whetu

What a lovely name! It's not one I've heard before. I can kind of see why you're "Caper" (from Cape Breton) but "Dolorosa" is just beautiful!

I went looking for Glosso suppliers here in Auckland and discovered a very helpful bunch of people. Not only do they have plenty of glosso, but they also have other native plants for sale that are suitable for fresh water aquariums! :bounce: Oratia Native Plant Nursery Ltd. 625 West Coast Rd, Oratia, Auckland Postal: 64 Parker Rd, Oratia, Auckland 1007 Ph: (09) 818 6467 ~ Fax: (09) 818 6457 http://www.oratianatives.co.nz Here's the email I got from them in response to my enquiry about glosso (I had mentioned that there were a few people on here keen to find it): I'm intending to get some glosso and lilaeopsis from them in the near future as they are both very attractive plants that are already popular and proven in the hobby. Is anyone familiar with any of the others he mentioned? Azolla filiculoides Chara globularis Myriophyllum Triglochin striatum Isoetes kirkii Ranunculus amphitrichus I know people who have dealt with Oratia Native Plant Nursery before (for terrestrial plants) and they have always found them very helpful so I'm looking forward to doing some more research and trying some of those plants in my tank! :bounce:

Oh poor lucky! RIP.

Oooh a 600 litre tank with 17 clown loaches! :bounce: So just to clarify: what other fish are in with the loaches? I seem to have lost track of who is where in this thread! :lol:

Wow! That's impressive! :bounce:

John Banks says: "I quite like goldfish; I hope they're being treated with respect and dignity. I prefer goldfish to some people..." I don't always agree with Mr Banks, but this time he's quite right! On both counts! :lol:

Glossostigma elatinoides Here's what Tropica has to say about it: http://www.tropica.com/default.asp

Oooh caper that's exciting! :bounce: The length of your tank is about the same as mine, but yours is a bit higher. That will be a beautiful tank when it's all set up! It's funny... when I first swapped from a 3-foot tank to a 4-foot one, it seemed so much bigger! Now I look at it in the corner of the room and think "that tank is really rather small... for the good of my fish I should really get a 6-footer!" [Note]

LOL that's funny! I didn't think the FotC parallels in your first post were deliberate - but you hooked me in anyway! :lol: So did you get the tickets?

http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/billy-t-live-1990 (A later Billy T appearance, but still fun.)

http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/after-school-1980

Oh Caryl, your Dad is a naughty man! And I admire every bit of it! My Dad used to do this sort of thing. At one point my cousins arrived unexpectedly at my parents' very isolated property in Northland, to find Dad up in a tree. Mum had gone into town (an hour each way) and Dad had climbed the ladder into a tall pine tree to remove a branch. When he was up there the ladder fell down and Dad was left dangling by his arms. He was in his late 70s, and if he had let go he would have been likely to break both his legs. He was glad to see my cousins because he didn't think he could hold on much longer! When Dad was about 80 years old I got a motorbike. He asked to sit on it and told me about the old motorbikes he used to have when he was younger. I kept the keys firmly in my pocket! I knew he would have required very little encouragement to fire up the bike and go for a spin around the block. I was laughing about it with my biking friends and they unanimously said I should have offered him the keys. I spent my whole time expecting a phone call from Mum to say Dad had fallen off the roof, or into the water tank, or over a cliff. He always said "I'm going to die with my boots on!" A couple of months after the motorbike incident, Dad fell ill. It turned out he had a major cancer (mesothalioma) that had been there for years. Within eight weeks he had died in hospital. I often wonder if I should have offered him the keys to my bike. After all, what's the worst that could have happened?

Personally I wouldn't use painted rocks in my tank. Are these rocks really so valuable that it is worth putting them in, rather than spending a bit of money on some new rocks or picking some up that aren't painted? They must be pretty special rocks!

Oooh I'm intrigued! I couldn't make it from Auckland before 9am but I'm very curious to know what the easy $60 was for! Anyone who saw Flight of the Conchords last night might have the wrong idea!

Excellent. About three kilos of JBL 7 Balls should do it! :bounce: :lol:

Yeah I noticed that too, Barrie. With some people I think there might be a cultural difference - it's how they speak in real life and to us reserved kiwis it sounds pretty rude! Generally they come from cultures where they value speaking in a 'straightforward' manner but to us it seems like they're saying "shove off, stupid!" which is not how they meant it. With others I think they are already feeling hurt or offended by something else and are feeling a bit defensive, so anything you say is likely to be taken as a negative. Anyway, don't take it personally. I, for one, appreciate your input and am interested in your opinions (especially in your area of expertise - I have never known so much about glass before!) *hugs*

I reckon the way it's designed and joined together is way more important than the actual timber size (within reason). Lots of solid verticals and plenty of well-placed diagonals are the key. And screws! Lots of screws! And glue! Lovely lovely glue! :bounce: ummm... I rather enjoy building stuff with wood. :oops:

Thanks supasi & alanmin :bounce: I googled them and they seem to be a compressed ball of slow-release micronutrients. They still don't have any phosphates or nitrates though (they say it's so they don't promote algae growth). With a low fish load will I have to add both of those? Or are there signs I should look out for to see if the plants are lacking in them? :-?

Thanks! Are JBL 7 Balls laterite? I used to use Duplarit K laterite balls but I can't seem to find them in the shops any more.

Have you considered re-homing the rosy? They definitely seem to do better in a school and I'm sure you could find someone in your area who could add it to their school. It just seems a shame to keep a single schooling fish with no friends of its own type.

My amazon swords have recently developed brown/yellow tips. I understand this is because of a lack of iron and other trace elements and is a direct result of me getting really slack about dosing liquid ferts for a while! I have now remedied that. I am left with three questions: 1) Will the affected leaves recover and go back to being green, or will I need to trim them off? On a 20cm leaf it's only the 1cm on the tip that is affected. 2) I have purchased a bottle of Nutrafin Plant Gro iron enriched fertiliser. The dosing instructions say "5 ml per 37.8 litres provides the ideal amount (0.3mg/L) of iron. We recommend using the nutrafin iron test kit to regularly monitor chelated iron levels." So it tells me the amount to put in but not how often I should do it. Is there another way of working out the dosage without having to purchase a test kit? 3) Plant Gro has an NPK of 0.15 - 0 - 0. Do I now need to find another way of dosing phosphorus and potassium? ie I have to go back and buy another product? :roll: If so, can anyone recommend a suitable product? Background info on tank: Approx. 200 litres Was heavily planted but I removed all the really fast-growing stem plants. I'm now regretting that and will reintroduce them very soon. Substrate is plain gravel with no added nutrient. The fish load is medium to light 20% water change once a week Anything else you need to know, just ask!

:bounce: Aaawww you're the best, Zabman! What does your Dalton's sand look like? What colour and approximately what grain size? I'm looking for something quite dark to set off hte plants and fish nicely.

There's a thread somewhere on here explaining how Caryl did it... I can't seem to find it at the moment but it is there somewhere!

:lol: :lol: Great pic Caryl! Bud is such a clever budgie!

Yes, there are quite a few cases of people in different parts of the world saying their clown loaches have bred in captivity - but nobody seems to be able to produce any proof. People do breed them by treating them with hormones and fertilising the eggs in vitro, but nobody has ever documented fry surviving from a natural spawning. In fact the article linked above by Luke is the only time I have ever seen evidence of a clown loach laying eggs in captivity without hormones. I hope the guy in Australia documented his experience and submitted it to a reputable source for verification. Until then, I remain very sceptical about such claims.