purplecatfish

I've found that adding bog wood rather than peat is a better way of lowering the pH and adding tannins. It works for a longer time and is more stable. But definitely don't mess about with adding chemicals to lower pH. Fluctuating pH isn't pleasant when you think about it. If you lower (or raise) a pH by 1 you have made it 10 times more acidic (or alkaline), lowering by 2 makes it 100 times more acidic (or alkaline). So if you drop your pH quickly by adding chemicals then the effect is similar to us being droped in and burnt by acid only to have the chemicals breakdown the pH to rise and give an alkaline burn. While the fish can get used to a particular pH it is the changes that cause the burns.

The noodles are stable. I've got some that are over a year old and they're still good.

I use JBL micromec and sintomec and they work really well for me. I often have a 0ppm reading of nitrates in my heavily planted and overstocked tanks. I prefer the noodles to the balls because the balls breakdown quicker (they have a kind of shell that begins to break off after 9mths). I haven't tried the Ehiem products so I can't do a comparison.

Hi Stella, As of yesterday I am now a native fishkeeper. I went for a walk in the Waitakere Ranges and found some baby koura near Huia. On the way back I stoped off at one of the beaches and caught 7 inanga 2 bullies and some fresh water shrimp from the nearby stream (not positive on the ID though). It was four hours well spent on a beautiful sunny day, and a great family adventure. I'm going to put them in an outdoor pond (2m x 1m x .5m) that is in the shade under my son's fort. The plan is coming together... Peter

I used a JBL snail trap (and loaches). It worked well and now it's used for catching baby bristlenoses.

We've all got it. Can't stand it. Have tried using SAE's only to find the adults won't go near it. We even know that double strength Flourish Excel is supposed to kill it but we worry about exceeding the recommended dose and the price. Well here's a tip- I've found that if you use Flourish excel and use a syringe to squirt it directly at the algae when you dose your tank (rather than just tipping it in) the algae goes red in about a couple of days and dies just after a week.

prazi = praziquantel http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/drontal-droncit-praziquantel-adtape-amp-gill-flukes-vp260591.html PM me if you need any or want to get rid of the cardinals. Perhaps a trade?

Or you could use Furan 2. I've used it in tanks with corys and had no problems. I've also use copper based algae killer in tanks with corys and had no problems. So I wouldn't think that they would be copper sensitive.

Happy New Year everyone :bounce: I've been on call since Friday and I'm about to leave work now (finishing this Friday) . I'll be celebrating this weekend with a bottle of napoleon brandy and a 12yr old bottle of scotch which unexpectedly appeared on my doorstep yesterday. It might be a wee bit late, but I will certainly be full of the New Year Spirit and as it's be within the 12 days of Christmas, it'll still be traditional.

Hi Steve, Sorry about your Mum . My Grandmum had two strokes a couple of weeks ago . Suck eh? Good to hear that you're rebuilding the fishroom tho' . Happy New Year

I'm involved with mossie control at work and from what I know the best fish for mossie control in NZ are the natives e.g. inanga. But you need permission from DOC to release anything into a waterway even if they are native fish.

If your tank's not wide enough just add more powerheads at one end so that the fish always thinks it's swimming upstream. Then you could have something like salmon. :lol: Does anyone remember B.S. Johnson's pond from the Terry Pratchett books?

Check this out http://www.loaches.com/species-index/pictorial-species-search-index/sucker-bodied-hillstreams "Loaches On Line" is a great site for Hillstream Loaches. Good luck surfing.

Goldfish are actually a bad choice for mosquito control. Even though the health board recommends them, DOC recommends native fish as their studies show that goldfish are ineffective especially as the goldfish get older. I'm thinking that danios or mountain minows would be a better choice compared to goldfish or trout, as they are a smaller fish which will prefer smaller meals (ie bugs). And they are also more likely to breed and create a self sustaining population, the hundreds of goldfish that were released a few years ago have died out even though there's plenty of bug life. I'd love to use natives but I'm not sure which ones would be best. The pond is actually an old building that is set below ground level in a concrete pool type hole. Rainwater used to be pumped out but now it is disused. There is no current or circulation and it is only filled by rain water. During summer it drops to about 6 ft deep (you can just see the top of the door). There is a 2 metre gap between the building and the sides of the pond. And the building is permanently flooded, which creates shade for a fair portion of the surface.

We have a concrete pond which is in excess of 50,000L . As we can't have mosquitoes breeding in it I need to add several hundred fish of some sort . I also need to add some floating native plants. There is no current. At least 50% is shaded all day long. There is plenty of insect life. What would you use? And why? (Goldfish aren't an option as they don't eat the larvae when they're older.)

...And don't forget that you have to give DOC a few thousand dollars to be able to release aquatic organisms into a new area...

Thanks Wok . The photo is from the new river tank on the day of the tank crawl. At the top right you can see a tweedi's hill stream loach.

:bounce: Yay, They've bred again :bounce: . The population seemed to stabilise at the 50-60 range, so I set up a 1.9m river tank to grow some on with my other hillstream loaches and transferred about a dozen to the new tank. :bounce: And today I've just seen another 16 young ones :bounce:

My favorite is the Sturisoma festivum, Royal Whiptail. Other genus within the Loricariidae family include Rineloricaria and Spatuloricaria. Planet Catfish is good if you know which family to search in.

Did you follow the links? E.g. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/07/photogalleries/giant-fishes/photo3.html and http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/07/photogalleries/giant-fishes/photo8.html

The 105 and 205 series have the same size hoses and connectors which are smaller than the 305 and 405 hoses and connectors. For filtering bigger is definitely better, unless all your fish are pinned to the back wall from the flow :lol: .

There's Mystery snails and Pond snails.

Half way through a course of Furan 2 things are looking better... Here's hoping it goes well.

I found this when looking for treatments for Gyrodactylus and Guppy Shimmy http://guppyinfo.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=289&Itemid=106 What's really great is that I've already got some adtape which is the brand name for liquid prazi.

http://guppyinfo.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=289&Itemid=106 AWESOME LINK FOR PRAZI INFO I found this when I was looking for treatment for "shimmy" in guppies.