Stella

Remember to think about how big they get, and what final size will work in your tank. Good points above on working out why the algae is there. Also will the fish eat the type of algae you are having trouble with?

given that it fills to the top, how do they get around oxygen issues? Or can you only have enough fish for the actual surface area? Looks terribly annoying to clean or get anything into ever. The light is only on a tiny part of the surface, so it might have issues with being dull, especially if you want to grow plants. Apart from looking different, I fail to see any advantages to this compared to other commercial all-in-one aquaria....

I don't know anything about these fish, but just wanted to say good on you for quarantining them! Most people don't, but it saves so much hassle and stress. Even if fish come from an apparently healthy tank owned by a friend, quarantine should always be recommended. (yes I do realise it was posted two years ago, but it is still a valid point, and like everyone else, well done on keeping them so long!)

firstly, your son should be easy enough to dispatch, it is just dealing with the body afterward that gets tricky. I know others here have done it, usually involves taping down plastic over top of the tanks, turning off external air pumps and airing out the house extremely well before taking the plastic off. Have a hunt through the archives. Alternatively, sounds like you have a good live-food culture going

sorry i forgot you were asking about saltwater fish, the pacu is freshwater. It is a vegetarian relative of the pirahna, sold in pet shops as a wee fish, then some months later the idiot unwitting buyers discover it has morphed into an enormous 60cm+ fish they can't give away. It would be feasible as an experiment to grow and eat a fish, but won't be a way of saving money.

Sadly there would be more than that if it wasn't for the negative influence of the other students. Thanks, tall-poppy-cutters! School balls are yet another way for the wealthy and cool to make the others feel inadequate. Somehow the schools encourage this.

I went to my sixth and seventh form balls. Really not sure what the point was, just a tradition that keeps happening because it is a tradition. I didn't go to the afterballs. If you parents could hear the students talking about their plans for the afterballs there is no way you would let them go. Seriously, if you do let them go, have an honest and non-judgemental talk to them about alcohol, sex, give them some condoms (no matter what your personal thoughts)and have an agreement that if anything goes wrong you will help them out, no questions and no telling-offs. Don't fool yourself into some blinkered nostalgic idea of what these things are like. Not all afterballs or kids get into horrible messes, but they can get very, very messy. Be prepared.

back to the raising fish to eat, pacu would probably be a good bet - they grow very fast and huge and are apparently excellent eating.

the whole 'stress coat with aloe' seems like a crock to me. I seriously doubt that it has been tested in any way. Probably it sells because people think aloe is good for their skin so it must be good for the fish too... Salt works because it 'stresses' the fishes' skin into producing more mucus to protect itself. The fish has just had it's mucus layer compromised so it will be making more anyway. I don't bother with all those chemical additives, seems scientifically dodgy at best, and some only work in certain water chemistry, but the bottles won't say that. Let him jump back into his tank and keep and eye on him. Spend the money on a lid

+1 for the eftpos card. They are really effective on the hard algae and the biggest plus is they can't scratch your tank. Anything fibrous (scrubber, filterwool, magnetic things) can pick up tiny bits of grit and scratch your tank to bits very easily. Flat-edges won't do that (unless you are being extremely careless) Unused cards are best as they still have a nice sharp edge. With time they wear down and need replacing. A bath mitt is the BEST thing for cleaning algae-covered rocks (not all of us can use algae-eaters).

Oh that is brilliant!! (and congrats on the marks, BTW, most excellent!) I have an ongoing problem with my emails. I call my mum by her first name, Jo. But when I type that in to the address bar it comes up with Mike Joy (ie Dr Mike Joy, environmental scientist, who is always in the papers about native fish stuff) I have sent him some really weird emails.... :oops: :oops: :oops:

Also the vast majority of pregnancies are spontaneously aborted without the woman ever knowing she was pregnant. And most pregnancies started as twins (fraternal I think). There are more boys than girls conceived, but boys are less viable than girls. At birth there it is 51% boys, 49% girls, then a year later it is the other way around. (For someone who doesn't like being around kids and never wants to have them, I find reproduction far too interesting...)

Those glands come up when you are getting sick, I am amazed you made it this far without noticing! Doesn't always mean you will get sick, but means your immune system is working. Good warning sign to look after yourself better.

ok, how many people have mentioned that today now?! :oops: Might get on to it tomorrow. Had to shelve it while studying, but the amount of time I am wasting doing pointless things, I really could be spending finishing the book. Tis a few hours from where you will be, but if you feel inclined towards Palmy I would be quite happy to show you my fishies.

(oh and apart from the fact that it is quite illegal to possess them)

exactly! :evil: We really don't want these things around the country, they mess up natural habitats for the animals that are supposed to be there.

I thought koi were a noxious pest! Quite illegal to be moving them around. Nice seeing so many eels. The longfin eel is under pretty serious threat of extinction right now, and the shortfin is following close behind. Of the eels that remain, most of them are male as the big females get fished out preferentially and they only breed once, right before they die.

oh nyah nyah! Yeah, my freezer could only handle one six foot giant kokopu

:lol: You rock! (I have a couple of 5-6' giant kokopu in the freezer still if you want to help me out with a dissection) With the mullet, do you mean 60mm? That would be so cute!!! Have you tried them with ox heart? Preacher here tried it on his native pond for the first time a few months back and it sounded like the first pieces were gone before they hit the ground. Not sure what mullet naturally eat.

Ok, so this won't work in a tank with fish... But I have a tank with diving beetles and the leaf substrate caused this terrible bacterial bloom I couldn't get rid of with waterchanges. Enter: daphnia. They eat suspended bacteria and algae, and the water has been spotless since! It could do the trick in a tank if the fish are removed for a few days. It doesn't get at the root of the problem though.

Well, the book is going to get some serious work over the next two months, and hopefully get finished. Most of it is sorting out the photos, and a small amount of editing. Determined not to include flounder in this one as it would require a massive re-write of the whole thing. I am sure there wil be a second edition (but for that, there must be a first edition first! ) Abigail, how big is the mullet? What are you feeding the flounder?

That would be really interesting! (oh, and we can post video to my youtube site if you have such capabilities. Most of the videos there were just done on my 'still' camera) Can they change colour or just shade variation? (I had a torrentfish, which is normally stripey grey, in a red bucket for most of a week, put him back in the tank and he was the strangest pinky-apricot!) Livingart, do you want to see this damned book finished or not?

oh no, I think we should delete this thread before I feel compelled to include them in the book. There is not enough space in my house for more fish!!

yes, but they breed at sea and the tiddlers come back in to freshwater. They are mostly lowland but can come very far inland as well. The yellowbelly(?) flounder is the tidal/estuarine one.

I have put up Abigail's photos on a new thread: viewtopic.php?f=41&t=39095 I figured it was a fishy we haven't really talked about much before and it will at least keep it findable in the archives