sharn

me too you can hide them behind your plants/decor too if you have em to keep them out of the way. when i first set up my sponge filter i just got a clean coarse sponge and some filter floss from my filter so it was a bit dirty and already had some nice bacteria and also filled the tank with the other tanks water, fish went in straight away (was a quarentine/spare fish tank) i monitered everything and i had no spikes as i was a bit wary

all that stress ended in happyness for me too. managed to get them down here with courier post (the tga depot told me they wont take live fish but ronnie snuck em in hehe). they left at 10am and got here at 5pm. i rung post haste this morning and they seemed really friendly and willing to take them (i want to assume this is all branches but probably best not to hehe) and they were reasonable too. so my question is... is it EVER stress free :lol:

i tie my java fern to rocks and driftwood cause i dont like it floating around my tanks, does that make me a total control freak? :lol:

not a fan of stocking lists myself but they do help sometimes. i think it varies too much for fish temperments, swimming needs etc. i find its easiest to get a list of what you want together and post on a website what size tank, filtration running and fish wanted and then they can normally help you pick out which fish often work best and the stocking levels for each fish- ie the miniumum for one discus is 40L, the minimum for one oscar is around 220L etc not digging at FNZAS's stocking lists or anything mods, i know they often help newbies

thats what the lady told me when i rang IN ADVANCE (monday) to confirm if they would take it. now the &*^%#$@! wont take my lovely fish to me, only day i get off a week too :evil: they will be recieving a phone call from me tomorrow for a nice ear bashing and i will take my business elsewhere for good if they wont take it. they cant change their minds the day before if ive had it confirmed by another person days before (the lady i first spoke to said it was at my own risk which i acknowledge). if every other branch of NZ couriers take it (and sharron and paul have used them in tga) they will take mine too rant over good night people :lol:

java fern doesnt get planted but gravel is fine. some people say sands better and others say gravel, having some sort of plant mix under the substrate would help if you wanted to really get into planting

shessh! lucky i just came on and read that craig! just put my booking in with NZ couriers and realised i had forgotten to tell them same day, i just assumed that they would know after i told them it was LIVE FISH :-? just rang her up and asked her if shed put them under than and she hadnt!!! well, lets hope they get the rest right aye... this lady didnt seem to know much about what happened in auckland, didnt confirm shipping prices- nothing so it better not go haywire

i am no expert but i would think it would need at least 12mm, thats a biiiig tank and you dont wana risk that going all over your floor

lol, you said it much clearer than me brad

it sucks aye :lol: luke had one a while back that he adjusted a teeny eeny weeny bit and it cooked his fish i be real careful with my heaters and make sure im around to watch the temperature over the next fwe hours whenever i adjust them, im scared that it'll do what lukes did. best to have your thermometer so you can see what your heaters doing, i really dont know why they dont make accurate ones :roll:

your filters hold alot of bacteria so if you want to seed your new tank its real handy to let your new filter run on your old tank for a while, i let mine run in for about 2 and a half weeks but im not sure if theres any rules as to how long it takes to seed a filter :lol: im not sure how much it will speed it up (i was switching over my filters so didnt have to cycle my tank) but it will definatly kick start the bacteria processes, i wouldnt go dumping a heap of fish in there, maybe once youve got the filter run in and onto your new tank chuck some fish food in each day to keep the bacteria fed and growing then slowly add your new fish so you dont get large spikes. if you can chuck some old filter media into your new filter that will help instead of just letting it get its own gunk... explained that badly but oh well :lol: hopefully you get what i mean :oops:

im not sure what side i sit on on this fence. while it is ideal to get your ph to a natural level for the fish you keep its more of a stability thing IMO, ive known people keep discus at a ph of 8 and have them breed (not sure how well the babies developed) but neons arent overly sensitive, as long as it aint swinging all over the place and isnt to extremes i think youll be ok.

if i cant age my water ill use stress coat on my tanks

*woosh and flies over sharns head* whaaaat? :lol:

i always wondered why in the middle of summer when my room was swarming with them why id never get mozzie larvae in my buckets. antwan said i needed to put something in there for them to eat so i put a bit of yeast in. still nothing. then i find out you have to put something in there (like a stick or something) so the adults can sit on it to lay their eggs??? i thought they might just sit on the side but ill try that next summer, we have a grotty old bin thing out on the reserve and thats full of larvae but you have to pick out all the grass etc that goes along with it which takes a few hours :lol:

i rung NZ couriers and i think ill try them $12 per 5kg is pretty reasonable with same day shipping. they will leave around 10am and get to me anywhere from 2.30pm-5.30pm

haha, just posted a question myself. ive used fastway before and had no probs with them. im using NZ couriers for this lot of shipping (im getting soem more discus). they charge 12 bucks per 5kg for same day shipping. i had to tell the lady i knew it was at my own risk before she agreed hehe. i wouldnt reccomend just being sneaky, they can throw the parcels around a bit :-? i did an overnight ship to wellington for 15 bucks with FW, i wrote "live fish handle with care!' on every part of the box i could hehe and they said that they would keep the box on the front seat. it also depends on where to, interisland can cost about 25 bucks or something like that theres a post in the FW section about shipping with good guides, with the weather cooling down if you can get heat packs that would help a bit but it probably isnt a must. hope that helped :bounce:

ok, so getting some beautiful new discus sent down to me this thursday hopefully from auckland, im just not sure who to trust with my new babies? ive used fastway before but i was wondering if you guys had any other opinions/know of companies that frequently take fish... its probably going to work out about 30 bucks or so with same day (im not using overnight cause it doesnt take 12 hours to get from auckland to te puke hehe) but it will be quite heavy. its going to have at least 3 fish in it so the box with be fairly big also. thanks guys

hello *waves* best to ditch the carbon in your filter now, it really isnt all that helpful unless your removing medications and once its full (pretty quickly) it wil start leaching all that nasty stuff back into your beautiful tank :-? not to mention can mask any smells that youd want to fix, not cover up. just a heads up some people swear by it but i dont like pulling my filters apart every 2 weeks to change it over, you can always chuck some more bio media in or if you have very very soft water a bag of shellgrit to keep your ph stable its up to you if you want to keep it or not just have a read around some of the articles on the web and your right about having more light, im there myself right now :lol: luke posted a really good link a while back that i cant find now about how much light your tank needs, it was really interesting. it depends on how many L your tank is and what plants you want to grow. im weighing up multiple (4) fluros or one 150W metal halide and one fluro. im trying to get around 200W all up i think as i have a 220L tank but you have to add the lights on slowly, if you dump 150W worth of lights on ya tank i think you might get a algae bloom :lol: i was never into planted tanks before but now that i am theres SO much to learn hehe, a whole new world to fishkeeping, hope you enjoy planting your tank :bounce: hope to see ya more often 8)

good point luke- you can use meds if you like lorrainel, its up to you if you go the meds way just double check on here whether they need a half dose or can take a normal dose as diff meds are diff strenghts, some will also damage your bacteria in your tank which you wouldnt want to do at present as its still cycling

ahhh yes, the dreaded white spot, clowns are notorious for it but you caught it early and its not hard to treat because clowns are so senstive i would go for the salt and heat method up the temp to around 28-29C and add one tablespoon per 40L of water, its normally 1tbsp per 20L but because clowns are 'scaleless' they need lower doses. only replace the salt that you take out for water changes cause it doesnt evaporate ie take out 20L add half a tbsp back. when i had white spot in my tank i did the heat and salt for one week then dropped the temp back down to 27C and left the salt in for two more weeks,it worked a treat but you may need to do it for a week or three. you have to keep the treatment going for a while incase any cysts manage to survive and re-infect your tank. good luck

you want your kh above 3 for general keeping at least i think, we have no buffering in our water (kh of 1, same for gh). i have bird grit, the stuff they eat, in my filters and that ups the kh over time which keeps your ph stable, adding teeny tiny amounts of baking soda can also help but that alters it pretty drastically so watch for that if you want to go that way. the kh and gh come in one kit, i got the AP test kit for about 20 bucks. its a useful thing to have if you suspect your water is soft im not too sure what role gh plays in a tank, its just gereral hardness, obviously fish that like hard water wont like soft water but im not sure if it has any effect on plants, ph etc. at the moment i have my tank with discus running on a ph of 7.4 (getting it to about 7 as we speak as baking soda was added for a bit), kh and gh both 5.

i agree with caryl, they can be dangerous if your kh isnt high enough to stop everything swinging back down. you need to look at your kh (carbonate hardness) to see what your buffering is like and then you can work out what to do from there it might just be that your tap water is very soft, in te puke ours is quite soft with no buffering at all, ph is around 6.4 or something, test your tap water after youve let it sit for a day or so and that will give you your base reading so you can see if anything in your tank is making it drop etc

hows those fishies going with the worms? noone else has contracted it hopefully and your feeding them all the meds? sadly joel couldnt come today, had soccer on but soccer doesnt go all year round i dont think so we expect you to pop along a few times :lol:

ahhhh paul! it was you that were the breeders!! good to see ya there, sounds like youve got some knowledge behind ya its 99% certain we are affiliating when we get all the subs in which are due next meeting. now ive got a real bad memory, i could only just remember what i was (breeding co-ordinator for out my way and signature holder person) :lol: paul57 is the president, hazel is secretary, jane is treasurer, rogan is editor, ant is the tga side of the breeding co-ordinators and thats all i can remember :oops: it was a great turn out, much more than we expected so we are very pleased that weve finally got things on the road and i look forward to getting to know everyone better and sharing some of this knowledge around :bounce: