Stella

yeah I like the way people think chemicals are nasty and bad. The active ingredients in 'natural' or 'herbal' products are still chemicals and some of them definitely can be nasty.

It doesn't contain sugar, the aspartame and phenylalanine is fake sugar. I have no idea what else is in it, so I am dosing just one tank first to see how it goes. Fish are behaving as normal. You don't know what is in the tablets either, it certainly isn't pure E. Tableting agents, probably a lactose (milk sugar) filler, a harder coating who knows what else. I suspect fish are unlikely to be lactose tolerant Tablets would be a little easier I imagine, especially with the short expiry on this liquid stuff.

My erythromycin arrived today. I knew it was liquid not tablets.... What I didn't know was it is: BRIGHT PINK Cherry Flavoured and contains aspartame and phenylalanine.......! Oh and it is completely useless in a month. I think it will make the water a little cloudy. Oh well, it was free, will give it a go. And I have any number of contacts through which I can get tablets next time. Caryl, how much does it cost to fill a typical script for E-mycin? I can either buy it for $21+gst from Pharmacy Wholesalers or get a script from work.

Totally what David said. You did your part, you asked if they used chemicals, they misled you, they need to rectify the situation.

Native shrimp have a high oxygen requirement due to having evolved in cold water. The warmer the water the lower the oxygen, the lower the oxygen the deader the shrimp.... While it may be possible to keep a native shrimp in a tropical tank with slow adjusting, it is not particularly fair on the shrimp. Native shrimp are plain looking but very cool in that they are the only shrimp that starts their life as a male and grows up to be a female. Thus a large shrimp can be a father AND a mother....

As some of you know I am writing a book on keeping native fish. One of the banes of keeping native fish is BLUE GREEN ALGAE :evil: I am wanting to include a quick note that blue green algae is also killed using Erythromycin (rate of 400mg per 100lt) and that it can be obtained by prescription from a sympathetic doctor/vet/dentist or similar. Thing is, are they actually *allowed* to prescribe it for this? I am concerned that my book should be squeaky clean when it comes to the legalities. (I am getting some from a pharmacist I know who has some about to expire, but he needs a prescription, which my dentist-employer wrote, so there is a paper trail to cover his butt)

This is of more significance to coldwater ich outbreaks where the lifecycle is much longer, but may be useful to you. The whitespot lifecycle is this: Whitespot on fish - unkillable Whitespot falls to ground, encysts and grows - unkillable Whitespot cyst ruptures and releases swimming infective stage - KILLABLE Whitespot latches on to fish - INVISIBLE and unkillable. So when the last spot falls off, you might think the fish are clear and get the meds out of the water. Meanwhile that spot is alive in the gravel producing 200-1000 swimming versions of itself to re-infect the fish. Also the fish may have invisible whitespots on it, so it looks clean but is not. And, as the wise say above, that the fish have whitespot to begin with says there is something else wrong. NOTE: all my experience is with coldwater fish. Tis the same parasite but I don't know how fast it grows in tropical conditions.

Not everyone is into plants. I have lights for simple illumination. Howevr I have coldwater fish and the heat from the lights adds to everything else and puts greater stress on the cooling system (ie me). Would LED lights not aimed at plant-growth be cheaper? I think it is a great idea :)And the dawn/duck thing rocks.

I had mine done recently. (yes the method does justify the two decimal places...) Tap water: 7.35 Tank: 7.05 The bizarre thing is the tank is nearly 1/4 peat, it should be acid as hell! There must be some serious buffering in the water. Annoying, now I need to learn how to control it.

I had my hand in the mudfish tank while maintaining it recently. Ok so most inquisitive fish come up and nibble your hand, that is fine. These guys came up and did the whole BITE AND TWIST technique!!!! Slightly disturbing. Thankfully their mouths are little.... I suggest, if your fish indeed need to be taught, to start feeding them by holding the food under the water for a moment, then letting it go. Increase the period as you go. That way they will associate your hand more with being fed.

I got a friend to do a pH test on my tanks (he works in a science lab and has kickarse equipment at his disposal. Tap water: 7.35 Mudfish tank: 7.05 I am astounded! You should see how dark it is in there!!! Would have thought it was at least pH 5 or 6... This was one day after doing the weekly 50% water change (no filtration in there).

Hi Jayci, Yes, they will take non-live food. My fish live off a staple diet of frozen bloodworms. I am also culturing whiteworms and earthworms (more suited to kokopu) indoors, as I don't have a garden to grow things in. I was recently put on to feeding them ox heart. You cut off all the fat, cut it into strips and freeze it. It is easier to cut really fine when frozen and will be defrosted by the time you finish with it. I may wind up cutting up a whole lot and freezing it in icecube trays for convenience. I got a couple of sheep's hearts today. I gave a little to my small kokopu. They seemed to think it was great (as is all food according to them!) and their stomachs are now so huge I fear for their structural integrity! They can also be fed trout pellets, crushed to a suitable size. I don't like the idea of commercial foods, they can have all sorts of cereals and who knows what else in them. I think I have been underfeeding my kokopu. I discovered recently they should be a whole lot bigger by now. They are certainly not skinny, but they are not as big as they ought to be. I am going to use the heart to feed them up on, and it will be much cheaper than bloodworm. Oh, and they like peas.... quite bizarre. They have been found in the wild with whole blackberries in their stomachs.... but they really need a insectivorous/carnivorous diet

Find a stony bottomed stream with good forest cover, up to two metres wide, with a slow current, not very broken surface and up to a couple of feet deep. The last four items make it easier for you to see the fish... Two options: spotlighting or fishing. Spotlighting involved going to a good stream at night with a very bright torch (one each, less frustrating). Check out the stream first during the day so you know the access and where not to break your ankle. During the day go fishing. Bullies you may see out in the open during the day, and inanga, but other fish may be there but hiding. Look for areas of higher flow with large stones. Put your net down stream and near the stone. Pick up the stone and all manner of muck will be washed into it, hopefully including fish! Take many buckets and clear sided containers. Sunscreen is compulsory. Both are great things to do with a family!

I was at Charles Mitchell's last week, he is the guy trying to farm whitebait, particularly the kokopu and inanga. He was feeding his big kokopu on ox heart. He said to cut off all the fat (not good for fish or water quality), cut it into strips and freeze it. Then he gets out a strip or two and cuts it very fine with a knife and drops it straight in. Apparently it is a good very nutritious food. I tried to find one at the supermarket just now but they were out. I wouldn't bother with sausage, too much other rubbish. I have also heard of people using cat/dog food. I would worry about it falling apart and mucking up the water. Also cat/dog food has an absurd amount of non meat. The cheaper ones have more cereal and beaks/toes/skin etc. If it says 'with beef' etc, it means beef is not the main ingredient or a high enough percentage to be called 'beef'. Another bit of useless information...

My torrentfish currently have whitespot (ich) I am using salt. Apparently the dose to cure ich is: 0.3% solution = 3 grams per litre = 1/2 teaspoon per litre. Be pleased you have tropicals. In coldwater the lifecycle is slowed down. I have over a month of treating to do to be sure it is gone!

I met Steve Moore the other night, he is an amazing photographer of fish and invertebrates, so I had to ask what he did. Nothing much... just angle the camera down to avoid reflections from the flash.... He just uses a simple camera too! Another trick is to use a bit of black card with a hole cut for the lens. He uses that sometimes but finds angling works fine.

I have native fish, currently six tanks (it has grown recently...). Becasue they are coldwater I am using 3lt bottles of ice on rotation and fans aimed at the surface for cooling. I am pretty frugal with electricity and don't really use heating in winter. Winter powerbill: $60 Summer powerbill: $80 $20 a month extra to be running two small fans constantly and be constantly freezing water.....!

I got into natives after keeping goldfish. I had goldfish when I was a teenager, then there was a gap without fish then I got goldfish again. Had them a couple of months then the pet shop had some natives (inanga and koaro) for sale, they said they would be fine with goldfish. Well, the koaro were fine... but the goldfish were torn to shreds! I found the natives were much more interesting, really active as opposed to the goldfish just drifting about. The natives are really just brown and grey and varitions on that theme, I thought they would not stand out at all in a tank on their own, later I found they stand out so much with all their activity! Anyway, the goldfish got taken back to the shop and more natives came home and that was the start of the obsession.... I am now writing a book on keeping them! Very briefly they need: Water below 20 degrees preferably. This can be done with ice, chiller ($$$) or fans aimed at the surface (or air conditioning!) It is a stress over summer trying to keep the temps down, but if you are careful it works. Lids. As said earlier, many native fish jump or climb. Especially when they are first caught. Hiding places. Rocky caves etc. I haven't found a native fish yet that doesn't like hiding now and then, even midstream schooling inanga. Thing is the more hiding places they have, the safer they feel and they hide less!! Plants are usually pretty hopeless in the native tank, no native algae eaters to keep them clean. I would suggest starting out with bullies and inanga. Bullies are great fish, good characters and very active on the bottom - always up to something. Inanga are schooling fish and a bit more tolerant than other galaxiids. Crayfish are also great but keep them small, 1-2 inches, otherwise they can wreak havoc. While they can be trained onto commercial food, I think live and frozen foods are best. I use frozen bloodworms as the staple diet There are some excellent books by R.M. (Bob) McDowall to learn about the different fish and their habitats. VERY little anywhere about keeping them (hence my book) but make sure you search through the archives here as a lot of stuff has been talked about. Oh, what dimensions is gour tank? Length and ground area is much more important for native fish than height. Check out my photo album below too

I read two different books on fish diseases this week. One said Ich/whitespot can't live near pH 5, the other said they thrive below pH 7.... Confusing. I do suspect it is the acidity that killed the ich. Due to being taken from the wild and put into captivity they were really at risk of having an ich explosion, and that they brought a few with them made it so much more likely. Apparently they are also susceptible to a nasty contagious fungus, columnaris, would be interesting to know if the peat can kill that too.

Brown algae is NOT an algae. It is a single celled organism with a sillica shell. Not a plant, more like a bacteria. Apparently it is from too much phosphate and sillica in the tank. (I would be surprised if it was leaching from the glass). It doesn't cause any harm apart from looking unsightly. It is not food for anything unfortunately (some things may appear to eat it, but it has little nutrition I think...) In your situation it sounds like it is a new tank thing. My tanks all have terrrible problems with it and I have no idea why. One tank has been going over a year. It is very frustrating.

Eels are a commercial quota fish. I believe you need a permit to fish for them to be able to sell them (for food). Then you can only sell them to someone who has a permit to buy them to sell to the public..... I THINK that is how it goes. You can catch them to eat yourself or to put in your aquarium, but I suspect it is illegal to sell them for aquarium use (unless you farmed them).

Metro.... is this a real worm thing or metronidazole? I have heard people here recommending that for worming, but it is an antibiotic, wouldn't touch worms... I have wondered about worming fish, mine are all wild-caught.

Hi Aquanut, What do you base the need to do waterchanges on? Do you get much algal growth in these tanks? I forgot to add that my mudfish arrived (from the wild) with a natural parasite load of about five ich/whitespots each. A week later they were all gone and no new ones appeared. And this is during a time they would have been susceptible to an outbreak. I would love to know if the peat killed them (the other option is they were not whitespot, but they sure looked like them.

I am posting this here because I understand killifish people often use peat in their aquariums, possibly in a different way to me, but it is still peat and water I am using it as a substrate in a mudfish aquarium (native coldwater fish). There is a LOT of peat in there. Peat apparently has an antibacterial effect. This is (partly?) why spaghnum doesn't break down properly, which is what makes the peat in the first place. What does this do to the bacteria in the tank (filters etc)? Does it render biological filters useless, or less useful than normal? If it does change things, how does it affect the ammonia-nitrite-nitrate cycle? Thanks. It is so hard finding much out about using peat like this!

cooool If I lived near the sea I would so have to do native marine. Thankfully I don't. It is bad enough living near rivers and streams!