Interfecus

Welcome . Please do try to get some pics up.

Yes, she's out now. The male is tending his eggs.

I've just had my first spawning of siamese fighters . After trying for over a year with traps and everything I finally managed by simply chucking some plants and a small heater into a bare 20L aquarium yeaterday evening. I also added half a polystyrene cup but the male ignored it so I won't bother next time. I only bought the female a week ago but she was in condition, showed all the signs of readiness when I introduced them, and I came back from uni early this afternoon to find them spawning . With a more docile female and a gentle male neither got hurt and it was easy!

MAF don't care about the spread of WTFs as such, but they care a lot about some of the diseases they can carry. I believe it is actually illegal to transport and release them without a license because there are several foreign diseases that barely affect introduced frogs but are lethal to our natives. Perhaps the books I read were old and they have spread more since they were published. If they live near you then by all means go for it. Catching adults is apparently very easy, I know somebody who used to catch them as a small child on the west coast of the south island. Apparently she caught very large numbers so it can't be too diffcult if a child can do it easily. Good luck .

Change that - I misread your post and thought the tadpoles were WTF ones. If they're going to be any other species you'll need a much larger terrarium with plenty of water to keep them. Height isn't needed for these species and plants aren't essenial but they serve to provide hiding places and add to the beauty of the terrarium. If you've never seen a WTF, the three in my avatar should give you an idea of what they look like. I'm quite proud of that picture .

Where in NZ is your mum's place? They're only found in the wild in the south island and up in Northland in the north island, nowhere near Wanganui. I bought 5 WTF tadpoles late last year for $2 each and raised them in a golfish bowl. All five emerged from the water around christmas time and I still have all of them in an 80L terrarium, big enough to fit them for life. At $2.50 I think you should just buy and raise a few of them, this is nothing next to the cost of a terrarium to keep them in. If you really want to catch them, they can usually be found clinging to plants anywhere up to waist height. Tadpoles can be found in ditches and ponds wherever a population is established. Here are a few tips: Tadpole Food: Pour boiling water into a mug. Add a few pieces of sliced cucumber. Microwave on high for 1 minute or until it almost boils over. Use a teatowel or oven gloves to take the mug out and tip the water out against the edge of te kitchen sink. Fill and empty several times with cold water to cool it. Take out the slices of cucumber, hold them over the sink in a stack, and stick your thumb through the centre. This will push out the seeds in the centre. Rinse the cucumber and give the slices to the tadpoles. Cleaning: The more frequent the better. I raised all five of the tadpoles I bought without any deaths by changing the water in the bowl every two days. Frog food: Vestigial winged fruitflies are definitely the best food for young whistling tree frogs. Easy to culture, prolific, nutritious and easy to catch. When they get larger you can feed them house flies. Mine are still on the fruitflies and will be for many months yet. Terrarium: Minimum 45cm high to let them climb. Try to have some reaonably tall plants so that they can clamber around. These frogs can easily climb the vertical glass walls so the terrarium must be completely enclosed. I had 4 cable holes (1 in each corner) in my terrarium which I covered with a soft mesh. The terrarium must have a lid to keep in moisture but small holes are fine. A shallow bowl of water must be kept in there so that they can swim, but tree frogs don't have webbed feet and can occasionally drown in deeper water. I use a green granite bowl buried in the soil and my solution is to keep java moss in the bowl, almost to the surface.Frogs can drink from the bowl but can't drown. Evaporation from the water bowl will probably keep the terrarium moist enough that only an occasional spray from a misting bottle is required to keep up a high humidity. Soil & Planting: The soil must contain no fertilisers of any sort as these are highly toxic to frogs. Fertiliser runoff from farms is one of the main reasons for the decline of frog populations worldwide. Ordinary topsoil is ideal for this. Alternatively, just use soil from an area in your garden that hasn't been fertilised for at least a year. Plants should be removed from their pots before being put in the terrarium, their roots should be washed out to remove as much of the soil as possible, and they should be replanted in the terrarium. I use a layer of gravel 4-5 cm thick to hold water and have a layer of garden soil on top, providing a good growing medium for the plants. Ferns and mosses seem to do particularily well in the moist environment. If you need any other help in setting up your frogs, please ask. much as I can.

Apparently marine ply is very expensive. I don't know how much though.

Pies, the photo doesn't show you anyway .

Which road is tinakori again? I might have still been in town at that time, but didn't check a clock.

Sure, I don't mind at all .

Welcome to the fishroom . If you're having problems with filtration, try reading the filtration series of articles on the main FNZAS site. Go to http://www.fnzas.org.nz/technical.0.html to get to them. There's no right way to do it, no perfect yet cheap filter. It all depends on your budget and what you want to achieve.

I've used the cycle stuff in the past, but don't make the mistake of thinking it does everything. It must be used at about 3 or 4 day intervals in a tank which already has a few small hardy fish to produce ammonia. The trouble with liquid bacterial solutions is that very few of the bacteria will actually attach to the filter medium or media used. Most will simply drift around until they come to rest in a low oxygen area then die. One week is not enough to cycle a tank, no matter what you use. At least a fortnight is required.

Ira, with the rate that the guppies would breed you'd overload it and need to do frequent water changes within half a year! Even a huge planted tank couldn't keep up with it.

Have a look on trademe. There seems to be quite a few cheap tanks in Auckland (around the $20 - $25 mark for a 60L tank), some with filters included. By buying second hand you could get everything you need for under $50 easily and make some more space for your fish . http://www.trademe.co.nz Lifestyle -> Pets & Animals -> Fish

Welcome . Have your kuhli loaches been out at all recently? With a low pressure ridge about a week ago mine went absolutely nuts for three days solid, trying to spawn (without success). I only have two, one male and one female, but they made a great sight! How big are the kuhlis? That tank does sound quite crowded.

Thanks guys . I thought I was being quite excessive but it seems that 25% per week is reasonably normal. Thanks, Interfecus

If you have several tanks, please just pick one to answer for. A list of everybody's total tanks would take too much space .

I'm curious as to how often people do water changes on their aquaria and how much is changed in each go. I personally change 25% weekly on all my tanks (1 x 20L ; 2 x 40L ; 1 x 60L) but from what I've read here it sounds like this is a bit more than is required. I don't intend to reduce water changes if it turns out that I don't need to but I'd like to know for future reference. Please could people answer this poll and post with rough tank sizes, filtration used, frequency of changes and amount changed. If you change with a frequency not listed in the poll, please round to the closest. Many thanks in advance . Interfecus

They are currently being fed on Vitapet "Tropical Fish Flakes Premium Mix" and Wardley's "Total Tropical Gourmet Flake Blend". They are in a 60L tank with a small eheim power filter. There is a thin gravel layer on the bottom.

Can a calcium deficiency cause fish to develop spinal defects when they're already fully grown? My grandparents have a tank where two fish have bent spines that seem to have developed recently. One female guppy has had a downward bent spine for a while now, suffering very few ill effects. Normally, I'd just assume that this was just a chance thing which can occur anywhere, but another fish in the same tank (a platy) now has a horizontally bent spine and is having a bit of trouble swimming. Last time I saw it this fish appeared perfectly normal. Could this be due to a deficiency of calcium or some other chemical from the water or food?

6 bristlenoses (I gave one to my mum)

For a bottle a reasonably long bamboo skewer is the best thing for stirring the medium.

My method is incredibly simple. Get a plastic bottle (one of the smaller ones, 750mL or something) or a jar and put some rolled oats in the bottom to make a layer a couple of centimetres deep. Bring the kettle almost to the boil. Pour in just enough water, stirring often, to make a thick porridge. Sprinkle a pinch of yeast on the surface, add another thin layer of rolled oats (about 5mm) to make a semi-dry layer, let it cool a bit, then add the flies. With the dry rolled oats on the top the flies will be protected from any water released as the medium cools. By the time the culture is ready for harvest the maggots will have made the dry layer wet enough to prevent it from being dislodged if you turn the culture almost completely upside down over a tank and tap it.

I can't see the head of the worm in that shot. If it has an 'arrow' shaped head then it will be a planarian flatworm. Planaria are scavengers and are usually a sign of overfeeding in a tank. Normally planaria aren't harmful but if a large population builds up and their food supply is exhausted they may start killing snails, esxtrememly small fry, or other tiny organisms in the water. With a reduction in feeding and a good clean planaria should go away easily.

It can be a good idea not to change too much during cycling, but nothing for 1.5 months is a bit excessive!