Stella

Crud! Now my biggest inanga has ICH!!!! I was suspicious. (gnashing teeth) I have just done a 50% water change and have moved him to quarantine in the hope the others wont get it. He is in a malachite/formalin treatment, which disagrees fatally with my cray, even more reason to treat him seperately. He seems to be the only one (so far) must have been stressed. I blame the cat... OK, so add this to the mix, am I now better to scrub down the old fixtures and effectively start the tank from scratch, bacteria-wise? I am sick of ich In coldwater its lifecycle takes so much longer, and more now it is winter! Stella

We have a chiller, a titan medic (I think) off trademe. I think we paid all of $265! I wouldnt know anything about brands, but ask around a lot at different shops/sites and check out trademe for a while, not common, but they do come up. ha! Just did a search: http://www.trademe.co.nz/Home-living/Pe ... 164055.htm Also look in the expired listings (under advanced search) to see the price and frequency. Make sure you dont go cheap and get one that will only just cope with your volume. They can be noisy when running, and if it has extra grunt it wont be on so long. Always ask if pet shops can order them in, because they are $$$ they are unlikely to have any sitting around. Stella (native fish: inanga, bullies, cray, and just got a bigger tank!)

Ok, so I had issues with the title... it really is all bundled up together. I have native fish, currently 4 small bullies, 3 inanga and a crayfish in an 80 litre tank. I have just got a wonderful BIG 210 litre (four foot) tank, and the big change over will hopefully happen next weekend. I have had ongoing problems with algae. First it was brown algae, now revolting blue-green algae. I now finally have a lovely fast-growing matt of beard algae, I want to encourage this one. It is bright green and moves beautifully in the current. I appreciate that algae is usually a nutrient issue. I think a big contributor was the mushy failed-attempts at keeping aquatic plants. I got rid of most of that today. I feed the fish frozen bloodworm, which all gets eaten up, but the icky stinky juices from the ice would just be feeding the algae. So I am now putting it in a fine sieve under running water to get rid of waste nutrients. I am giving up on plants, the cray destroys them. And the native habitat I am trying to emulate doesnt have plants anyway. I like rocks I have a powerhead-driven undergravel filter and an internal Shark filter. THE POINT: DO I completely destroy any good bacteria in the tank and give it all a damned good clean to give the new tank a good head start against the bluegreen algae.... OR do I try to keep as much good bacteria as possible to kick start the new tank, and not worry about the bluegreen algae coming along for the ride? Please dont suggest algae eaters, there arent any native ones, and I am a purist

Native fish! Native fish! Native fish! :) Hi, from another palmerstonian. Stella

well the cray seems to love snails. I tried putting a whole lot in to kick off a population boom in the hope it would provide self-renewing snacks for the cray and bullies. Weren't any left after a week.... Don't know what you people keep complaining about with snails! How long should a new fish be quarantined for? I currently have a huge pot on the stove slowly making wood tea. Need to get around to boiling it one day before it starts it's own ecosystem... Stella

Well, the good thing is these beasties are not in my tank yet, so treating them with copper is a possiblity. Is it a case of dunk for a few minutes and then rinse rinse rinse? What should I do to things before introducing them from the wild? Plants/rocks/fish. It was just chance that I noticed these things! Some things you cant see.. And it has been two months to get rid of the last nasties... :evil: Stella

I found some nice plants in a local stream (doing all-native fish and want appropriate plants). They are sitting in a container on the kitchen bench due to slackness. I noticed a few days ago it is full of hydra. Not a creature I had come across before, but very cool. I have heard of them being bad in tanks, but mainly for fry. Should I be worried? How can I get rid of these things so I can use the plants? I have: 80 litre tank. 3 inanga 4 bullies random shrimp 1 crayfish Stella

oooh and if you really want to spoil your cray - give him a WYYYRRRRRMMMM!!!! I found a great big fat juicy one today and dropped it in the tank. The worm promptly slithered off and after a while Ronnie Kray caught his scent. There was a major wrestling match, and now there is one VERY full cray and one inch of worm left over for later. Very entertaining, though I do feel sorry for the worm. The fish love worms too. Stella

Is there anthing WRONG with having algae in your tank? Like does it adversely affect anything other than aesthetics? Ours is currently looking a fairly brilliant green with blue-green algae. It does actually look nice over the rocks, and I am going for a very natural look (native fish). Tis annoying on the glass, but comes off easily. ANd looks a lot nicer than the icky brown algae it seems to be replacing Stella

Hi Mark! We have bullies, inanga and some freshwater shrimp (currently in a different tank, but will add them to the main tank soon). The bullies are very entertaining. They live mostly on the bottom of the tank. The inanga (most common whitebait species) lives mid-stream. They like to school and my mega 11cm one has been quite different since we added a couple of others. I feed them frozen bloodworms, which the cray also loves, but they wont have anything to do with flake food. Bullies are fairly easy to catch. Go down to a stream at night with a powerful torch. A stream that looks dead by day is often ALIVE at night! Try to get bullies that are a similar size. They do take a while to settle in, usually a good few days before they attempt eating. I have quite a few rock caves set up in the tank, which are appreciated by both bullies and cray. He will be happiest with a lot of hiding places. If you add fish to the tank he will probably spend quite a while freaking out and looking aggressive, but they learn to live with each other. The inanga got a nasty nip and a bully lost half his tail, but everything grew back. Once he gets used to them all will settle down again. This is a really useful yahoo group on natives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nzfreshwater pretty quiet, but the archives are good. And some very good info here: http://www.nzfreshwater.org/index_main.html Good luck! Stella

We have a cray in our native tank - they are so entertaining!! Crayfish are mostly vegetarian, but do love meaty things. Apparently the diet of wild ones is something like 95% "allocthonic detritus" (basically mostly vege stuff from above that falls into the stream). Ours ADORES peas. Frozen peas. PLonk on in the tanks and he will come rampaging out of his hole, claws waving, grab his pea and bugger off backwards as quickly as he can to munch in peace! When offered bloodworms and a pea, he will choose the pea. The huge inanga will also suck one down, which is just bizarre to watch. Also will eat carrot, cucumber, green beans, basically anything you are having for dinner, give him a tiny morsel. Preferably cooked if it is a hard vege like carrot. Make sure he has a lot of hiding places, caves and the like. They are much more settled with lots of cover. Have fun!! Stella

Alan, There is a interesting discussion here about the palmy water:http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/water-water-water-vt155.html The most useful post is abbrieviated here: "I have been in palmy for about 4 years now with fish and originally i used wet pets water (when i had a 40 litre tank) now that has grown and then some and i don't want to haul hundreds of litres from them. I originally used straight tap water with aquaplus or stresscoat/zyme that was ok but every now and thien i noticed the fish weren't too happy. Sad to say that one day i was doing the above and within 2-3 days 80% of my tank was gone (hundreds of dollars of fish). i thought it was a bit odd but after experienting and researching I gave in and rang the council to see if they had done any thing different. THEY HAD! they said that they "every now and then" add extra chorline and copper and to my discussed that is why all my fishes skin had "burn't" off (not nice)." I have heard a similar tale of woe from a friend. 'Technically' Wet Pets charge for water, but the tap is outside and I would be surprised if many do. Stella

Warren, Interesting to read about your plans! Sadly we lost half our fish a few weeks back due to heat while we were out of twon, so we HAVE to get this sorted. Dont want to get any new fish until we do. Major motivation!! So you were going to have aluminium in the aquarium water? Did you find out if it was safe? I still havent found anything concrete. I know it is bad in saltwater aquaria, but I dont know if that is the result of it reacting with somehting else in that sort of setup that I wouldn't have. It appears the salt is particularly corrosive, not a problem in my tank. I have found that it can be toxic where the water is higher than pH 8.0, and more so if the temperature is high. I dont know what pH my tank should be, but last test it was 8.8. We have a big peltier on its way Stella

Good question! I live in palmy and have been warned multiple times about the local water with fish. Both by Wet Pets and people who have used tap water fine for ages, then done a water change at the wrong moment and killed all their fish. Apparently the council put a higher dose of copper and chlorine through the system every now and then, when they see fit. Since we have a crayfish, snails and HOPEFULLY still have a shrimp (he dissapears for days, due to being transparent!), keeping the copper out is important. Stella

We use filtered water in our tank, but traipsing out to wet pets every time we need to do a water change is a hassle (and can be bad for the bank ballance I would like to have a home water filter, but they are rather expensive. Looking on trademe you can get the filter cartridges new fairly cheaply. This got me wondering what the 'container' part of the filter actually does? Why not just get a cartridge and DIY it into some pvc pipes with a couple of end caps and appropriate hose connections? (Bear in mind I have never had a close look at a filter cartridge) Thanks, Stella

We are looking into building a chiller using peltiers. Something along the lines of this: http://www.overclockers.co.nz/ocnz/revi ... atsink0103 It is the same basic idea as the iceprobe chillers. The ideas keep getting caught on a couple of crucial points: Is aluminium a problem for freshwater aquariums? The heatsinks are aluminium. If not, what could we coat it with to protect the water from direct contact, without losing toooo much efficiency? And is thermal epoxy glue bad for fishies? (it is a special glue for transfering heat) SO the plans are based on the outcomes to those questions... Has anyone explored using peltiers before? (We have an 80 litre native tank, with galaxids, bullies, crayfish and a shrimp) Thanks Stella

Hi Alex, Yes we are using tap water but filtered. I have heard bad things about hte local water, and not only from wet pets Why do you ask? Stella

Um...sorry, I didnt think my location was at all useful. I know newbies can be annoying, but I had tried to put in all the details I thought were relevant... Some interesting ideas all. Thankyou. Alan, I am surprised that scaleless fish are more prone to damage by nets... I would have thought scales coming off would have been worse! I shall bear it in mind in the future.

Hello! I am newish here, not exactly new to fish keeping, but becoming more and more obsessive about our native fish. We have had them for at least six months. We currently have standard, shop-bought aquarium gravel, but I am wanting to make the tank more native and natural and to me the gravel is standing out quite badly, all quartzy and generic. I would like to change it for gravel in a local stream. Vital Stats: Tank: 75cm long x35x35 Undergravel filter powered by airstone at one end and powerhead at other. Shark internal filter 1 HUGE Inanga 4 Koaro 3 new tiny bullies 1 nasty looking cray 1 shrimp, rarely seen, who knows if he even exists between sightings... How would I go about this without completely starting again? I would imagine I would need to 'innoculate' the new gravel with tank water and try to develop the bacteria in there for a while. Then do a mammoth effort and remove/replace/refill, using as much old water as possible. Then try to be really good with super regular water changes for a while until all is back to normal. How could I make sure I wasnt putting any wild nasties into the tank with the new gravel? This may be a long-term project (need to convince my partner who co-owns it but I think the tank would look a whole lot better and more natural. I have tried googling, but could find little. It seems a pretty major thing to do and I imagine there would be some tricks. Thanks in advance Stella,