Hazara

Hey guys, had the kids at the beach today - and there was some kelp that came in.. anywhoo, I pulled the 30 metre hunk out so the kids could play and look at all the creatures on it and lo an behold - shewho finds a small octopus - then I found another! Luckily I had about 6 empty beer bottles so we filled them up and now - I have a tiny tank with some salty water and an aerator and 2 grumpy little octopii... The plan is show & tell tomorrow morning @ school then chuck them back in the surf - but I'd love to keep them as pets... Are they hard to keep? I know they are escape artists, but what do I need to know if I wanted to keep them? ps I am a salty virgin....

Sorry to Necro the thread - It's been a while since I popped my head in... Try this site Canterbury Mudfish - More for kids but you might find something new...

Bugger - I didn't use enough - 1 week later I had some die off, but not enough... time to dose again or double dose?

I'm going away overnight tomorrow - what sort of dose would you use with the other one you recommend - my tank is measured 220L but with gravel & stones I guess 180. The spec on the tablets I posted above. Looks like I have a few guinea pigs then!

Thanks Caryl! The good lady was prescribed it by the midwife as a precaution. When I pressed why it was needed - all I got was "better to be on the safe side". We both decided if there was no real reason to take a full course whilst breastfeeding a newborn, it wasnt going to happen! I'm a cheap bugger so it would be great if this can finally fix the problem!

I have a cyno outbreak I just havent been able to kill off - a quick raid of the medicine cupboard turned up some Augmentin tabs 500mg amoxycillin+ 125mg clavulanic acid would these work Caryl?

A few of my pearls of wisdom... 1. Baby clown knives are CUTE, and get along with just about anything. 2. Clown knives are like puppies, they grow as fast as you feed em. 3. A 30cm Clown knife WILL try to eat a shoal of 15cm tinfoil barbs. 4. DONT leave your 2 yo in charge of the siphon when you have to get another beer. 5. Cyno is a real bugger. 6. Some fish really dont appreciate a 40 watt UV lamp switched on above them at random. 7. Golden Apple Snails will not just NIBBLE THE LEAVES A LITTLE, they are excellent at deforestation. 8. ^^^ Dont believe the guy in the petshop, do your own research! 9. There's a reason that cute little Fang's puffer is in a tank on his own.

Another option would be a propogating heat pad (for seedlings etc.) They are very low wattage and might be enough to bump the temp a little. Typically they are rated 10 watts - will heat a seed tray to 25*c so it would struggle to get a 100L tank that high, but I believe they are a non-thermostat design, just constant heat so it wont burn out. I have no experience with using them under tanks, but maybee someone else has?

Hey Milet - are you going to keep the clown in there? I just converted my tank to Aquamix / Sand and it would have been perfect for my clown if I still had him. I mainly fed him trout pellets and he gobbled up a bucketload of stones at the same time. That may have lead to his untimely demise (he was only 14" or so). Just a thought...

Okay, 24hr update then... Fish have been in the tank for 24 hrs... as it panned out I ended up with about a 1" layer of Aquatic Mix and 2" of sand. Looks like a few days living in a bucket has caused a bit too much stress to the neons, and a small bronze cory has vanished. Other than that, everyone else seems to be coping. The water is quite cloudy, but I have restarted the whole tank and filter so I expect it will take a while for the biosystem to find a new balance. The big BN hollowed out all the sand under a log, and smacks anyone who comes past (lighting was a little too bright compared to the dark gravel I had previously). I think next time I will follow my gut instinct and put a layer of "shade cloth" or something similar down between the layers.

Alright - after several visits to several places I foud the Aquatic Mix at Bunnings - about $19 for two bags (30 litres). Also took the 2½ year old to Brighton beach - there's now a wheelbarrow size load of sand mysteriousley missing from above the high tide mark. I currently have several pillowcases full of sand sitting under the outside taps with water running through them. I have a suspicion it's going to take a lot of water changes before the tank clears up when I add it all. So I'm guessing I just firm down the Aquatic Mix, add the sand on top and then my wood / stones etc. I'll post pics later as I go.

cichlid7: Do I read correct - you substrate is 10 - 13cm deep??? WOW, maybee I should look at going at least 2 inches deep then 1/3 clay/sand?

Makes sense - rainwater probably washes some of the salt out - who knows how much is replaced by spray anyway.

Thanks for that - I hadnt really looked into the aquatic mix before - and am a little hesitant after searching about it here, I understand it can mess up the water quite a bit (I have a full grown bristlenose and cories)... I was planning on maybee 3/4 inch - 1 inch of sea sand (minus the shells & dead crabs). I will be using a fair amount of bogwood/hard driftwood and am curious if anyone knows how canterbury seasand would affect the chemistry? Sorry for all the Q's but I havent had this chance for years, and want to have a good crack at it this weekend.

Thanks dimebag - I'm thinking of grabbing a bootload of sand from the beach & giving it a good rinse. The other plan would have been trying to find some fine gravel at the Waimak river, but IIRC actually finding it in quantities is a difficult task. About the filtration - I was mainly concerned about the flow rate on the tetras, do they mind a good amount of water movement. Hmmm also can external cannisters be safely "ganged up" in series?

Okay - help / advice / criticisms wanted please and thanks... First a small story... Replacing carpet in the house - so time to move the Bowfront after a few years. Instead of a big predator, I now have had a happy little comunity of amazons for a couple of years. For the last 7-8 months had a nasty cyno outbreak that I couldnt get on top of it so doing a complete REBOOT on the tank was on the cards anyway. Currently, my fish are in a 20 litre nappy bucket, with no filtration (apart from about 5 litre change of water a day) so I dont know how long they'll last. Now I just want some advice on my new setup, here what I was thinking.... Substrate: Sand instead of gravel.... the tank sits almost an inch below the front of the cabinet so it would have to be nearly an inch deep, as I like the fish at glass level to photograph them. Plants (I know sounds silly but I have boosted my lighting now and plants will grow) I'd prefer amazon style - but thinking of plants, is sand okay? Also, should I put down a layer of shadecloth or similar to protect their roots? I was thinking of getting a "pack" of plants off waterplantz on trademe. Backdrop (I like black, and I read here blackboard paint is the best?) I take the odd photo of the inhabitants of the tank as some of you have seen and black is definately better in that aspect. Waterflow - I have a Via Aqua (1k lph?) that would be about 5 years old now... I replaced the impeller not too long ago, but I'd like to see more flow - are tetras okay with some flow, as at the moment when I connect the spraybar - it's more like a fast dribble bar so I dont use it - perhaps a powerhead or another cannister filter would be better. This was the tank over a year ago before the cyno outbreak.... I'm not much of an artistic person and think it looks very boring. I'm also cheap however

Dexter (in the foreground and Harry the neighbour in the background) and Simon

Sorry for the delay in replying - I was checking my old posts and saw I missed your question lj. My homemade macro adapter :oops: is actually the front element off and old screw mount lens I had the developed fungus. Just happened to snugly fit the 55mm end of the camera. There are other options however, you can buy filter that magnifgy e.g. 2x 5x 10x, these are good for macros. Also the "reverse lens technique" works a treat. oops I just realised how necro this thread was.

Sounds like you also know the answer to the tree falling in the forest with noone to hear thing as well Oh, wait did you mean a shot at the "Can you cry underwater" conundrum, or was it reference to the fact that chopping onions under water neutralises the acid (I forget which acid). Anyway - my onion was doing well, I keept meaning to take photos of it but It was growing so well I thought In a couple of days it'll look even better so I never bothered. I went away for the weekend and apparently my BN got pissed with being starved to he took to it - stripped almost all the green off both the leaves and the top of the bulb.

Hey guys thanks for the kind comments! I just use the onboard camera flash, but it takes a while learning which angles work (my tank is a bowfront so it's really tricky). Also setting the camera to manual and really stopping it down, with as higher shutter speed as the flash can synch with makes quite a difference. LOL I think I understand that - I'm a self taught person. Also knowing a bit about photo touchup software helps - I spent a lot of time on this photo as an experiment. The borders I use - the older film frame ones are from my previous camera - I used a full frame print border I scanned and applied that to all my finepix s5000 photos. The new border is simpler - just a 50% black soft light fill. There are hundreds of programmes that can add borders, but the fancier the worse in my opinion! @ Snow Try the 350d in manual and dont be afraid to take a hundred or more photos using different settings! I swear the kit lens from the 350d I tested was better than the 400d, photos were a little sharper.

Here's my crew - Mummy BN and the little boys (cory's) with others! Daddy BN is really hard to capture out of his hole.

Hi snow - I'm using an eos 400, but I don't recommend it (not the stock kit anyway). The lens is not so good for closeup work - in fact it stinks. Was a lot easier with my old fujifilm finepix s5000 and a simple adaptor. Play with your camera settings photographing plants first - see what angles etc work, fish are more luck than anything else IMHO.

Just make sure you do it reasonably soon, or put lotsa small holes in the bottle - I heard somewhere of that method failing dues to it working like a lobster pot and there's no fresh oxygen! Could be an old wives tale but I wouldn't leave it overnight. Boy there's no way I'd handle my male BN, even tho they dont get that big they are grumpy - mine loves the inside of his tree stump, last time I tried to extract him after taking the stump out of the tank he actually growled at me.

Playing with my new cam - unfortunately the kit lens absolutely sucks at macros, and wont deliver a sharp image at this sort of range. I'm also playing with some new photoshop methods. Wather change and glass scrubbing over the weekend so hopefully I can do better! http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y32/hazara/glowlight-1.jpg

Hi mystic - glass fishtanks don't work to well here - Ice can freeze up to an inch deep which pops them apart! Anyone have any photos of bathtub setups? I'm after ideas..