Interfecus

They dislike running water so in a small pond a fountain would be bad but could work in a larger one. I've never actually set up a pond myself but have talked to others who have and read a bit on it.

Whether you can effectively keep frogs in a pond depends on how much space you have. Small ponds will probably result in the frogs leaving to find somewhere better. Frogs and tadpoles prefer still water with large quantities of plants. The tadpoles mainly feed on algae and such. There should usually be sufficient insects around the pond to feed the frogs, but a light at night could help to attract moths and such.

White worms aren't nematodes. There are two main types of worms, annelids and nematodes. Nematodes are non-segmented worms whereas annelids are divided into segments. White worms are annelids.

I got 5 of these tadpoles just yesterday from animates. So far they're fine, I just fed them a couple of flakes of fish food. I once tried to raise golden bell tadpoles that I caught but I put them in with an adult frog, not knowing that the adults will eat their own young. I hope to raise these tadpoles over at my dad's house so that my stepfather doesn't complain about me getting more pets and my half sisters (ages 6 and 4) can watch them develop. Good luck if you try again Ira, it seems largely dependant on chance.

The bloodworms do stay mostly in the sediment but stirring it slightly then using a net seems to get some.

Sorry, Alan's right. I usually make the mistake of adding yeast first then adding more when I realise what I've done . You don't actually need to add more yeast at all though- you get it with the microworms you bring over. To harvest I place a piece of wet paper on up to half of the surface of the culture. The microworms crawl onto it, with many more worms than you would get off the sides. You can just scoop these off with a teaspoon. Don't leave the paper on more than a day or the microworms drag quite a bit of medium onto the paper and the yeast in the medium below goes anaerobic and smells terrible.

I just grab a handful of rolled oats, then add up to a teaspoon of sugar and a pinch of yeast. I either add boiling water to that to make a thick porridge or add cold water and microwave it for about a minute. The trick is not to add too much sugar or the yeast breeds too fast and liquidises the culture. Basically the rule for replacing them is that the culture starts to smell really bad well before it actually dies so you make a new culture as soon as the first smells too much.

Eighteen tanks makes me so jealous that if this was a real life meeting you'd probably be dead! :lol:

I've got a female cambodian siamese fighter like this as well. I had two of them but one died a few months ago. I've tried to breed these a few times now but conditioning is difficult and they tend to attack and sometimes kill each other. I'm not experienced enough to tell the difference between normal breeding fighting and serious attempts to damage so I've allowed unprepared pairs to stay together on several occasions.

Yes, TB is bacterial and a UV steriliser would kill it.

I can't imagine using gloves in my aquaria. I'd like to hear some statistics on the occurence rates of this: its probably very rare and blown out of proportion. Unless you do have a suppressed immune system from cancer, steroids, AIDS, etc then a round of antibiotics shouldn't kill you.

I get them in my buckets that I leave out to get mosquito larvae. Just fill some buckets with dechlorinated water and throw in a handfull of grass or leaves. They should come eventually.

Pies, who is the tank builder in Wellington you mentioned?

Roughly what sort of prices could you expect to pay for small tanks (in the range of 100L) at a place like this?

One thing in this article is wrong: planaria are NOT parasitic. They either scavenge for dead meat or predate on small shrimp or insects. It is possile that they may enter the gills of fish and cause irritation but they won't feed off the living fish. The planaria may be reluctant to leave the gills while there is a strong light source striking the fish.

You can easily check if they're planaria. If you remove one from the tank and put it in a small clear dish then you should be able to clearly see. If it is a planarian then it should contract at first to be short but fat. After a minute or so without disturbance it should elongate again to form a long, thin worm. The head is shaped like an arrow with two distinctive spots, is eyes. The flaps on either side of the head contain chemical receptor cells that allow it to find food. Planaria are mostly scavengers, feeding naturally on meat or dead insects. If they get extremely hungry then they will attack and eat small aquatic insects or small crustaceans. These little worms shouldn't be harmful except perhaps in the presence of small fry when there is insufficient other food to support the population. The planaria could only catch fry resting on surfaces for long periods of time anyway as they're very slow. I found some of these in a stream this weekend and have set them up in a plastic fishbowl. They can be fed on small bits of hard boiled egg yolk or meat. If you were in Wellington then I'd ask you to give them to me . They're very interesting due to their powers of regeneration and for experiments in conditioning. If cut in half these worms will grow back both halves. Even if the piece cut off can't eat then it'll consume some of its own body tissues to grow a new head and/or stomach. It has also been proven that they are more easily conditioned to react in a certain way to a stimulus if they've eaten another blended planarian that was conditioned before being ground up - they learn from other planaria that they eat . Really interesting little things.

I read a website that said that cooked rice was an excellent food and caused population explosions in the author's white worm cultures. I feed my recently purchased culture with rice but I couldn't vouch for how good it is as a food because I've only had the culture a few weeks and haven't tried feeding anything else.

I've just discovered that I can't attend this after all. I checked the dates and 15-16 November is the weekend before my Bursary exams. I'll have to stay home for the weekend and study for Biology on monday. I don't think I could manage to persuade my parents that questions on prawns, trout, or wild molly populations are likely in the exam . Are you likely to be running a repeat of this in the next few years? It's a shame to miss out but I definitely can't come this time.

Sounds interesting, please do get back to us on those prices as I'd need to save up a lot and get another tank or two to house them .

Shouldn't be difficult at all. Guppies are so tolerant that thriving colonies have been seen to become established in sewage systems!

It didn't work so well, although it could've been just bad luck. The cultures I set up with the crystals all got too wet and died off. I suspect that I should have put in dry crystals instead. I've found that its far easier just to use bread or rolled oats to soak up any excess moisture.

The height is measured above water level. While submerged without lifting above the water level it can be considered to be pumping at the 0 ft level. This is because equal pressure is exerted on either end of the pump by the water. If you were pumping above the water level then the water column above the outlet would be higher than the one above the inlet which would slow the pumping by making the pump push against an extra force exerted on the outlet side.

Sorry peet, it does work.

Peet, all correct except for the last bit. Area = Pi * r^2 r=1/2 D Area = (Pi)((D/2)^2) Q=Av Q=(Pi)((D/2)^2) * ((2gh)^1/2)

I believe perpetual light may prevent fish from sleeping by confusing their biological clock. If their clocks work like ours then the soporific chemicals like melatonin in the brain don't get released while the eye picks up too much light. Shouldn't be too serious for them though.