Stella

Aw cute! They are actually environmental pests here, same as possums, stoats, rats etc, eating threatened invertebrates, birds/chicks/eggs in the nest (we have many ground-laying birds). Personally I would have saved it too.... then felt guilty at letting a pest go....

a big frog should be ok, but I suspect providing the right conditions for both would be difficult. VFTs like strong sun, which I imagine the frogs do not.

mmm, crunchy....

Thanks for all the suggestions, very helpful

do you know about 'cycling' a tank? Cloudy water is usually a bacterial bloom and is common in new tanks while things adjust. What are these ornaments?

right, I now have my car Looking at insurance now, preferring full cover but also feeling terribly unemployed. My broker got back with a quote of $59 per month -day-um my motorcycle insurance was $166 per YEAR! For the record, it is a 92 Nissan Pulsar, I am over 25, female, on my learners license (shuddup!) and not made previous vehicle claims. Anyone got any tips/recommendations etc?

How are you making your chiller? Rockpool critters deal with a lot more fluctuation and temperature changes, so are probably a lot more tolerant than other marine critters in an aquarium. (I officially ban myself from living near the sea - I really don't need to get into native marine! Good luck! Am envious )

Be careful, anything fibrous can pick up bits of grit ans scratch the tank. It is not the scourer itself the does the scratching. Flat edges (blade, unused eftpos card, plastic thingy) can't pick up grit.

I have a GN250. Now for sale ..... :-?

I advise culling any babies that survived. You never know but it may be genetic. Apparently they do that now with farm animals that have difficult births, it just keeps the genes that cause the problems in the herd. Humans have been doing caesarians for so long on women that could not get the baby out, so now we are more likely to have problems.

whoops, just bought one! (mostly). Nissan pulsar, '92, white (hmmm could do livingart's cool zebra-stripe trick!) Take possession on tuesday, subject to their flatmate not crashing it on the way to welly on the weekend...! (hence 'mostly' bought a car) A mechanic friend had a good look over and was really happy with the condition, all he found needed is to replace the radiator hose (not urgent). I contacted them an hours ago to take a look! Now I have to learn to DRIVE!! Thanks for all the suggestions here

I never use chemical (algae removers or 'conditioners') in my tanks. I use the appearance of algae as a sign that things are getting unbalanced and try and sort out my feeding/maintenance regimes.

thanks! Does need to be a hatchback. I really need it for fieldwork over summer with buckets and electrofishing gear and the like, so easy back-access and lots of space.

Yep, the time has come to sell my motorbike and buy a car so I can learn to drive / (yes, I am 30 and haven't learned to drive...) In case anyone is selling (or knows someone that is selling) I am after: Hatchback Manual economical to run/repair tidy condition and reliable under $2500 Something like a toyota corolla or honda civic, though open to anything that fits the above. I have knowledgable friends in Wellington or Wanganui that I trust to look over one for me, and elsewhere may be do-able. Feel free to email me with details if you have something that might fit. :bounce:

Alcohol boxes from bottles stores are excellent - strong, similarly-sized (great for stacking) and you can't pack in so much you can barely lift it!

I would love to get a cat again, the company would be really nice, but till I can afford random vet bills it ain't happening I would totally go the SPCA route. It might look more expensive upfront, but it is cheaper than getting a kitten from elsewhere desexed. Also, if you get one from some random person who let their cat have kittens you are simply encouraging their irresponsibility in not desexing their animals, which is why the SPCA is overrun. Also, mature cats from the SPCA are cheaper (pre-fixed) saner (you really want to take on a cat toddler?) and you can pick the personality (housecat, kiddy cat, independant streak?).

Good on you for quarantining! Most people don't, and it is such a risk. I always quarantine everything for at least two weeks, but that should be considered a minimum. Three or four weeks is better. Last time I got new fish I quarantined for three weeks then dropped them in the main tank. I had looked so closely before I put them in, but the moment I did I realised they had the first visible sign of whitespot! I caught them as soon as possible but it was too late - the tank got a dreadful case of whitespot that took weeks to clear. The moral of the story is it is worthwhile to quarantine, and the longer the better... I can't comment on the species, but having a bubbler in there will help with oxygen levels, and the small waterchanges are good. Remember the surface area is as if not more important than volume.

and if you come to Palmerston North you are most welcome to visit my native fish (some of which are descended from Australian native fish )

I thought every time this sort of thing was mentioned, someone piped up and said "but there are so many species that are ALREADY on the allowed list, but actually getting them in is such a hassle for x y and z reason, so trying to get additional things ON the list just adds a whole new level of complication" ... I don't know the details but I am surprised that hasn't been mentioned yet.

wow, sounds stressful! I am sure the half-drunk ravers really helped things.... Any luck with help from DOC? An article from today on someone being charged with draining a wetland on his property without resource consent: http://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/2853354/Wairarapa-landowner-destroyed-protected-wetlands

Actually I wasn't going to post there, then saw you mentioned my name :roll: Native shrimp can survive in tropical tanks, but they die sooner. Basically they have a high oxygen requirement. Warm water means less oxygen as well as their metabolism running higher so they need more oxygen. You condemn them to an early oxygen-deprived death... (native shrimp start as males and grow up to be females - only species that does this! Really, am not hijacking....)

awesome

(pokes tongue out at SamH) See, I *only* know about natives. I haven't a clue what species you are talking about! It is also illegal to bring in goldfish, because they can be indistinguishable from small koi, who are a noxious pest. There may be something similar with these plants. There can be many other reasons for not allowing in certain things other than posing a direct threat to our ecosystems. Twinkles mentions another: disease. I wonder how many people will complain about this change while being unaware of the native plants species that work well in tropical tanks.

The filter provides a habitat for the bacteria. The aquarium provides the food for the bacteria. If there is not enough habitat, the food can't be eaten. If there is an enormous habitat the bacteria don't simply fill it, because there is not enough food. 'Overfiltration' does not cause problems as such, but is a waste of space. Of course the difficulty is you will never actually know if the filter is big enough, or 'bigger than enough'. I am not familiar with the filters you are talking about, but if what you have is working well.... why change it? Also remember that the L/h indicate the most the pump can do with no head or drag etc. So if you put the pump horizontally in shallow water with no restrictions that is about what it could do. When you put the pump under the tank you have a 'head' or weight of water that it has to push against, reducing the actual output.

I had a strange disease strike my kokopu last december. It seemed to burrow through one tail and the membranes just fell away leaving the fin rays exposed and tattered. Then it started attacking the rest of my fish in a similar manner. After a week or so four of the five were dead, most with little visible damage. Decided it was an internal infection that did them, possibly an aeronomas (sp?). The one fish that did survive took months before it was eating enough and not losing weight, and about seven months before its tiny piece of lost fin grew back. Reading over your posts I really hope it is not similar, especially looking at the pic and seeing how the rays are there but the membranes are gone. Just make sure you are totally pedantic about cross-contamination.