Adrienne

I imagine they probably do much the same thing - different shops stock different products.

oh you are funny Ira. Yes he would be classed as a dragon although not a top quality one. Dragons appear to have layer over layer of scales - the thicker the coating the better quality they are. Whats his tail type, I know he is not half moon but can not tell from the pics. Nice looking though.

Buying good sized discus is important as well, unless you are prepared to do total water changes daily and know how to pick signs of disease. My understanding is that a discus should grow 1cm per month for the first 10 - 12 months of its life therefore if you see discus at 8cm and 12 months old they are likely to have been stunted. Pricewise it always used to be around $10 per cm length. Another sign of stunted grow is if the eye looks large in proportion to the body.

Polwarth, I imagine by now you are very confused? There is not absolute tried and true 'recipe' for cycling a tank. Nor is fishless cycling a proven better method than any other. It is what you prefer to us. If you start off by stocking your tank slowly, doing regular 25-30% water changes and waiting a good week before adding new fish, by taking readings regularly you will know if an issue with ammonia or nitrites is arising. If they start to build daily water changes of 25-30% are recommended to bring the levels back down. I rarely test my tanks these days as I can tell by the way the fish are acting if the tank is out of whack as far as ammonia/nitrite/nitrate goes.

This one is not banned http://www.fnzas.org.nz/?p=956

Yes it is.

I will be interested to see how you find the filter as far as keeping your tank clean goes. I am looking at putting a second filter on my 5ft planted tank.

My discus have had harleqluins, cardinals, rummynose, sterbai, king tiger plecs & clown loaches with them. They have never worried about the clown loaches although the clowns did tend to zip around the tank at times. I found the Bristlenose were fine when young but when they matured they could not cope with the high tank temps. The harlequins, cardinals and rummynose also grew fast and had a shortened lifespan, once again to the higher temps. They are most definitely better kept in larger groups as it spreads the aggression. What you do not want is 4 or so males and 1 female as that is serious fighting material.

No, because they only allow the flow to go one way therefore CO2 will become trapped between the 2 valves.

Yes very nice. I think I must give marine a go later this year. :facepalm:

Welcome

I guess 'she' was really a she then Don't ever be scared to post on here. All thoughts, suggestions, opinions and questions are welcomed.

Welcome. Auckland Fishkeepers Association meets monthly, sometimes at Green Bay and sometimes in members houses. We have several members out West Auckland way and if you are interested in joining up or even just coming along for a look let us know.

not as fat as my sterbai!! :lol:

Rangitoto and Motutapu have really nice driftwood lying on the shores - it doesn't cost much to catch the ferry over there. The East Cape is really worth going to but a fair distance from Auckland - its worth taking a few days to do the drive. Last time we were there I filled up my boot and the back seat.

It was nice to put some names to faces yesterday. Even though I did not speak to you all I will be back so maybe next time. Tauranga and the Mount were stunning yesterday, so stunning it was hard to visualise oil on the beach at all.

I am :bounce: with hubby (the long suffering tolerant darling that he is). I am looking forward to putting some faces to names. I may have met some of you a couple of years ago at Living Arts.

edit - sorry it was supposed to be a pm

Hi Lyndyloo As FNZAS treasurer I can assist you with your query. I have pm'd you for further details.

Mine was in the mail yesterday - thanks Caryl It was really nice to see more people contributing articles to the magazine. It makes our Editors life so much easier when she does not have to write heaps as well as produce it. Also I have to mention CTT who have two articles in there. Despite the dreadful last 18 months they have had down in Christchurch their members have continued on with their hobby, helped others in trouble, and have even managed to participate in an expo and man a sausage sizzle fundraiser and then write the articles on these events. My hat goes off to you all, lead very ably by Jennifer (CTT & FNZAS President),Robyn (CTT Secretary) and Erica (Treasurer). Well done, you put the rest of us to shame.

I find that the moment the fry detach and are trying to swim they are eaten by the other fish. They initially don't have enough control of their movements to stay close to the parents. You would need to turn your filters off for them to even have a chance and that I do not recommend. Oh and the fry feed off their parents. The adult discus secrete a 'milk' which I think, but am not certain, is essential to their continued life span.

I really like it

You will probably have more than one - they are the fry that swim funny, ie flick from side to side when they swim. Often its take me a while to find my dt.

I will always be fond of veiltail fighters - here are a few pics of the first ones I bred 4-5 years ago This is the first double tail I ever owned - a male purchased as a female veiltail :sml1: Trilobite, I would recommend crossing a plakat with anything with a double tail gene. You will get a better tail structure. This guy here was supposedly from two pure halfmoons purchased from two different breeders - note the tiny nick in his tail - several of this spawn were dt a plakat male - very different to the ones coming in at the moment. I managed to keep this line going for about 18 months before I ran out of unrelated mustard gas females and a black halfmoon which I also managed to keep the line going for about 1 1/2 years until once again I could not source high enough quality females I guess what I am trying to say is that if you are breeding and what comes out of the breeding is not really good then do not breed on with that line. Try again and again and again. You will succeed but it is not quick and easy. Search the internet and view pictures of the results of crossing tail types so you know what you should be getting. Good luck.