bdspider

By buying the oscar you'd be giving them money and supporting their shitty practises! I feel bad for the fish, but you don't wanna encourage them. This is disappointing, I'd noticed that all the Animates seemed to be improving in regards to tank conditions. Oh well, I'll just continue to not buy things from them.

Yeah, what exactly is wrong with bloodworms? They're basically the staple diet of my fish. And my boyfriends fish for that matter. And we've never had any problems.

I think Janelle has these... She uses mashed potato & said it smells less than rolled oats.

I'm exactly the same - I get plants, they thrive and look fantastic, then suddenly after a few months... they start melting away. Only thing I can manage to keep well is java fern and moss. Oh and a sword, but it's planted in its own little pot with extra fertiliser & potting mix.

Frogs will spend most of their time on land so you'd need to have plenty of space above water for them.

I trim my sword all the time, just chop it with scissors near the base. I do this with dead/dying leaves, when stems get too tall, when the leaves block light for other plants... and its still doing fine.

It would be sad for kids to not have the opportunity to keep tadpoles and watch them grow. I always had tadpoles and frogs as a kid, got them from grandparent's farm. I refuse to pay pet store prices for frogs and tadpoles though

My hoplo catfish. He's actually a female.... He's normally incredibly tame and friendly, definitely my fave fish. But he's sulky at me now.

The other day I gave the gravel a supergood clean and moved around everything in the tank & the fish were all very upset with me for a day or so... I think I may have hit Mr Hoppy in the face with the gravel siphon too :oops:

I never knew it had a name!

Nah, I get mysids from boyfriend's work. Mr Sippy's in a foot long tank. It's unfiltered. I changed his water yesterday & he now he's extra perky so maybe a water change will improve your ones mood too. How long's yours? Mine's about 10-12ishcm.

Yeah, just see how your fish react. I had a lovely bubble wall set up but my neon tetras found it stressful and they started growing fungi until I removed it! Silly things.

My bubba loves live mysids. You could always start up a brine shrimp hatchery to keep yours fed. I was trying to take pics of him to show off yesterday, but he's not very cooperative :roll: + my cameras not that fantastic for macro. I usually just give him frozen bloodworm although today he shared some mince from my tea.

Hope it went well. I was busy being at work.

Ummm... just use a plastic lid from some sort of container/jar.

One time this happened with all my fish. Turned out some of my flatmate's moron friends had dropped a milkbottle lolly in the tank and all the fish were seemingly enjoying getting high on sugar fumes. So check there are no milkbottles in the tank.

A lot of our local petstores will test your water for free, even some of the crappy ones! I've never bothered with test kits, Chch water is awesome.

Myself and coely-weily will be there on Sat. Any baking requests?

Nah, they are really good for a disposable. The problem with mine is that red is the first colour to be lost as you get deeper and I didn't have a special flash/stobe to bring out the true colours. The advantage to snorkel is you get the full spectrum! If you look at mine, the corals all look kinda greyish, but they were unbelievably colourful in real life. I didn't end up doing any snorkelling cos the cold winds put me off :evil:

Hope no-one minds me crossposting, I thought the salties would be interested in my scuba diving photos (just in case they don't check out off topic) http://www.flickr.com/photos/61223150@N00/sets/72157601518236911/ Feel free to comment, I will eventually go through and identify anything I can, but if anyone feels like posting names of fish and coral I would really appreciate it. See my post in off-topic for more info and some teaser shots. http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/fiji-holiday-with-fish-coral-amp-scuba-photos-vt23860.html

Amazing shots, I totally know the feeling. I assume you were snorkelling? Or was it scuba diving? I've posted a link to mine in off-topic, go check them out. Your coral colours are far more beautiful, but I have close up fish action :-)

Damn you, I was gonna post my Fiji dive pictures too and mine aren't as bright! You've ruined my glory!

Errrr, they'd be cooler without the stuffed toys.

Hehe Wilson, I drove all the way to beloved Organisms for the filter. There's at least 9 petstores that are closer, but they all suck.

Neon tetras aren't very hardy so beware - they have been tank bred for generations and not that much care has always gone into breeding quality stock. You could consider cardinal tetras, they are basically the same colours as neons and known to be tougher. They are a bit more expensive though. Kuhli (coolie) loaches tend to hide under the gravel and only pop out occasionally so they might not be very interesting for a 6year old.