Adrienne

Amazon swords ime just keep on growing! My fighters only jump if I have my hands in the tank!

You're doing better than my daughter - she did hers and the credits aren't showing!! My daughter was originally awarded NCEA level two with an achieved and the following year it was updated to a merit because she sat a Level 2 paper in Y13 which bumped her grades up. Just wondering if thats what happened to Dennisawesome.

I'm really pleased to see your blue plakat spawning Sam and he looks fantastic. I would breed vt in a flash but the age old problem is that while you can get pure vt males in the shops which have come in to the country there is no guarantee that the female you are buying from the shop is the same tail type. The last time I tried I ended up with spade tails so goodness knows what the female was but I would guess halfmoon. The same goes with ct, I have never yet seen, myself, an imported ct female in the shop which means any around must have been bred locally One thing to remember about breeding fighters is that potentially one spawn could give you 300 fry which means a lot of water changes, good food, tanks, time and money to get them to grow out unless you either want to stunt their growth or cull significantly.

absolutely correct!

Where in Auckland are you?

Trial and error... I find that what works for one doesn't necessarily work for the other. At this age for you, its a balance of keeping the bottom of the tank clean enough and the water good enough yet not removing all the fine organisms that hatch and live in the detritis of the tank (does that make sense?) I have one out of five spawns atm that will not grow! Why - no idea. They get the same water changes, the same food BUT there are hundreds and hundreds of them. A lot of people say feed as you walk past, water change as you walk back. A variety of fine live food is the best as they really need the movement to attract them to eat but decap brine shrimp works okay as long as you soak it first for a few minutes to stop it swelling in their bellies. I find the movement when I pour it in encourages the young fry to it. They all graze the bottom in one way or another. I looked at the growth chart. 50% of my current spawns are up with that, 40% below it and 10% above. The above are mostly the 15 fighters I got from one spawn who have a tank to themselves. Even within a spawn there is a vast difference in the growth rates. However the biggest and fastest developing are not always the best. Culling is a good idea once they reach a size that you can select the best looking and colours from. It cuts down on the cost of feeding them and stops tank overcrowding plus it means that you are not trying to get rid of inferior quality fish.

fry grow at different rates i.e. spawn two lots at the same time but there may be a considerable difference between the two growth rates. Also depends on how many in the spawn and imo to a certain extent genetics. I do know however that the smaller the spawn the way faster they grow.

it depends what the rocks are made from - they should not have chemicals in them but the ones made by mudstone will break up in the tank and make the water murky.

I was told to put two check valves on when I remarked that one didn't stop the backflow.

My planted is sitting around 32. The heaters are set at 28 but the 4xT5HO throw a fair bit of heat. My other tanks are sitting around the 28-30. I losing fish in the planted but at least the discus are really happy and my king tiger is absolutely thriving in it!

Neon - Yes they do get 2-3 water changes each week except when I am away on holiday and then they get them only weekly (but then again the fish only get fed once a week instead of 1-2x daily).

Welcome - you live in a beautiful part of the country.

:lol: :lol:

Don't think of it as negativity, think of it as concern for your wellbeing. The fact that you know people down there can and will certainly help things and I'm sure you haven't made the decision lightly. Theres a lot to be said for a more relaxed lifestyle because unless you live in rural auckland you certainly don't get it here. Good luck for this week. I hope you get things sorted.

FISH SHED - water changes (these are bare bottom tanks so only need a wipe down each water change) Fry tanks x7 - every 2nd day at about an hour a pop other tanks x9 - every 2nd-3rd day - about 1 1/2 hours HOUSE TANKS - water changes (all planted tanks so a wipe down and vacuum) Water changes 2-3 times a week - about 2 1/2hrs each time FEEDING (1 - 1 1/2 hrs daily) Feeding daphnia (live & dried), bbs, decap bs, mosquito lavae, micro worms, + any other live foods I can get my hands on and dried foods as well + frozen blood worms). Its all the individual containers that take the time. Then I spend at least 18 hours a week on this site :roll: :lol:

He's absolutely stunning - metallic silver body with red, silver and black tail. Spawnings hmmmmm..... well.......

Heres a few more for you to look at - some of the photos are not the best but I did not want to take the boys out of their bottles unnecessarily -

Hi, I see you are asking about the size of discus. They normally grow about 1cm for each month of their life until about 12months if looked after well. Most discus finish up about 10cm in size but there are some around at 12-15cm. If a discus is stunted its eyes will look too big for the body. I don't believe you can select the size a discus will grow to.

Can't work it out but a minimum of 20hrs a week just feeding and water changes :roll:

whetu's been busy with kiwibiker business tiny tawny posted a wee while back and bronze dragon is occasionally on chat

I wouldn't even attempt to try and post a fish as it would need to be labelled properly to stop it being biffed around and I am pretty sure that the PO won't take it. Not much point in using the cheapest option if the fish arrives dead. Courier from one island to another is about $27 plus the polybox and heatpack.

scholarship results are not due out for a while unfortunately

good, isn't it

:lol:

it never hurts to get a few more than you need as you never know when it might come in handy. You might decide in 10 years on a career change.