Stella

Meds work better if there is just the fish for them to work against. Depending on hte action of the medication, some will be trying to kill all microorganisms so is working against the entire established tank, others get neutralised by various natural processes within the tank. Both of which are a waste of good meds. Further, you will know the actual volume better of a hospital tank than your main tank.

Both melafix and furan 2 have all the instructions on the label. You put in the appropriate amount for the volume of water you are treating. We can't guess without knowing the volume and dose! Don't mix meds, and putting a 'little bit' in (as oppose the the suggested dose) is unlikely to achieve much. If your fish is in a 1.5L coke bottle it may well die of lack of oxygen before it dies from the fungus....!

Oh wow, that sounds potentially positive!!

I would hazard fin rot too.

Thanks! Actually, I am considering going for a ride the weekend after next if the weather is good, and the Wairarapa was one of the possiblities. Would you be able to show me where you go and how you find them?

I have been meaning to start a thread asking about the cheapest power companies, but just now I found a link to this site: http://www.powerswitch.co.nz Have your latest power bill ready and plug in a few fields, then it lists all the power companies in order of what you would save. I am with Meridian on a low user plan, which is the fourth cheapest on the list or 18 (which compares different plans of different companies, not just different companies) I would save $25 a year if I switch to Mercury low user. I would spend an extra $274 if I moved to Trust Power's 24 controlled plan!

oh man I completely read it wrong! :oops: I was thinking the usual erythromycin for cyano, not heard of furan for that.

400mg per 100lt. Crush it up (mortar and pestle like) really fine and dissolve it as much as you can in water before adding. Sometimes it kills it straight away, if not, keep adding the same dose for 7 days. Mine just slowly melted away and stayed away.

1080 is actually a natural herbicide, found in plants. A recent study found accidentally that puha and watercress contain decent amounts of 1080. However a human would have to eat about 9 tonnes for it to have an effect...! In Australia many of the plants have 1080 in them, as a deterrent to herbivores such as possums. In south eastern Australia the plants have a much higher amount of it, and the possums there have actually evolved an immunity to it (remembering that in plants it is a deterrent, not killing the animals). The possums introduced into NZ come from north eastern Australia where the plants have less 1080 in them. Apparently we would not be able to use 1080 against our possums if they were from the southern group. With the puha and watercress thing, they grew a whole lot of watercress and puha in tubs. They dumped an awful lot of 1080 into the water then tested the leaves (including the control ones). Apparently the levels were slightly elevated for a short time (can't remember how long), then it went back to normal. The amount they were exposed to was way higher than would happen naturally, and the elevated levels would still have been perfectly edible by a human. It is quite possible that other native plants here have 1080 in them. Possums definitely have preferences of what leaves to eat and further study could reveal if these plants actually contain 1080 or indeed any other toxins that could be used against them.

Supasi, is it the floating oval leaves in the second photo that you are wondering about? They are a South African water lily. The flowers have the most wonderful scent, and apparently they are edible. Aponogeton angustifolius I think. flower: http://www.south-africa-tours-and-trave ... uisine.jpg

Thanks guys! 44,873 words 3, 711 lines 63 pages 987 paragraphs

if he is deep inside the wood you are probably fine scrubbing it into a bucket. If you can't see him you probably won't scrub him, right? Tis his own problem for not coming out

Wow, I can't believe it! (to those who don't know, I have been writing a book on keeping NZ native fish in aquaria, and spent the last four years saying "it will be done in six months".) Really, it is only 'finished'. Writing can be tweaked forever, and knowledge can be added as it is gained. But I will leave that for the second edition. But still, it is at the point where I am ready to PRINT. I will hand it over to Zev ( ) who will do all the layout (including photos ) so we can get it all printed and bound and DONE! wow. I started writing an ARTICLE, but it kept growing. I had only had native fish for six months before starting to write. I was frustrated at the complete lack of information on what to do, and I figured I could pass on what little I knew to those who were only just starting. I actually wrote most of it in my lunch breaks at work, with the odd intensive day or weekend here and there. Starting uni this year threw a huge spanner in the works, and I have only been able to do it during the semester breaks. It is written to be accessible by anyone, but with the knowledge that it will mostly be fishkeepers and freshwater scientists reading it. I have had a bunch of people read over it, and every person has independently commented that my style is very readable and entertaining, but also technically accurate. Very pleasing! It was actually VERY good for my own fishkeeping skills. It forced me to find out proper information (the myths out there are far too common and problematic) and try to understand the details of how everything works. A huge thank you to the members here that I have learned so much off and who have supported me and asked all sorts of weird and useful questions along the way Please excuse me while I fall into bed with exhaustion and lie there going "wow....wow....wow"

1080 is the only viable solution right now. It isn't ideal, but that option simply doesn't exist at the moment. We have so much rugged country that it is just not feasable to get hunters into. And the hunters will only really work in places that have high densities. The last time bounties were put on possums people simply released more into forests closer to home. That is how and why they got into the previously unpossumed Northland. Older ways of dropping them were less than ideal, but now things can be done so accurately with GPS. Brodificoum etc build up in the environment and stay in the food chain. They are also more expensive so you get less death for your dollar. People jsut aren't aware of the terrible damage possums et al are doing, but cause we are USED to the damage. We are used to seeing forests with only 50% canopy cover, forests that you can see through for several metres in front of you. Our forests should be dense and dark, where you can't see the wood for the leaves. Seriously, the forests ecosystems are at risk of collape. The species changes going on are becoming so severe that the forests might be forever changed. A changed forest allows exotics into it, and once that happens, the ecosystem changes more and more, reducing habitat for the native birds and critters that do not live outside of native forest. No, 1080 is not ideal, but I am not going to sit around hoping they come up with something better while our forests and ecosystems fall apart.

Twinkles, you really made me cry! That is beautiful. And good on you for making an old dog so happy.

Awesome! I hear the lake has wee black flounder too, I would love to get one of them in a tank! The snails you have are Melanopsis trifasciata (which I think means 'darkcoloured - three-striped'). The shells are quite robust and short with a smooth cone and white inner lip, and small ones have two or three stripes running around the spiral? They are euryhaline, so they can deal with fresh, brackish or salt water. They are NZ's largest native snail and are endemic. Strangely the rest of their family is in the Northern Hemisphere (Mediterranean etc). I found mine laid eggs like it was going out of fashion when I first got them, but then they stopped and I don't think anything hatched. Be careful if you ever get cyanobacteria (bluegreen 'algae'). I think they release toxins that kill the snails. I would love to get some of those snails again. Need to have a poke through Lake Wairarapa over summer Take care with your eel. They are really good at escaping. And little ones like that spend most of their time buried under the substrate.

Last guy I was talking to about people thinking that trout were native and not knowing fish any that are.... He thought for a while and sounding very pleased with himself said "carp!" :roll: he thought again...... "...perch?" :roll: We wound up having a discussion about eels (which he had heard of but people tend not to think of them as bona fide fish).

Alanmin, I am interested in the clay option. For a public pest fish aquarium we are wanting to make it look as ugly as possible and were thinking of using clay to make the water turbid. However will the external filter remove all this? How did you use clay?

Good one

what on earth is that?! Habitat? Country? Habits?

No matter what the problem is, is it sensible to be going out and buying new fish when you are having problems with your tank??

:lol: that would TOTALLY be me! Awesome photos, thanks Aaron for linking to them

Helen, I recommend this article on whitespot to everyone. It is involved but excellent, covers everything. It also exposes all the annoying myths that just don't seem to die, that mean people get stuck with recurrent infections and never actually get to the root of the problem. http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/docs/health/ich.shtml Whitespot is very annoying but if you understand it you are half way there

Try emailing the DOC office and asking that they call you, as you cannot afford daytime toll calls? I was in that position once and asked a friend (who just happens to be the local regional manager of DOC) and he said that was totally appropriate. Good idea taking all the photographs! To me that looks just beautiful! I am envious of you having this on your doorstep. Chances are the council had no idea you guys cared, and probably thought you would like all that rubbish and scrub removed. Why is the council involved if it is private land?

Right, go and talk to: DOC your local Forest and Bird chair These guys might be able to help: http://www.wetlandtrust.org.nz/ Try and get a gee-minnow trap from DOC so you can properly trap and see what is in there. Getting iwi support is a great idea. Start a petition. Find some local birdwatcher or DOC people to identify if it is used by native birds. Get the Forest and Bird and local school keen to help restore it as a functioning wetland. Forest and Bird should have contacts for places that provide plants etc. (I am on the local F&B committee and we have a meeting tonight, I might ask for some advice on what you can do if we have time) Wetlands are GOOD for flood protection. That is what they DO. They soak up and store extra water and sediment during floods. They also buffer against droughts. Drained wetlands are usually still wetlands.... in waiting. They are creating something that will need work to keep it as a paddock. Good on you Twinkles