Stella

I'm not to fond of chemicals as fish treatment.... have you seen what is in the whitespot cure? Each *species* is different. Goldfish can happily handle double that (ie 1tsp per litre). DO the waterchanges. Even if it takes out the meds. Always before putting meds in you should do a big waterchange, and try to do them twice weekly while medicating. The main reason most fish get sick is the water was not looked after well in the first place. Anyway, those meds break down in a short period of time and bind to organic compounds, so they need regular top ups and removing of muck.

the parasite does have a shorter lifecycle in warmer water (cold water = about a week, tropical = a few days) If you put the fish in warmer water alone you will merely speed up the life cycle and the demise of the fish. Add salt at 1/2 tsp per litre. Do regular waterchanges and replace the salt you have taken out each time. The spot it NOT dead once it falls off. It then falls to the ground, divides and ruptures releaseing hundreds of free-swimmers. These are the 'infectious' stage and also the ONLY time you can kill them. Once they latch onto a fish you can't kill them. You also can't see it.... so you need to keep treating for at least two weeks AFTER the last spot has fallen off. WHile whitespot is opportunistic, it also had to get into the tank somehow. It does not lurk dormant in the tank. It usually comes in on other fish, but can also come on plants and anything else moved from an infected tank. Read up here: http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/docs/health/ich.shtml long and technical, but also the best article I have found on whitespot. Most others are littered with inaccuracies (which this article exposes)

whitespot is not a fungus it is a parasite. Yes it will transport on plants, and quarantining them for two weeks will render them de-spotted. The cycle goes: spot on fish spot falls off, attaches to substrate (or plant etc) grows releases hundreds of babies You can't kill it unless it is in the free swimming baby stage, and the babies can't live for more than a few days without finding a fish, so two weeks and no chemicals is fine (it would take two weeks WITH the chemicals, but if there are no fish then the cycle is broken anyway) You can transfer the parasite into your other tanks on ANYTHING that is used in the tanks (including your wet hands). Be super careful. Either have separate equipment or let it thoroughly dry. If the infected plants were in the other tanks they may yet get whitespot. Keep a real close eye and treat at the first sign of anything suspicious. Good luck!

Alison Holst's Microwave Curried Kumara Soup is the best soup in EXISTENCE! Fast (20mins) THick and creamy Really tasty And the warmth of the soup is complemented by the warmth of the curry - awesome! It is the kind of soup you eat off bread, not a spoon

Oh that is a relief! You will probably find the fins gradually disintegrate over the next week, it will look pretty awful, but it is only the dead stuff getting deader and falling off. Just keep a really close eye for any infections. If she and the tank are healthy and well-maintained I wouldn't bother putting any medications in preventatively.

Oh no! I have been amazed at what galaxiids can survive. I had a koaro out of the tank for 24 hours and he was right as rain after two hours in the tank! A little banded kokopu was out for long enough for his tail to dry out somewhat, and although he was fine the tail shredded and had to grow back. They usually hide in the gravel for a few hours then spring back. I haven't had any experience with inanga playing the carpet game for long, but hopefully your fish will be ok. Anything to increase the oxygen levels in the water might help, such as adding a bubbler or cooling the water, as appropriate. Just don't do anything dramatic, you don't want to stress the fish more. Best of luck

It is SO much cheaper avoiding meat! I haven't cooked meat at home (apart from tinned fish) for several months now, mainly because of needing to live cheaper. Just add heaps of spices and you really wouldn't notice! CHicken is around $17-22kg (I think) And vegies are more like $1.5-3kg Better for you AND the enviroinment Not that I am turning vegie, I do eat meat just choosing not to most of the time now.

What sort of eel? Native or otherwise? Native probably wouldn't like the bright lights required to grow plants, but look up floating plants and nitella or charophytes, which are an algae that looks very much like a plant and doesn't need much light.

Buy a jar of cajun spice, you can add that to anything for spectacular results! On meat, fish, vegies, eggs, potatoes, even on plain bread and butter or DIY garlic bread! Bear in mind it is quite salty. I am a poor student and trying to eat super-cheap along with super-easy. Been doing a lot of pasta with tinned salmon mixed in (tuna is cheaper but less sustainably fished apparently). Mix in some veggies, a little shake of chilli or curry powder for some extra flavour and you are done!

hahaha good plan!! :lol:

is frozen food that absorbent? I would have thought dried food would have been better? Never wormed fish but interested.

Indeed, Alanmin. Hepatitis C is much more common in NZ than HIV, is uncurable and much much nastier than HIV It is also terribly easy to transmit. A needlestick injury (to a health professional, I used to be a dental assistant) where the needle was used in a Hep C patient, has a 50% chance of infecting the other person!! Very scary. (Not actually sure of hte other routes of transmission, but it is easy. If you have unprotected sex with someone who has HIV, you have a 1 in 500 chance of getting it - pretty damned low! You probably have a much higher chance of getting every other STD (and you are a moron for having unprotected sex in the first place, whether or not it was otherwise a boring weekend) Have there been any cases of people trying to deliberately infect others with Hep C as there have been with HIV? While I agree with you Alanmin that there are more infectious diseases out there that deserve a greater paranoia, HIV/AIDS is very expensive to treat.

Is it actually pumping water? If yes: is it pumping what it used to?

Dolomedes aquaticus: A rather lovely spider I saw a couple of weeks ago. She only allowed me one photo then sailed away down the stream!

I had a fish with a growth on its lip, it wasn't exactly in the mouth bit not outside it either. It grew very very slowly, but eventually got to the point it was getting all red when he ate and was in the way of him closing his mouth. It obstructed half of its mouth when open. I got all worried and started googling fish tumours. Turns out most fish tumours are caused by viruses, not cancer. And they can naturally rupture and go away (but it also releases more of the virus). Basically after my googling I felt good that it was non-fatal but it still didn't look comfortable. Not long after I realised it had vanished! (I had four very similar-looking fish). There wasn't even a flappy bit. It never returned and never affected any other fish. I would say leave it alone, and only euthanase if it is SERIOUSLY and OBVIOUSLY affected by it. Good luck

similar body shape, but Dolomedes aquaticus are much hairier and greyer I think. Not too good on telling them apart.

oooh, thanks! who is the author?

presumably Dolomedes aquaticus. Beautiful spiders - big chunky furry things. Kinda disturbing when trying to get a better look at a spider, and it jumps in the stream and swiftly floats away!

While all of what Ian says is true, the big mind-change is summer: you need to be really careful over summer keeping the water pristine and having some sort of cooling, otherwise you risk death and disease from chronic stress or acute low oxygen. It isn't hard, but it does take a bit of effort. And you get to learn more about what is in the streams near you

I am uncomfortable with it, especially if the condition is known, expensive to treat, is conceivably the main reason for their coming here and would be paid for thanks to the taxpayer. However if they have the funds and family here.... case by case. On humanitarian grounds, of course it would be lovely to help people who are suffering simply because the health system in their country is broken, but that would bankrupt this country. I remember a while ago there was a big stink about people coming here to have their babies, partly for free care (I think) and partly for a good passport for the baby. :roll: I believe they put a stop to that one once someone caused a stink.

NZ native fish! :lol: Do need actual cold water, can be tricky over summer. Check out the links in my sig below

:lol: and I tell you, it is a problem! I wasn't asking about other native fish, but ANY fish, I have never seen anything like this! Starting at Massey today so going to bug all the fishy lecturers if they have heard any reference to shortjaws having these other pores.

OK I just noticed the weirdest thing... Looking at my shortjaw kokopu so closely I may go blind, I am seeing a row of tiny pores running along the top outer edges of the back, roughly halfway between the lateral line and the center of the back, starting at the head and almost meeting at the dorsal fin (kokopu have the dorsal fin very far back on the body). I looked as closely on my bigger giant kokopu, but that one doesn't seem to have these pores. Does anyone know of other fish having other pores along the body? Most native fish, particularly those that go to sea, have quite obvious pores around the head, and of course the lateral line, but I have never seen any reference to additional pores on the body...

:oops: yes, my favourite! d'oh, just looked across into my riffle tank and found a dead one....! no idea what caused that!

really?? So that leaves.... Upland bully Black flounder Shortjaw kokopu all of the non-diadromous galaxiids That is a LOT of different habitat types.... must be a long and involved stream?