John Rimbauer

The company in Westmoreland Street Grey Lynn have changed their name to Pressure Check Cylinder Testing. They are still a great bunch to deal with, I got a 7kg cylinder in January for $200 from them. Refills still $10 as well! I had a couple of hassles getting the cylinder as they were flat out busy, but I have to say that they were a pleasure to deal with. I handed over the coin and they were happy to courier it out of Auckland for me. How cool is that? The owner told me that they are selling 3-5 cylinders a week to aquarium owners. I suggested to the owner that if he did a courier back and refill service, he could be on to a winner.

I updated my lights from Gro-lux tubes to 6500K energy saver fluorescents (Phillips 'Tornado' type) in a unit I built myself to fit under the hood. If you know a friendly sparkie I'd recommend this. I spent just under $70 to make it, which was cheaper than buying a new unit. Plus I hooked up a blue moonlight setup into it at the same time, for about $10! Sweet! After that I found CO2 was a problem, so I moved the spray bar so that the surface was very ruffled by the spray to increase the CO2 getting into the water. This was enough to get the plants pearling, but I eventually went to DIY CO2, as GZ_Loach describes. My plants haven't looked back, and the missus claims the tank looks much more appealing.

I'm happy that my experiences can help! I spent months lurking here reading the various interesting posts, so I'm very glad to give something back.

I use the long term 'Ripcord' spray once a year. I don't like flyspray because we have both birds and fish. Once a year I spray the ceilings, doorways and windowsills. Then I kick back and watch all the flies, spiders and cockroaches coming up the garden path keel over when they hit the sprayed areas on the doors. I do cover the fishtanks and remove the birds before I spray though. It's harmless when dry, but I wouldn't want to risk spray drift killing any pets.

Thanks for the positive comments! This subject is one dear to me. I had to chose between staying with my career in GE or staying in NZ, and at the end of the day I chose staying in New Zealand and learning a new trade over working overseas. I try to stay current with the technology, and it's heartbreaking to see the misinformed twaddle pumped out on the news. GE seems to be a genie that can't be put back in the bottle. Rather than a blanket ban I would much prefer to see strict conditions put on labs doing GE work, because it has so much to offer us. Some of the work being done verges on magical, and politicians with no idea what the issues are feel obliged to stick their oar in. I have seen some elegant and beautiful work killed by politicians. Cow milk that would help kids with cystic fibrosis? Banned. Corn that was nutritionally complete for starving kids to eat as a staple food? Gone. A cure for many types of childhood leukemia? Forbidden. Injections that would regrow damaged hearts, livers and kidneys in an adult human? Not here thanks. In contrast, I have also seen some asinine and dangerous schemes blocked, and I was glad they were. GE pets are an interesting point of discussion because people will pay good coin for a new beautiful or unusual pet. Where there is a profit to be made, people will find ways to do it. I think we should accept that if a change cannot be stopped, it should be managed. Better to have regulatory hoops than people smuggling dodgy livestock in their underwear I say.

I think GE pets is a frivolous and possibly hazardous use of a powerful technology. I've done some work in this field, and I remember seeing the first steps in this direction done with plants, so that areas of high gene activity (eg where is this gene doing it's job?) could be seen without damaging the plant. This would have been the mid to late 80's. Jump forward to 95, and I remember quite a song and dance being made over fluorescent zebra fish. These fish were being used to explore cloning technologies, with the view that new organs could be grown from stem cells. The glowing was introduced to track what cell grew into what, and how it could be changed. I recall that they grew some odd things in that study, such as fish bodies without heads. This was all done in stringent laboratory conditions. Now that the pioneering work has been done, and we have a cook book for achieving this in a stable form, it is open slather. It is quite honestly about the same level of difficulty as baking a cake, although the ingredients are a bit tougher to get! The inclusion of a single fluorescent protein (from jellyfish in the cases I've seen) isn't a big deal, but I don't think it will stop here. Anyone could create new fish in their garage if they had the equipment and inclination. The easy method for this type of transfer is to create a DNA or RNA strand with the new info on it, and synthesize a viral protein coat around it. You then infect your eggs with the virus. In essence, you create a dud copy of a real virus, and the copy shouldn't be able to replicate and go on to infect new hosts. The bad part is that viruses (virii? I can never remember latin plurals) are very very good at picking up new genetic info from their host and changing suddenly. Flu, colds and HIV are all good examples of this principle, and it is no coincidence they are all very infectious and hard to beat. The idea of having an unstable virus designed to be super infectious to fish potentially being sold from your LFS doesn't seem very clever at all. Can we trust each supplier of such fish to have taken the utmost quarantine precautions? Where there is a profit to be made I'm not so sure. I think the aptest analogy is fire. It certainly is useful, and in some cases downright pretty, but not so much if it gets loose in trees around your house.

I had noticed the same problems with swords yellowing, mainly crypts and melon swords, so I leafed through a few books which suggested Iron and Magnesium deficiency both caused yellowing of leaves. I now dose a similar amount of Iron Chloride (sold as moss remover at the garden centre) and Magnesium sulphate (Epsom Salts) every month or so. The plants are growing and pearling like mad, (1W/L 6500K, DIY CO2) and the only algae I have is a little green dot algae on the glass, which the Oto's and BN's keep well under control. One thing to watch, these two don't have an immediate effect on the water. They go in clear and cause a haze about 20mins later. I'd split the dose over several days until you see how it works. I ended up doing a water change to clear mine the first time (ever seen fish coughing?) I read several long articles which suggested potassium is one of the first macronutrients stripped out of a planted aquarium. In my experience, dosing it certainly stopped the algae growth, perked up the plants, and so far I've had flowers off my E. Osiris every year since. Certainly makes for a crowded tank!

I had a massive thread algae outbreak which meant I was clearing off the plants every 2-3 days. I found that dosing a small amount of trace nutrient mix and potassium absolutely slaughtered the thread algae. It turned reddish brown and fell apart in a couple of days (which in turn clogged the filter, but there's another story). I used off the shelf Trace Element mix and Sulphate of Potash (both powders) from the local garden centre, and dosed at the rate of 1/4 tsp of each dissolved in aquarium water per 100L of water, once a week. That rate made the water a bit hazy for a few hours, but the fish didn't complain. I now dose that every second water change and haven't seen a thread since.