jamestothemax

When I used to work at a LFS we used to have a large group of asian men come in occasionally and each buy a fighter. it was quite obvious what they were gettign it for but they caught on after we said we would not sell them the fish for fighting and they would come in one at a time and run this story about having tank setups for them etc.......... nothign we coudl really do about it in the end because we could only speculate what they were doing and had no proof. we had another customer who woudl coem in with his grandson and say when they were kids they would go catch them in the rice paddys and put them in jars and would watch them try to fight each other and the one that gave up and swam away first was teh looser, his secret trick was to sprinkle a touch of chilli pepper in the water to get the fish all excited. I remember them having those ipod betta tanks in oz while i was there in summer and it was on the news and in the papers abotu how bad they are and they were banned.

argh i suck at quotes hahahaha

I've never found a problem with the aquatic mix and I have used it in a series of tanks, unless I dont have a thick enough layer on top of it and it seeps through and makes the water "dusty" but I use it as a cheap solution with a layer of daltons propogating sand on top and my plants love it, admittedly I have a collection of all sorts of ferts and root supplements I mix in too, even a few Dupla-rit balls left....but im saving them for a special occassion

only problem with the red sea stuff is the huge price per bag ($99ish, although saw with 50% off at the botany animates the other day) I think I remember the bag saying that the red sea stuff is made to be the only base in the tank but i would imagine most people would mix it with gravel. bring back Dupla-rit I say...........

its not heresay, i have seen it in new zealand with my own two eyes. Amazing plant!

awesome. yeah its so much fun out there. I only spent like 20 mins out of the water the whole time we were at the pontoon. If anyone is going from port douglas I suggest when you get back goign to the pub called "on the inlet" from about 4.45pm. You can get a bucket of prawns and a beer and throw the heads into the fish that are swimming just below you at the waters edge. Then at about 5pm they come and tie all the fish heads from that day to a length of rope and drop it in to feed these MASSSIVE cod that are there. This huge shark swam past right below us when we were there too. Such a good way to end the day.

Was it the batting of the eyelashes or the showing of a little leg that did it? Sorry dont know what the yellow curly one is I just liked it also so took a photo of it. some of them missed the thign I was trying to capture as I would dive down and then try and look through the view finder through my mask and by then would have started floating up again. I would have loved to dive there but the budget just didn't allow for it this trip but hopefull next time. I went out on the tours out to the pontoon and foudn teh one with Quicksilver the best (and it was teh one recommended to me by a lot fo people) but when I go again I think it would be throguh teh same company but on the tour called silver sonic as it is purely diving and snorkelling and you go to multiple spots. Means you dont have the semi- submersibles or glass bottom boats but you also you dont have to deal with all the american tourists who dont even swim.

AAARRRGGGHH sorry internet messed up for a bit there and said it hadn't loaded, looks like it had!!!!! how do you delete posts?

Hey all, I decided to take a few days off while working over here in OZ and take a trip up to Cairns / Port Douglas / Whitsundays and go out to the reef a couple of times. These photos were taken with an underwater disposable camera so not the best but thought you may liek to see them anyway. They were taken at the agincourt reef out from port douglas and the knuckle reef out from the whitsundays, mainly the agincourt though as it was a bit murky and a strong current at the knuckle, also the agincourt was far more impressive. I scored a guided snorkel tour for half price as well by tellign them I studied marine biology at University : ) This stuff just went on as a massive field for ages. The mandatory anemone photo. I did enjoy the guide on the glass bottom boats story about how if finding nemo was real, nemos dad would just become nemos mum and nemo would become the daddy. Not such a kids film aye Spot the turtle well there you have it. hope you enjoyed them. much cooler in real life obviously

I design the the buildings everyone carries out their box related jobs in and the buildings that said people go to after thier box related jobs have finished for the day.

thanks for that I definately need to look into the land based plants a little more. Ill look into water plants once i know how much space i wil have for them and what will work best for what i am keeping. I was a bit catious about have to much tank water running over the land plants as i didnt want excess nutrients to get into the water. had thought about lining the terrace with pond liner and perhaps having this collect water from the plant areas i carve out of the poly ( by placing small holes in the poly) and then collecting this in a gully at the bottom of teh terace so it doesnt make it into the tank. This would also avoid excess water building up in the plant areas causing flooding of the roots. Since posting i have been doing a bit of reading on the NZ herpetological society website so may look at trying to develop something to meet the requirements to keep native geckos, quite keen on the auckland green (elegans elegans) but dont know how easy they are to get hold of. I realise itll probably take me a while but i figure i'll be happy with just the paludarium even if i cant keep anything in it for a bit. So this might lead me to looking at a cold water setup with native plants. I would liek to keep it a tropical water area though so this will take a bit mor research. Will have to look at getting some adequate ventalation on it, perhaps incorporate some fans to draw air out, and adding some full spectrum lights.

Ok so digging up an old post. The project had to be put on the back burner once I got a job over the uni holidays in Australia. This meant all money was dissolved into getting here (australia) and sadly meant no nice big tank and no paludarium. Luckily for me, while over here in oz, I had a nice 1200 x 300 x 300 tank given to me back in NZ. This has got me thinking and planning again and after going to my fair share of aquarium shops over here and seeing lots of reptiles and amphibians and such i am keen to get back on to this project when i return. I have sketch up at work over here to so as above i will try and create a new model with my intentions for the setup. The tank is obviously significantly smaller than the original plan and not very much height at all so what im thinkign is having as much of the tank as possible full with water and building it into a stand unit that is enclosed. This way i can include the lights and hopefully mister into the hood and have the back and sides in timber with ventilation holes meshed over and a glass panel across the front, perhaps as a door. Im thinking of terracing up behind the tank which will increase the area of the land space and allow a slope to create the streams etc. I was thinkign i could then put things llike the external cannister filter under the terrace and put in an access panel on the side to get into this. Other option was to put a sump in there but havent really sorted out that idea yet, still want to minimise CO2 lost aswell. Lighting will probably end up beign a series of the power svaing bulbs as i haev them on my planted nano's at the moment and they are doing really well so that will make that easy. So the main thing now is what to put in it. I still like my newts but after seeing all the stuff over here i wouldnt mind something a little bigger and faster. Water dragons and beardies are out due to the environment I'd be creating and their size. Anyone got any other ideas? Where do you get the requirement for keeping the new zealand natives? as i thought this may be another possibility. Otherwise frogs maybe, but Im a bit bored of the same old looking frogs so may have to be something different. Anyway that was yet another epic post so better stop it there. thanks

well I've been in brisbane since november and over here till march. haven't posted much due to beign busy with work and travellign around but I have been tryign to get into different fish shops when i can and haev a look around etc. Some cool stuff in some but nothing thats really blown me away yet. Maybe im just too picky........always striving for the perfect fish shop.

socks underwear shirt and 8 nights in cairns and the whitsundays with a trip to the reef!

i know of a fair few jansens staff who watch these forums and considering they are all the same thing now i guess that kinda counts. I know while i was workign at jansens there was a few hikes in the price of fish and each time there were different reasons given but they always tried to validate it by sayign it followed trends in other stores. I would rather be a trend setter than a trend follower personally but hey.

yeah ill try get onto the hair algae but a good water change sorted it out pretty quick before these photos. Dont wanna cut back on to much light or anything and sacrifice some of the plants dieing back. lights are on 11 hours a day on a timer at the mo. Still not 100% that it is hair algae to. yeah the lights are awesome. bit wobbly when you have them bent backwards but do teh trick sweet as and are dead cheap. i may look at makign a basic hood with the power savign bulbs when i get back from oz but for now these will do. Might try getting a decent little external canister filter and co2 kit while im there to but we will see. Interested to see how the tanks will look when i get back after 3 month because it will only be basic feeding and water changing taking place while im away so i might have to ask them to trim the tiger lotus and stuff hahaha. especially since this growth has been over only a few weeks! will try get some more photos before i fly out mid nov

just thought id chuck a few more pics up of how the tanks going. havent been home for the last week or so because ive had to be at uni for like 20 hours a day so came back to a nice surprise of how it was all growing so heres the pics. i think it seems to be growing out quite well. bit of hair algae but ill deal with that eventually.

yeah theres a heater just behind the anubius in the tropical tank. i have a little clipping in the cold tank aswell to see how it goes so yeah should be interesting. the glosso has only been going for a few weeks so should be interesting to see how it looks before i go to oz in mid november. After that the tank will no doubt be ignored by the people looking after it for the 3 months so will have to sort it out again when i come back. will get some more pics up again before i go to see how its gone.

heres a pic of some of it so far

Just thought i'd chuck a few pics up to show how the little tank was coming along. There have been a few changes since the beginning in terms of fish and plants but it still seems to be ticking along ok and the plants seem to be growing quick. at the start: now: glosso: anubius: hope the pics work.......... both tanks: Cold water tank with swords and indian fern:

why do you need to pot your cuttings out of curiousity? I dont do it personally considering the pots from the shops is just rock wool and doesnt really do anything so i just plant the cuttings into the substrate. Sometimes stick a lead weight around them to hold them down if they don't wanna stay.

well its been pretty easy to grow in my tank so far. ill try get some pics tonight once it has calmed down from the water change. I tried redirecting a few of teh shoots and somebroke off so i replanted them in better locations so will jsut see what happens. I re planted some of teh shoots off my chain sword to so i can try and keep them seperated. I seem to be getting new shoots off both the glosso and the chain sword every day. pretty cool considering i started the glosso with a few leaves only a few weeks ago!

yeah i was just worried it wouldnt be as well rooter then as they are new shoots so dont have real long roots and since the roots are so fine its a bit harder to get it to stay down anyway. i may give it a go later though and see what happens

ok so my glosso lawn is growing well and spreading out nicely. some of the runners have got very long and i was wondering if its best to trim this line back towards the main plant to maybe promote runners in other directions or just let it go? some of the runners are heading towards the back and may get shadowed by the chain sword so thought maybe if i trim it the new shoots may head out in a more desireable direction. any other tips for trimming glosso to keep it looking good?

planted tanks gettign a peacefull tank that everything is growing well in and is in a nice balanced state. nice to come home after a long day and watch your peacefull tank and notice you chain sword has two new shoots hahahah