Stella

ah, you are all wusses! Well, I think I will have to give it a go. Would be great to get better at public speaking (I have at least two major ones coming up later this year). Scary to start the Toastmasters thing, but it is probably the ideal situation - real feedback and supportive people in the same boat.

...my toaster is useless Seriously though, there is a Toastmasters club at uni (WHICH STARTS TOMORROW! just a little bit excited) and I am contemplating joining. Would like to know how others have found it. I am not petrified of public speaking, but have not done much of it and would like to get better. I am mostly petrified of making an arse of myself and it will be very useful for me to get better at it this year. As a starting point, I know almost nothing about Toastmasters.

yes, I *think* that is the sort of thing I had in mind. People can just add themselves to it, and you can then send an email to the whole group, right? Can members somehow look through the list to find an individual member's email address or similar? Sounds like minimal work Much though I want to see this happen, I am utterly snowed under at the moment so I can't do this. A spreadsheet would be handy, as you could include people's interests etc, but requires someone to take charge of it and update it.

I got a private tour of mahurangi last year 8) well worth it! Some very interesting things they are doing there.

Sorry, I can't add people. My initial post was asking if someone knew how to set one up.

Isn't two days a bit short for the blackout to work? I think three is the usual recommendation. Check how much light gets through your towels, thin light ones let a lot of light through. You could also remove the worst affected plant and treat it separately.

I have heard of people using peroxide or similar on BBA. It can be squirted directly on the algae from a syringe actually IN the tank, but obviously on the wood out of the tank would be less worrying... DO a google, I know i have seen this, with before and after photos, and it is very effective.

What is the wanganui email list? I asked a little while ago about some kind of list for us, but I have no idea how to set one up, and no one else really responded knowing how. Combined could be good. I know a bunch of wanganui people come over regularly to see our pet shops, and we are so close joint activities could work.

That is so The Truth. I only really consciously realised it recently (hence the sig line ) In IT the usual answer is "turn it off and then on again" In fishkeeping it is "do more waterchanges" Waterchanges are a hassle, but so much better than the stress of sick/dying fish.

He did ask for people to contact him... it would be unsurprising to then be bombarded with questions! Did anyone hear back BEFORE he decided we we all unfriendly and unenthusiastic? It may well be another one of those cases where you have an idea and jump in boots and all, then freak out and back slowly away. I know I am good at doing that! I imagine we will never see this person again now. Maybe it gave someone else an idea for something similar? It would be good to have something connecting us in Palmy.

the price of fish? :roll: ok, so my fish is doomed, I have no idea why, no idea how to prevent it or cure it, and no idea if I will lose the other two also. Goody.

I need to be more careful. I often have the front and back doors open to cool the place down. COuld be very easy for someone to sneak in, as I am usually attached to the laptop in the other room. Would be harder in my small unit, but seeing all these posts is a good reminder.

That is great to hear! I am now battling whitespot.... :evil: would like to use many words the Mods would mod, but sadly it makes little difference. Salt, time and fanatical adherence to cross-contamination rules.

I knew a girl who had burglars come in through her bedroom window while she was sleeping, taking ipod, phone and such. It took a while for her to realise she had been burgled as (being in a student flat) she had a lockable door that was locked at night from the inside (and from the outside when she was out). Sounds weird, but with some big flats of young people it is easier to lock your room than trust that your flatties will always remember to lock the door, though I am sure the fire dept would disagree). So she was locked in a small room, asleep with a burgular beside her.... Whetu, sorry about your break-in, that sucks I is great having this community to randomly vent to when required!

Well he turned up, gave a vague, interesting-sounding idea, then vanished! There WAS interest, but because he wasn't around to discuss the idea further, or respond to questions, we assume it is dead in the water. Note how this thread is STILL going. Is that really a 'typical manawatu' lack of interest? :roll:

Mozzies are more likely to lay eggs in brown (tannined) water. A handful of grass or some soaking wood is ideal. I have seen nearby containers of water, some with some without, and the only difference is the tannins.

have you tried actually searching? The internet is surprisingly helpful. A quick search revealed salt is probably ok, might take a bit more searching to find if whitespot cure is ok, you might need to search by the main ingredients.

Sigh, the first few months of the year always seem to be bad for my fish and I About a month ago I noticed one of my mudfish being a little less stable in the water, just kinda rocking a little side to side when it swum. Sometimes it would lie on its side (mudfish usually sit on the bottom) but would swim away when poked and was feeding normally. The behaviour got more marked and it was hiding less (again, mudfish hide most of the time) and one friday it died. Now I notice another one is rocking side to side when it swims! Please ignore the fact that it is a weird fish. What causes this sort of swimbladder issue? Being a coldwater fish it is not me putting hot water in the tank (I think that usually causes swimbladder issues) I wonder if it has been too warm for it and it has slowly caused the problem? Anything else that mucks up swimbladders? This is not good

most of us just siphon water out and pour it back in with a bucket or from the hose.... I would guess that most of the people here that have been doing it forever don't worry about putting cold water into a tropical tank (the fish seem to like it, and there is more risk in putting water that is too hot in) Does that help?

I don't know anything about tropical fish and meds, but this page on whitespot should be compulsory reading for every fishkeeper: http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/docs/health/ich.shtml It can be a bit heavy going, and not everything will relate to you, but there is SOOO much misinformation out there about dealing with this parasite. This site is accurate and blows those myths out of the water. Good luck. I just dosed my kokopu tank with salt for whitespot. SO very annoyed about it! But, sometimes you screw up in unforseeable ways

The year after I left uni I really felt left out not buying school books, after all, it had been an annual ritual for most of my life! (I am privately pleased I get to buy school books again - ah the promises of what excitement the year will hold!) I am doing a one year graduate diploma in Ecology, after which I may do Masters. I hope to be a freshwater ecologist of some sort.

I would say it is locked so people contact the person directly, she is presumably not a member here, so replying here and thinking she will read it is pointless. I would say info coming out of the study would definitely benefit the hobby.

Ian, could you please post the link to that council site with the Patea river temp graphs? I can't find it.

The more elbows the slower the water can get through it (more resistance) I have always been gentle with my problem hoses, aware of the issues, but they kink anyway. They are even supported on hooks.

And other stuff.... For example, my mudfish are pretty bad at extracting oxygen from the water (very short gill bits), so surface breathing is a natural thing for them (in the wild too). Above about 15 degrees and they can't extract enough easily. Of course my tanks are way above that right now, so for a while they were all surface breathing constantly. Not ideal but in these species it is ok. Then I put in an airstone and within 24 hours they were not surface breathing at all! It is now warmer than when I first put the airstone in, but there is more oxygen so they are able to extract enough easily.