Fenriswolf

I'm with this guy. If you use both then you're pretty much being as clear as possible. I actually have a small fetish for using language precisely but my knowledge of fish species is far too limited, and it gets even more confusing if there's a knowledge barrier when you're talking to other people. Things like calling a cameo (cat) a tricolour or a blue torti a dilute tricolour because it explains exactly what you're looking at. Why do physics teachers explain the difference between speed and velocity then proceed to use "speed" indeterminably? On my vet nursing course we learnt the correct words for various cells but there was no consistency - we're taught that red blood cells are erythrocytes, but never use the bloody word past when we're first taught that. How are you going to remember the word in that case?? Anyway, I'll stop rambling :oops:

Well, totally OT but when it comes to food products, a lot of the "budget" ranges are exactly the same as the ones in flasher packets - to the point of being made by the same people. So quite frankly I know I'm stupid to buy food for the pretty packaging I'm going to throw out anyway, but I'm an incorrigible magpie :lol:

I cannot believe how co-operative my girls have been getting photos! The pics look much better in big but I don't want to use up too much bandwidth. So here's my tank, the only one that's actually set up the way I want it: Lettle cories. They have been collectively named Insanity Prawn Boy(s), if there are any fans of Weeble's Stuff on here This is Trogdor The Burninator. He's an awesome wee guy, my boyfriend reckons he acts like he's on speed. :lol: These are my big girls. L-R is Tu, Papa, and Rangi. Rangi is actually a deep blue, hence the name. Papa in the background is named because her body is sort of brown, but also because she's the most laid back of the three. Tu is named for the Maori god of war for she's definitely the biggest bully - she's calmed down a lot though And here's my little boy, before I made the mistake of trying to get him girlfriends. He's in a 2" now being treated for pop eye. His tail's as good as it's ever been though (they pretty much nipped off the whole thing I haven't got any pictures of the new girls (I have seven young female bettas I added a few days ago), but they're doing really well. No one seems overly stressed, there doesn't seem to be any major bullying and the older girls just seem completely bemused by the mini-mes zipping around the tank. Thanks for looking

Ahh! Where is HFF?? I'm guessing this is not a shop we have here in Wellington? Beautiful tank btw

Good on you! Rehabilitation isn't really my thing - and besides, I've had terrible luck with birds. One finch and four pigeon fosters and only one pigeon survived

Wow! That's amazing

It's not that I object to x-breeds, it's that I object to adding to overpopulation. Breeding should be done to better the breed or at least to do a job, there are plenty of lovely mongrels out there needing homes from accidental breedings.

That'd be quite cool. I used to be really anti-birds but now I quite like them, I'm just not prepared for the mess and the amount of space they take up if you make any attempt to house them in a pleasant manner. Love to see pictures if you make a diy aviary

Yeah, my partner grew up in Seatoun and he said he used to see little blues all the time in the water round Seatoun/Miramar. They know what they're doing

Well fair enough if you want to move on, 2 deaths in succession is pretty harsh. But 5 week old kittens are not properly socialised with their mum and siblings, which is going to slow their development in general. It is advised to keep kittens inside for 6 or even 8 weeks and starting with short supervised periods. Unfortunately if you live by a main road some cats just won't learn to be sensible. But by taking precautions as above you can minimise it. Birds are a hard one though - large birds live for a long time and need a lot of stimulation! They're very intelligent and need more time and interaction than most dogs. Most small birds really ought to be in a group with an avairy not one of those hideous little cages most people use. Any pet is a big commitment, and fish are probably the only one you could sort of say are disposable. Rats are a good one, as they are intelligent and affectionate, don't smell with regular cleaning which is easy if you keep up with it, and only live a few years so your parents don't end up with them if you decide to go on an OE or go flatting where you can't have pets.

Well, I have a rather full house too. *1x 5yo entire male American Bulldog (I really want to do something about the "entire" part but he's my partner's dog) *1x 16mo speyed female pit bull x, I'm guessing with a pig dog cause she looks awfully lurcher-y *1x 11mo speyed female pit bull x, I'm taking the pit bull part on faith since I never saw mum and she pretty much looks like a short ridgeless Ridgeback *1x 13yo female B&W DSH (and my thanks Psycho for being such a tolerant old girl!) *4x 1yo male B&W DSH + 1x female dark torti DSH *4 fish tanks running, 2 with goldfish, 1 with my male betta, and 1 with female bettas, cories, a dwarf gourami and a bristlenose May I ask why you're breeding your dog? The world is not short of x-breeds. :-? Yay for dobies and old cats! I'm so sorry Yay for ratties! I'd love some rats but I don't have time as it is. There's an adult rat who was surrendered to us and he's sooo sweet, but my cats would be a pain in the arse.

Ahh, well, hopefully you'll have better luck next time. Seriously, how old were they though? Because young kittens can be such morons :lol:

Is the cat allowed inside at all?? You can teach cats not to scratch furniture, all you need is a cat scratch pole and a water gun.

Unfortunately you take responsibility for your pets health. If you choose to have outside cats you take on responsibility for them possibly being run over or killed by a dog. I am sorry for your loss but perhaps the fact it's happened twice should tell you something? Maybe you either need inside cats or to keep the kittens inside longer. How old were they?

Bah, Blenheim's so close yet so far away...

Any recommendations as to where I could rehome my comets? I got the big guys with a 70L tank , they're being replanted into a 180L next week. I might keep the fantails for a separate tank as they're pretty cute and too unco to need as much room as comets! :lol: I'm happy to give them away to a good home if anyone with a pond wants them? :-? True... Never easy is it?! :lol: Yeah, I'm so in love with the "river tank 2004" Stop being so realistic! Makes sense of course, I'm just playing with the idea at the moment *siigh* That sounds awesome! The torrentfish are pretty cool looking, hiding's OK so long as it's not 24/7 Basically what everyone's saying is the very specialisation of borneo suckers means what makes them happy makes pretty much any other type of fish unhappy? Makes sense if they live in waterfalls and suchlike. I don't object to the idea of just lots of suckers I suppose, it just seems weird having no mid-strata fish. But that's kind of the point of a extra fast flowing river tank eh? So I could have something like 1800x300x300 and um... some amount... of borneo suckers? Can you get a few different species in NZ or not so much?

I got some borneo suckers for a tank I'm setting up for my mother (to save her poor goldfish from his stinky geo tank), since they're seem to be the only genuine cold water bottom feeders available in NZ. Well there were various dramas but it turns out now I'm giving her back her ~7cm goldfish with a smaller comet and a small fantail. And this was not what I was planning but I'm actually pretty happy to be ending up with 2 large comets (~12cm incl tails), 1 small comet and 1 small fantail. And I'm keeping the suckers cause they are awesome! It's so funny, I thought they were ugly, now I spend ages just watching them and periodically exclaiming to my boyfriend if they do something exciting like actually detach from the glass and swim :lol: ANYWAY, having read up on river tanks and borneo suckers I am enraptured with the idea of a big river tank. We have a large window upstairs that would be awesome to set up a 1800x600x600 (ish) tank with a horde of borneo suckers and goldfish. I really like blackmoores so I'd like to have maybe 4 comets, 2 fantails and 2 blackmoores as well as a number (to be confirmed) of suckers. Now, a river set up with borneo suckers in mind would require pretty major water flow so I'd need some hardout obstacles for my fantails and blackmoores to hide behind. I'm also really enjoying my planted tanks so like the idea of some plants too. This wouldn't be happening for a year or so but I really like the idea, so... Who has some advice for me? Some ideas that they think would be cool? Some landscaping they think would be pretty or specific hardware they think would be useful? Just after some input as I love the idea but it's a pretty major project and we have some big work coming up on our house (lets just say our house is in need of repiling, reroofing, waterblasting and repainting and that's just the start...) so I've decided to be ultra patient and work through this to the nth degree. Thanks in advance! :bounce:

Yeah, and you could have issues if you add females anyway. My females beat up my boy. So I'll be sticking to my one lovely boy and the girls can have their own damn tank :lol:

You sure you don't want a red flame dwarf gourami? Mine is gorgeous and I've even got some good pictures but my bloody dog ate through the cord to transfer from the camera to the computer (yes, a dog :lol:) He looks like this but more gold and less red: They get up to about 5cm apparently, which is pretty wee

A Jebo 810, 900L/hr. Is that big enough? I have the spray bar pointing straight down which seems to stop most of the current.

OK, so you just do it as much as you can. Doesn't help that for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to have teeny stones at the bottom with quite large stones on top. Makes it very hard to hoover :roll:

Hallo there, I have a ~180L tank, 700ml high by 500 by 500. I currently have 1 (male) dwarf gourami, 3 female bettas and a smallish (7cm?) bristlenose. My mate's giving me 9 young pepper cories she accidentally bred today, so I figure I'll do a 30-40% water change before I pick them up. What I've been thinking of having in total is 8 female bettas and 4 dwarf gouramis. Possibly 10 bettas and 2 gouramis to avoid fighting with the boys. Is that too much? There're quite a few plants. The 3 girls can be a bit mean to each other so I was thinking more might diffuse the situation and stop my blue girl from being the omega in such a big way. The gourami is a really cool dude, I'm just not sure if he'd be as cool with other male gouramis as he is with my bettas. Any advice appreciated, thanks!

I am such a dumbass. Still want to slap the gimp who replied first but... he's probably right. I know so much random crap about fishkeeping but somehow I missed the memo about proper cycling :oops: The pH was elevated which is kind of weird, but the ammonia was terrible. The nitrate wasn't all that high so I'm guessing through all my pissing about trying to "fix" it I just restarted the nitrogen cycle like 3 times. Now, luckily for me, apart from my poor little blackmoore everyone seems happy. The plants are happy, the fish are happy, the white spot's gone. It doesn't smell any more! The smell was pretty damn odd but at least now I actually know how to cycle a tank properly Thanks anyway :lol: Oh, and can I ask another dumb question? If you have quite a few plants and an external filter, how do you prevent shite building up under the stones? It's not like you can use a gravel vac for water changes, you'll just dig all the plants up.

:lol: Yeah, we pretty much suck but it works pretty well for us if not for anything around us And sadly to say, cockroaches could never rule the earth because they don't have lungs. Exoskeletons = limited size doncha know 8)

I was kind of hoping this was something not entirely uncommon. Given it's quite a distinctive smell if you've smelt it. Could it be excess nitrates/-ites? If so I would have expected more unhappy fishes though :-? I wouldn't have been surprised at all if it were the sandstone but I haven't had them in there for ages. And 100% new substrate. I'll let you know if something comes up tomorrow. We've got a full kit at work so I'll just test for everything and see if anything weird comes up :roll: