Warren

By all means, join the crawl if you have the time. Starts at Chatham Park which interestingly enough is in Chatham Rd in Flaxmere, Hastings. Starts at 9:30am, maps and judging forms provided. Regards W.

Cool, thanks Cees. I'll get into it now. It'll probably take a couple of nights to get right, but bear with me.

Meanwhile, Mitch, can you email me with the full address details of your Exec so we can make sure they are correct. I need to have it in writing, but a printed email will do the job just as well.

I've just visited the clubs page and notice that much of the information is incorect. Can you set me up to manage this page too?

Good one Cees, Can we add a FNZAS page listing all the current Exec positions for FNZAS + all affiliated clubs Exec positions as well? I can add it tonight if so. Hopefully once set up incorrect information can be updated immediately by those who identify it. If they email me with the correct details I can update the page and the FNZAS records all at once.

The yearbook is well under way. Please keep in mind that the people who are doing the jobs required to make a yearbook are new to the job this year. While we may not have done the best job this time round, we've learned what is required so it won't happen again while we're there. My original statement still stands however. If you are receiving mail to the wrong address, it is your clubs responsibility to fix it. All you have to do is send the address information to the club secretary in question. If you don't know who they are then phone someone in the club. Alternatively, ask me. I have the full FNZAS membership list with all addresses, phone numbers and exec positions. Try finding out who to talk to. All it takes is a little bit of effort. When I made up the list of FNZAS members for the yearbook I made nearly 100 phone calls to verify the information for all clubs was correct. All you have to do is make 2-3 followed up with 1 letter sent out to all the clubs, not really a big task at all. This little bit of work seems to be too much for some. The FNZAS is there to help with this exact problem. Please use us in situations like this. We can help. I hope my last 2 posts haven't seemed too negative, but I'm getting a bit tired of all the complainers who expect everything to miraculously happen on its own. We all put in a lot of voluntary work and it seems to be unappreciated. We are happy to help, but can't do it all. You must help a little too. We have just had a committee meeting in Turangi this weekend. You may not realise it, but some of our members spent over 8 hours travelling and spent the night at their expense. Luckily I was the closest with only a 3 1/2 hour round trip. This travel time alone represents more time than most people spend on their club in a year. Please keep the efforts of others in mind when you wish to complain about matter and rubbish them without a moments thought. Without these people doing the fine job they do there would be no FNZAS. There are many advantages to having a FNZAS and it would be a shame to have the peace shattered by the few who have a small self inflicted grievance. Finally, trying to get something done is proactive and good on you. However, please think about the way you do it. The way this was presented was with a pretty negative complaint. Sending a letter to the FNZAS and all club secretaries would have been the best course of action. If there was no change after a few weeks then there is course for complaint... Please don't bottle problems you have up and suddenly burst with negativity. Let it out in a nice controlled manner with objectivity so the problem can be resolved quickly. Also if there is a personal problem, try to put it aside to keep a clearer mind so the actual problem can be focused on. Some of these comments are not refering to Mitches post, but are general comments and are no way meant for Mitch. What I have written above is purely for future grievances.

How is the FNZAS to know if you do not tell them? Rather than complain, why don't you send a letter to the FNZAS secretary with your updated address. Then all records can be set straight and everyone will be happy. Its a lot easier to complain than be proactive.

Only less room for fish. Much more room overall, but now there are 3 of us so the others needs for lounge space must be considered. The new lounge is over twice as big as the old one.

No, lots less. Have had to scale things down quite a bit.

Take photo's at night in a dark room. It improves the contrast and stops reflections in the glass. Do not use a flash. Instead add extra lighting to the tank temporarily. Get photoshop so you can enhance the photo's later.

Please note: I Have MOVED!! New Address is: Warren Stilwell 25 Harris St Napier Ph 06 845 3350 If you are a spam site trying to use this information, don't bother. I got tired of all your crap so installed Mail Marshall. Now all you nasty spam advertisers just get automatically bounced. So $%*! *(^ (exclamation!)

Unfortunately you will need finer gravel. If it gets long enough roots it may stay down. Try using sewing tweezers to grab the bottom of the roots and push the root as far into the gravel as possible without burying the plant.

Try Glossostigma. It is like a mini version of clover grass and grows really low to the gravel. Tenellus is another excellent low growing grass (25-50mm). Many of the other ground cover grasses get much taller and look out of place in shallower tanks (less than 500mm). It is great at the front of the tank with some of the taller grasses and mini val at the middle and/or back.

No worries, I've had tanks a bit taller than 18" and the same length and they've always been ok.

Most fish raised in outdoor ponds are very good. Their colours are very strong and the fish are big. I don't know what happens to the colurs once they are put into an indoor tank, but they are excellent to start with.

If you had spent a few seconds and used the glass thickness calculator in the articles section of this website you could have worked the answer out for yourself. It would have told you for a proper saftey margin of 3.8 a tank this size should have glass approx 8.5mm thick. The 6mm glass used will only give 175% strength. This should be ok as long as the tank is supported well on a very flat and strong surface. Most tanks are not filled right to the very top anyway and this helps increase the saftey margin.

I don't have any Madagasariensis. I've been trying to get it on and off for 5-6 years now. So far everyone who has promised to get it for me has been a slacker. I can't believe that not one has come up with the goods! Good luck finding some. If you ever have any real success getting one, let me know cause I sure want some.

Go to this link if you want fish to eat red algae. http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/viewtopic.php?t=135 These fish are awesome algae munchers, the best I've ever tried for most algae types and by far the best for red beard algae.

Not so, not so you horrible person, well maybe, but only with breed-shows and some obedience shows. 8) 8) Realistically, yes you will get negatives. You just have to ignore them and they eventually go away. If you can't swing a bit of new life into the current CHCH club I guess you'll have to create a new one. What I can't believe is, with 300,000 or so people in the CHCH area the only FNZAS club registered has 7 current members. CHCH has to be able to better than that. Our local club has about 65 and we are draw from approx 100,000 people. A pretty poor yield admittedly, can't figure out why no-one has any commitment these days. Still, those of use who are members have a great time.

Fertilisers yes, soil no. Potting mix is mainly peat and pumice with a little organic vegetable matter added as well. It is a rich source of fertiliser but will eventually get used up. The pumice / peat combination is ideal however. You cannot run the level of nutrients the roots need in the water without massive algae problems. The pumice & peat store the nutrients in a concentrated form until they are needed. The top gravel layer stops the nutrients leaching back into the water faster than they get used up. The gravel fertiliser needs to be rich in N, P, K and Fe. Once the fertiliser that comes with the potting mix is all used up all you have to do is push solid plant fertiliser tablets through the gravel into the potting mix. The potting mix also allows the roots to breath as it is quite porous. If under gravel heating is also used the roots breath even better. You have to adjust the heating ratio so not too much of the nutrients wash back into the main water. With hydroponics, you run a rich nutrient mix past the roots with the rest of the plant in air. You have to do the same in the aquarium without the nutrients getting into the main water column. Some plants can do fine without substrate fertilisers (well they survive at any rate). These are mostly stem plants that can draw most of their nutrient requirement from the water. If root fertilisers are present they just grom stronger and faster. Most sword plants and crypts need substrate fertilisers. Most swords need iron rich fertilisers.

I don't know, I've always used it just in case. I don't know how much bacteria there is in unsterilised mix. I don't know how much is in the sterilised stuff either for that matter. Once its been sitting around in storage for a while who knows what gets back into it.

Yes, it seems to be good stuff. Have used it on a few of my tanks and excellent growth either with or without CO2. You don't have to use the potting mix, but it certainly make the plants grow faster and the fertiliser in it lasts longer.

I had 32 tanks at the time, but the gravel was only for 3 of them, 1 x 6', 1 x 8' and 1 x 10'. I sold the 10' and some of the gravel. I still used over 1/2 of it on the 6' and 8' tanks. The 8' has 500kg in it!!

If you can attach a couple of rings to the heater (one at each end) so it is held up from the gravel by a few mm even, you should be able to do what you propose.

I've used the following with excellent success. Bottom Layer: Standard Sterilised Potting Mix 10-15mm thick. Mid Layer: Aquatic Plant Mix 15-20mm thick. Top Layer: Fine Gravel 2-4mm in size 50-150mm thick. Both mixes are available at Palmers and are pretty cheap. Finding 2-4mm Gravel is fairly difficult, especially if you want something with a bit of colour. Southland Sand and Gravel in Invercargill has a very good range, but they usually only sell a minimum of 500kg. If you call them to find a distributor in your area you may be able to get what you want. I've always purchased direct. The first order I did was only for 500kg but the last one was for 1000kg. The gravel is really cheap but the freight is a killer. The landed cost at my door was still about 1/4 of the retail price however.