alanmin4304

I think that most people today want to set up a tank and have it all go by tomorrow morning. Go down the petshop and buy a bottle of bacteria to get the filter working properly (how aerobic bacteria stay viable in a bottle in a petshop for months is beyond me) throw in a dead prawn to feed the bugs and speed the whole process up. Patience works OK for me.

It is not about education it is about common sense. Many people think that using prawns or ammonia is not cruel to fish but they never ask themselves how many dead prawns are equal to how many fish. When you think it is cycled and then add your fish there is no balance with ammonia produced by dead prawns and that produced by your added fish so there is then a mini cycle going on again. They say patience is a virtue and it is. If you set up a tank and plant it well then slowly add fish and do water changes you ACTUALLY establish a balance between the fish and the nitrofying bacteria rather than a balance between a dead prawn and nitrofying bacteria. It is fashionable to do fishless cycles at the moment and those that wish to are more than welcome but I will continue to add fish slowly and establish the CORRECT balance.

Ask the person who sold it to you.

I thought the coathanger was for fixing the radio on a beatup holden

Did they all have a fever, turn scarlet and have sore throats?

Good fish keeping is about balance. A small tank or a heavily stocked tank is OK if you have good filtration aeration and frequent water changes. When importing or breeding in large numbers it is normal to stock tanks to the maximum because there is an economy of scale. This requires that you pay particular attention to water conditions and you pray that your aeration or filtration does not break down or you can have a real disaster. The extreme opposite is a tank that is very lightly stocked and has a good surface area and this may not require filtration or aeration. It is not possible to lay down hard and fast rules about tank size, stocking rate, fish type etc but worthwile to encourage people to strive for balance. Obviously the less parameters that are needed to be controlled by a beginner the better.

They certainly have that look about them. I would have thought the would be testing for VHS.

Sorry, have just looked looked at the link above and they should be OK as well (if a NZ plug works).

I don't know about heat mats as I have not used them but with ceramics you will find that if you put them all at the same end quite a bit of heat will be picked up from the units below and you will probably need to put the hides at the other end to avoid overheating so a thermostat is a must I think. I have used the ReptaProbe ones but have since found WILLHI ones on trademe which are about half the price and probably as good. They need to be hard wired instead of plug in though.

Who made your tanks with bevelled edges---pet world?

With gourami fry you are best with a bare tank, shallow water and warm moist air. Easiest way is to put on a lid and drop the water level while they are young then raise the level as they get bigger. You wiill usually find that no matter how well you feed them they will grow at different rates so you are best to seperate them in to different tanks by size.

I have a two tier setup with seperate thermostat on each.

Welcome and enjoy your time here.

It would be very difficult to see how commercial fishing,big game or trout/salmon fishing could be a nice way to treat an animal so it all may have (along with a goldfish in a bowl) have fallen to the bottom of the too hard basket. Good luck.

Sounds like gill flukes (dactylogyrus). There are a number of treatments available.

Sorry, you are correct LA Animal Welfare Act 1999 animal— (a) means any live member of the animal kingdom that is— (i) a mammal; or (ii) a bird; or (iii) a reptile; or (iv) an amphibian; or (v) a fish (bony or cartilaginous); or (vi) any octopus, squid, crab, lobster, or crayfish (including freshwater crayfish); or (vii) any other member of the animal kingdom which is declared from time to time by the Governor-General, by Order in Council, to be an animal for the purposes of this Act; and (b) includes any mammalian foetus, or any avian or reptilian pre-hatched young, that is in the last half of its period of gestation or development; and © includes any marsupial pouch young; but (d) does not include— (i) a human being; or (ii) except as provided in paragraph (b) or paragraph ©, any animal in the pre-natal, pre-hatched, larval, or other such developmental stage

I would catch a few that are doing it and look at them carefully for whitespot or other external parasites.

Pollies have to do an IQ test before applying (and get a result less than thirty to be accepted). They also react to political pressure and imagine how much pressure would be applied by the fishing lobby--both recreational and commercial if it was no longer acceptable to do what they do. It would make a goldfish in a bowl grateful to be alive.

Leopards are not baskers like beardies so realy only need general heat and a ceramic allows for a variation in heat from one end to the other. You can use synthetic turf with leps as well as they are not as messy as beardies and easy enough to clean up waste.

How can there be any animal cruelty if a fish is not an animal? you should put a flea in the ear of politicians rather than the SPCA.

I use ceramics with a thermostat.

I could probably get by without them for lunch.

What about the mountain oysters?

The SPCA are not the problem it is the pollies in the beehive. If they decide fish are not animals then no one is being cruel to animals. If they bought in laws to say that fish are animals all the people that catch trout, salmon etc and all the commercial fishermen would run the risk of spending time at the pleasure of her majesty for animal cruelty. The cruelty you see here is nothing compared to what else goes on out there in the big bad world.

Is there a game of cricket on somewhere?