owen

try feeding them more protein foods like meat or bloodworms. cat food is easy for them to eat but it messes up the water.

I havent heard that before. I got advice from a boat builder who said that its important to paint the glass so that the resin doesnt go brittle. Iv got no idea what the strappy plant is, I got it years ago and its been living in a water filled pot outside. could it be a noxious weed? heres a pic of my fish. They are such cute little guys, the blackmore comes to the top and opens his mouth when he sees me and i can drop his food straight into it!! thanks for the frog compliment Oliver. I got her as an adult back in 1989! and shes doesnt seemed to have aged a bit.

thats for the overflow, i used a couple of irrigation elbows but they tended to dribble down the side of the pond so i stuck some lengths of tube on them.

Iv recently made an in-pond veggie filter that looks like a planter pot and was very simple to make. i posted a pic of it in the diy forum under 400ltr pond, i hope that helps

This is the filter setup minus the prefilter that is attached to the pump. Its a simple setup of a couple baskets filled with hydroponic pumice(not in pic) sitting in terracota pots with holes drilled in the sides which water is pumped through and then overflows over the top. It sits inside the pond and will be planted with watercress when i can get my hands on some. Here is pond filled with water its still looking very new. hopefully it'l look better as it ages and the plants in the vegie filters grow bigger. and yes that is a real frog

I wish I had taken pictures of the build as it was quite tricky because the ply was warped which made it alot more difficult to construct. I basically had to to drill and screw it together, bending it into shape one screw at a time and then unscrew one side at a time glue it and rescrew it back together again. the design was very simple though, I just cut out a piece of cardboard that was 1:50 scale of a 1200x1200mm ply board and cut it up and glued it together to get this and then went out got the wood and made the same thing only bigger. its been running a couple of weeks now and iv stocked it with 2 fans a black moor and 5 wcmm's

I wanted a raised pond that was big enough to keep a few goldfish in, that was lightweight , yet robust enough to be drained and moved with ease as Im a renter and I tend to move around a bit. Heres a few pics of what I built its 1200mm x 750mm x 450mm so roughly 400ltr I made it out of a single sheet of 2400x1200mm 12mm H3 ply, 11m of 50x25mm H3 timber and 4m of 75x25mm H3 timber. It is glued together with epoxy glue and screwed with 30mm and 40mm screws. I fiberglassed the inside edges and the outside side edges. Its pretty robust and its light enough for me to be able to lift it up and put it in the back of the stationwagon on my own. I painted the inside with two coats of pond sealer to waterproof it and I painted the outside ply with exterior acrylic and i painted the bottom ply with undercoat to seal it. Im pretty happy with the finished pond and it didnt cost much for the materials- about $70 for the timber, $44 for the pond sealer, $8 for the drain and the glue, glass, screws and outside paint I had laying around. next I will post pics of the pond with water and plants and of the ingenious diy filter i came up with..

I put a small eel in a tropical tank once but I took it out a few days later after i noticed the other fishes fins had bites taken out of them. According to the niwa site warmer water makes eels eat more and grow faster, I doubt it harms the eel but it may make them more aggressive.

I think that was me who posted a few months back. I was inspired by a nano tank with a mantis in it over on the nano-reef boards. How big was the one you caught? and was it a spearer or smasher? Iv seen one nz mantis before but it was small and brown and nowhere near as interesting as its tropical cousins. I wonder how the native ones would handle living in warm water without mud as a substrate. btw I grew up on Maritime Tce hows that for a coincidence? if youre looking for puffer food in the area you should try onepoto domain, last time I was there the water was full of big shrimp- thousands of em.

smashed up terracotta pots or smashed clay brick work well. better than scoria for pond filters IMO as it doesnt get clogged as quickly

Hi Raul how do you catch those fish? it can't be easy, I have a hard time netting fish already in tanks. Are natives difficult to keep? and what do you feed them?

Iv been thinking about seting up a rockpool tank too. probably a nano 40-60L . with mainly shrimp and pods along with a few hermit crabs and snails because theyre tough and i really like shrimp. I think that rockpool life is more tolerant only to a degree as someones said they get 100% water changes twice a day. the animals that like in the highest rockpools are probably tougher than the that only live in the lowest pools. I guess that creatures from northland would cope with warmer water than those from southland? for cooling could you go open top with a fan blowing over the surface? and is rainwater better than tapwater for topping up? what would be really interesting would be a rockpool vivarium with big shore crabs...

with the tank right by a window you could try growing plants out the top of the tank with their roots in the water like philodendrons or Umbrella Plant for example. plants that grow with their leaves out of the water tend to be better at sucking up nutrients as they arnt restricted by the amount of co2 in the water

great thread going here and a real nice pond in the making Iv just got a few comments to make from my experiances with concrete ponds- its vital to pour or spray the concrete in one layer, any joins- be it concrete to concrete or plastic or wood are likely to leak which seems to have happened here. Also the concrete seems to have been mixed rather dry which gives it that rough look. It also makes it less likely to form a seal around the posts. As for fixing it, Iv used the product 'nead-it' with success for sealing small cracks in concrete ponds. a few more coats of the pond sealant around the joins may do it too. good luck, I hope its fixed soon

Id estimate she'd be at least 20 as she was full grown when I got her. Shes fought a couple of cats and ecscaped about a dozen times and made me hundreds of $$ by breeding in the winter. Her mate was about 26 when he died a couple years ago. I was looking at the salt board and got an idea on what Id like to do- something like what you did Caryl with the rockpool tank. But I dont live in hot, sunny Blenheim did a few years ago though, man the weathers so much nicer down there.

Hi Iv recently got back into the hobby after years of absence. I love everything watery- streams, rivers, ponds, swamps, the sea etc. I like more unusal creatures, Iv kept eels, crayfish and Iv got a golden bell frog that Iv had for 18 years! At the moe Iv got a 30L cube with a paradise fish and a few barbs. I'd like to leave it at that but Im already planning a sw nano that I'll be asking you guys advice on

If we cant import 'live' liverock into new zealand what do kiwi reef keepers use? I thought it was crucial for keeping reef tanks. Btw what is liverock? is it dead coral thats full of microbes or something else?

Damn I dont see how they could be a pest in our waters as theyre tropical. The ones in "houhora harbour" would be the native sp. theyre fairly common in areas with muddy bottoms. They are a smal,l muddy coloured spearer. I guess I scratch my plans on making a polycarbonate tank then

Hi Id like to know whether peacock mantis shrimp are on the market in auckland or anywhere in nz. Iv read that they often hide in live-rock in other countries and most people think of them as a pest. I dont have space for one right now but Id love to own one in the future as I think theyre amazing critters

Heres my new tank its nothing special but it does have an interesting filter.. Thats my little paradise fish infront of the obelisque like thing. She doesnt have any friends yet- any suggestions would be appreciated anyway what makes this tank different is the peace lily growing out the top- its a combination of a wet/dry biofilter and a hydroponic setup. Water is pumped from the tank onto the top of the pot where it drains through it and back into the tank... Thats two of four tubes that trickle water onto scouring pad prefilters that trap gunk before it clogs the biomedia. The pot is filled with crushed terracotta pot. Iv made many large pond filters using aquatic plants, but this is my first attempt at a wet/dry and first indoor aquarium filter Iv made. I think it could work well for larger tanks as a modular system and could be used as a finishing filter in conjunction with a canister or powerhead. Anyway what do you think? If anyone can spot any flaws or ways to improve it please reply