boil 5 mins. pour into containers and allow to cool,add fruitfly--10 days at 25deg C fom egg to adult. Fruitfly media 2 Add 4g inactivated yeast to a 600cc cold water and allow to stand for an hour or so. Add 150g samolina,30g agar and200cc treacle to yeast mix and stir, add to 1250cc boiling water and stir for 10 mins and allow to cool. Add 20cc propionic acid, stir and pour into containers Propionic acid is pretty nasty stuff so you might want to replace with a salt of propionic acid or the preservative in media one. Good luck

Many years ago I obtained my fruitfly from the local university and I have 2 x formulae that they used, contains agar and preservative and doesn't stink. Let me know if any one wants them. I have used them in a previous life when I was breeding killifish, they work well but some of the ingredients are not that easy to get. I got them from a medical supplyer.

I was told by an old fella once that in the good old days they used to treat the fish for white spot or whatever, by putting a penny by the air bubbler and when the snails crawled out of the water the fish would be cured. Copper sulphate is the ingredient in snail control products today.

They are the snails that I am mainly catching. I use shrimp pellets or pleco pellets, both work.

I treated all the plant for snails before I put it in the tank (at double strength) and I think I have been blessed with 3 different types of snails. I bought a large clown loach and have never seen it eat a snail yet (it may when I am not looking, but I still have plenty of snails. I also am reluctant to use chemicals so I bought one of Mikefish's snail traps off trademe and it caught 24 on the first day---My turles love them. Works for me.

Its a few years since I bred bettas but I found it worked for me by lowering the water leval and drip feeding infusoria through a blood transfusion system for the first few weeks gave them a good start. I used a 12volt pilot light system to keep them feeding at night and to avoid the shock when the main lights came on. You can then start introducing microworm and artemia nuplii as they get big enough. If they can't see the food they can't eat it, and their growth will be directly proportional to the amount of good quality food you can get them to eat.

Blue green algae is a bacteria which thrives in eutrafied conditions. I have a friend with a very large goldfish pond in the country which got over run with it. The problem was it was red. Not only the Irish have red blue green algae. It went away at night and came back with the sun. It sinks at night and rises up during the day by prodocing gas (oxygen I think) It also is a nitrofyer and converts nitrogen to nitrate. I have got rid of it in the past in an aquarium by adding hydrogen peroxide very slowly and carefully. This drives off co2. My guess is that your water is too rich in fertilizer,probably phosphate.

Having had a second look, I think 1 may be Rotala macranda which has been grown emersed and then submersed hence the two types of leaves.

I don't think 1 is alternanthera. 2 The common name is mouse's ear (from the shape of the leaf). Grows very slowly and needs strong light. Usually sold in the shops in the emersed form. I grow it like a potplant and it puts up runners all the time. Take the small plant with one leaf and about to put up second and plant in tank. If left to grow emersed it will grow quite rank and look like an elephant's ear,but if started small will stay that way. Lots of light---nice we plant.

Also a warning: I have an E. osiris in a 600mm high tank with a clear plastic lid and when it sent a runner straight up it hit the lid in 4 days and snapped the end off. I lost about 6 - 8 nodes and only ended up with 2 surviving, one of which is producing 2 plantlettes at the moment. It can also grow pretty large. Mine is about 400mm x 400mm, so it needs a reasonable sized tank.

Hi, I'm new here but could I make a couple of suggestions. Your plant is E. osiris and try not cutting the runner. If you leave the plantlettes until they have good leaves and roots you can carefully work the plant lose and replant it. This allows other plants (which may even be on the same node) to continue to develop properly. You will find with many Echinodorus sp. that when all the plantlettes have been removed more will grow in a few months.

I find feeding garlic luncheon is the least stinky of everything I have used

Hi, I am in Christchurch. I used to breed a lot of tropical fish for sale and trade in tropical aquarium plants. I have returned to the hobby after an absence of about 20 years and am enjoying the developments that have arrived in that time