Warren

Hi Caryl, How many vineyards has Malborough got? (Are you sure Malboroughites are not kidding themselves). Hawkes Bay is doing pretty well with the awards and certainly has a lot of quality wineries. I rememer 10 years ago when you could go on a wine tour and it would only take 1 day (about 10 wineries open to the public). Now it takes 5 days (if you are that keen) with 47 wineries on our current visit list (there are over double that many in total). Some of them require a 'Gold Card' however!

Thanks Rob, I'll anxiously await your next articles. It will be good to learn how to set up live food cultures.

Hi Rob, I only keep earthworms and feeder fish. If memory serves correctly, you have an excellent knowledge of how to grow many different live food cultures. How about posting some articles into the 'Topics' section of the database. Many people would benifit from the information (especially me)! If you do want to do it, would it be too much to ask if you can add which types of fish each food is good for. Go on...

Whether you are buying good food or cheap food it is always cheaper to get it in bulk. If you do buy a lot more food than you will use in a short time you could do what I do. I rebag the bulk pack into lots of smaller ones. You have to suck the air out of the bag. Be carefull if you are using your mouth as it is really easy to suck in the flakes. Next put the bags in the freezer until you need them. It is important to remove all the air you can as any that is left has moisture in it. When you freeze the food, the moisture comes out of the air and into the food. It will then be damp when thawed and go off quickly.

Most tap water in NZ has chlorine added to it. The quantity of chlorine is only about 1ppm max when it comes out of the tap. It is added to kill pathogenic bacteria from the water supply source and to stop outbreaks forming in the pipes. It is ok to use untreated tap water in most areas provided the water quality is good. The chlorine will be no problem if you are only doing 20% or less water changes (dilution of 1ppm to 0.2ppm - safe). Any more and the water needs to be treated with a dechlorinating product. This should be added to the tank after the level has been dropped but before filling back up with tap water. Another interesting point. I put the water in cold if it is for 20% or less water change. The fish seem to like it. It usually prompts spawning also. The total tank temperature might drop 2.5-3'C but thats ok because it is a slow change over about 30 minutes. During the filling process, the small tetras and sometimes the larger fish too will swim up the cold current coming in from the hose. The fact that they stay there fore some time hints that they like it. I am in Napier. Our city supply is untreated as it comes from an aquifer (basically spring fed). We have no chloride. The problem however, is the source feed for the aquifer is high in the hill where they drop a lot of superphosphate fertiliser. Consequently we have between 6-8ppm of phosphate in our water plus a lot of disolved organics. For many people this is not a problem. If you want to use intense lighting on a planted tank however it is a different story. The excess phosphate and the naturally high level of nitrate (from biological consumption of the organics) causes lots of green algae. If only moderate lighting is used there is not too much algae. The solution I use is Reverse Osmosis. I have a 400L/day RO unit that fills a 2000L tank outside the house. I pump the RO water into all my tanks as needed. To give the RO water some pH buffering I use a combination of salts (Sodium Bicarbonate, Calcium Chloride, Magnesium Sulphate and Potassium Sulphate - all available at the local pool center).

A friendly bit of advice. It is illegal to catch and move Gambusia. You are therefore not allowed to keep them. Gambusia are now classed as a noxious fish in NZ. It is possible (although I don't know how likely) to get written permission from DOC to catch Gambusia for feeding to larger fish only. You are not allowed to breed them and must be very carefull not to accidentally transfer them into another waterway. Once you have written permission it is a bit like a trout licence. If you are catching them and a ranger finds you, you'd better have the paper on you. I don't know what the penalties are for catching them. It is likely a smack on the hand the first time as it is not widely known they are a noxious fish. DOC is quite approachable on the subject of catching them as feeder fish as it help keep the wild populations down. I am currently waiting for my written permission to be processed.

Some types of black plastic are toxic. Any thin plastic should do as long as it is not antifungus treated. If you sniff the plastic and notice a smell it may leach something into the water. It should have a neutral smell to be safe. Wash the surface of the plastic well. Sometimes the manufacturing process can leave toxic chemicals on the surface. If in doubt, wash it then leave it in a bucket of water for a few days. If you are still worried, just keep an eye on the fish after you have fitted it to the filter. If a problem occurs you can easily remove the insert and do a partial water change. I've only had one bad experience with plastic items and aquariums. I use a lot of spa-pool filters on my tanks. Once I did not wash a brand new filter housing out. The toxic muck in it from the manufacturing process killed 3 adult oscars in about 30 minutes. I learnt a valuable lesson the hard way and lost 3 great fish in the process (won't do that again). I've used lots of these filters in the past but have always washed them very well before use.

At the moment the largest available peltier device is about 125Watts as a single device (available through Ohm Co in Japan - It is a Fuji device). You have to connect a group of them together on a larger surface to get more power. I use these devices in my work so I know what I am talking about. I design this type of equipment regularly. Beleive me to remove 300watts of energy there will be 600watts or more energy coming out the hot-side. The heatsink needs to be relatively large and fan cooled to keep the delta T to a minimum (less than 35'C is good). If your ambient is 35'C and you want 10'C in the water the heatsink max temperature is 45'C. You only have 10'C of heatsink rise above the ambient. It is quite possible. I use a range of heatsinks that have thermal resistances of less than 0.01'C/watt. These are used to dissipate 2500W with only 25'C delta T. A more practically sized peltier device is the 50watt version. These are priced at about $35.00 each. Six will therefore cost $210.00. They are available from a company in Christchurch. It is a fairly cheap cooling option compared to many others. It requires no plumbing and no tradesman to install it. It may be a little difficult for everyone to impliment on their own, but with a little help and guidance it would be no problem. The power supply is the hardest part!

You could try peltier devices. These are neat electronic coolers. You pass a current through them, - one side gets cold and the other side gets hot. All you have to do is connect the cold side to the water and heatsink the hot side to get rid of the energy. The down side is that it takes as much electrical energy to cool as the amount of energy removed. This means you have double the power loss in the heatsink, ie 300Watts Electrical Energy in, 300W Heat Energy removed from the water, and 600W Heat Energy Dissipated in the heatsink. You have to size the heatsink just right so you get the correct delta T across the peltier device. It would cost about $200 for 300Watts of Peltier devices + you need a 300W 12VDC Supply. Its a feasable option, has no moving parts and is almost affordable. I have used this method on smaller tanks and it works really well. It is best used for heating where you get a 2:1 energy gain. The other bonus with peltier devices is they are bidirrectional, ie reverse the polarity and they heat instead of cool.

Hi Eden, Try putting a piece of plastic at an angle in the overflow area. The idea is to get the water to flow down the plastic at an angle instead of trickling down to the bottom of the overflow chamber. You may also be able to fit some filter wool at the bottom to absorb the splash. Be carefull not to block up the exit holes!

Hi Bruce, Im going. Its probably not much of a surprise, - I'm one of the organisers, oh, so are you...

Yip, they are definately SAE's. As previously mentioned they are the correct ones and they are available. I have 2 dozen and they munch red algae really well!

The differences between standard annealled float glass and tempered glass: Float glass is soft (relatively) and has a tensile strength of approx 19.3 to 28.4 N/mm2 Its failure mode is normally a single (sometimes multiple) diagonal semi-straight crack. This will normally allow time for some rescue of the tank occupants or the tank will only empty down to the crack level. Tempered glass is quite different. It is approximately 5 times stronger than float glass. Its failure mode however is quite spectacular. You will hopefully have seen a broken windscreen on and old car. This is what happens and the whole front, side, or bottom of the tank will shatter and fall away. No time for rescues. All that will be left is a wet floor, flapping fish and thousands of tiny cubes of glass. The size sheets you have are great. They will make a very good tank. You probably wouldn't need top bracing, but I'd use it for security. The tank will be very strong.

The fish you are probably referring to is Crossocheilus siamensis commonly known as the 'Black Line Flying Fox' It is one of the few algae eater who munch the Red Brush Algae that plague many tanks. Holywoods (PH 620 5249) had some of these a couple of weeks ago. They are available quite regularly.

Caryl has been waiting for someone to defend discus. Well its not going to be me. I keep discus, lots and lots of them. I find them very easy to keep and breed. If someone has difficulty keeping them then thats ok. When I first started keeping fish I did not like oscars much, but now I have 4 and enjoy them immensely. No fish needs to be defended! I cannot keep bristlenose, - I know why now so I do not try to keep them anymore. If someone is having trouble keeping a certain fish there is probably a very good reason. Instead of rubbishing that particular fish it would be better to try to find the cause of the problem. Back to hybrids. If you want a couple of excellent examples try goldfish and dogs. All goldfish and all dogs have the same scientific names and have been selectively bred to give certain shapes and sizes. Some of them are practical and some not. However for every one there is someone who likes them. Provided the variation does not hinder a normal life for the animal there should be nothing wrong. Sure, YOU don't have to like it. Oops, I'm in danger of repeating myself, something I mentioned we should not do!

Am I a Central American Cichlid?

The brown algae is normal. It is usually present after setting up a new tank. If it continues you may not have enough lighting. After the tank has settled 2-3 months the algae should go away. It may even go away quicker. Once the filters get fully established and a general balance is acheived it should all settle down. Freshwater systems usually go through a similar algae cycle.

I think any topic that is not generally morally incorrect sould be allowed to be discussed. To ban certain topics is discrimination. If you ban one, you have to ban all to be fair. Someones personal view is exactly that, their view. It may not be acceptable to someone else while completely acceptable by others. If we were to ban the topics of every minority group we would not be able to discuss anything. If you have certain feelings about a topic, by all means express them, but please don’t go on-and-on about the same thing constantly. Regarding ballon fish: Express your views (within reason). The people who read them may even be influenced by them and use the information in a positve way. Remember too, the hobby benifits from positive comments and positive criticism. Negative comments do not help anyone.

Have actually used them. They run much hotter. At the time only colour 84 was avaialble. I did not find them as good as a full length tube. The colour faded faster too. I only got 6 months out of the compact fluro's compared to 12 months out of full sized ones. The higher running temperatre probably shortens the usefull bulb life. They are a lot more expensive! (I get 58W full sized tibes for $4.87ea but the compacts are $22.50ea). I'd have to check the colour 86 bulbs to see if they have the correct colour rendering specturm. I have now moved to using colour 96 lamps. They have even higher colour rendering capability than colour 86 lamps. They are 3 x the price however!

The water will not be salty at all. All water must have a certain amount of hardness, both carbonate and general. If not the pH will not be stable. Water hardness is due to alkali earth metals (Calcium Chloride, Magnesium Sulphate, Potassium Sulphate, Sodium Carbonate etc). These are salts. Most people think of salt as the stuff you put on food. This is only Sodium Chloride. There are many other salts ase well. When I talk about salinity it is nothing like sea water. The water is still very soft. I use only 1-2dH Carbonate Hardness and 2-3dH General Hardness. I can get away with this because I am doing at least 50% water cahnges every week. If not, the plants and fish waste products would exhaust the Carbonate Hardness salts and there would be a pH crash. I add enough of the correct types of salts to give pH stability and macro nutrients for the plants. In effect the water has salinity (most water does). The salinity is so low however that it can be deemed almost pure. African tanks have a lot of salt in the water. This is why the pH is so high. The water still tastes fresh, but it is still more saline than South American Water. RO stands for Reverse Osmosis. This process removes nearly all dissovled salts, gases, organics and heavy metals from the water. It has no pH stability.

No, tank still has a long way to go. The empty tank will be very close to finished by conference, but will still be at the shed I'm building it in. Then of course it has to be filled. It will take my RO unit over a week to fill it (it only makes 400L a day!) The tank will have 3300-3500L of water in it. Then the plants will have to establish (3 months minimum). It will not look really good for some time. It looks like we are going to make a special page for it where I can put a project history (including photo's) for other DIY people to check-out. The page will not be developed however until there is a decent amount of content to add to begin with. There is nothing worse than looking at a fairly barren web page! Once the tank is finished I will assemble the info and post it in a page. I can then add extra pictures as the tank matures.

The Tank will be an Amazon Biotope containing only plants found near Manaus in Brazil. It will also of course have Discus in it as well as a few other decorative local Tetra's (Rummy Nose, Cardinals, Rams, etc). The plants will not be a problem. I am already growing on some of my propogated plants in my fishroom. I have a 1200L 8 foot tank that provides a 10L bucket of plants every week. There'll be no problem there. If you have Takashi Amano's Nature Aquarium World - Book1, you can see a similar style I will be copying on page 138/139. It will require a little modification to become an Amazon Biotope however. The fish won't be a problem either, I'll just breed some more. It would cost more than the whole tank setup to buy all the fish. I plan to buy 2-3 pairs of quality imported Discus and breed lots. I plan to have about 30 adult discus in this tank + 500 Cardinals and 500 Rummy Nose. None of the above mentioned fish are difficult to breed. I've bred heaps of Discus and some Rams in the past, but not Cardinals or Rummy Nose. Have had good success with Black Neons however and the others are supposed to be very similar. The lighting is turning out to be the biggest single cost for the system. I haven't got it yet, but it looks like it will cost between $3-4k. I need 6 x 150W 6500K Metal Halides. I'm currently looking at using 20x58W Fluro's instead (way cheaper) but don't know if they will reach the 1m depth ok. They have the same lumen output so they should. Water will be salinated RO. I use my own mix to stabilise the RO water as not a drop of tap water goes into the tank (we have a 6-8ppm Phosphate problem with our tap water). I mainly follow the Dupla system (but make all my own fertilisers and stabilising salts) to get good algae free plant growth. The new tank will effectively be a big brother to my current tank. The two will actually end up being linked on the same filter system. Will add more as the project develops.

Kelly is selling up his gear in preparation for the big move south. I beleive he is moving to Southland sometime in the near future! It will be a great loss to our local club. He is still available on the net however, so he is effectively still next-door. Hopefully he will retain his fish interest.

No Hurry, is likely to be 3 months at least until the finished tank is planted out and looking good. This could be overly optimistic at the rate it is currently going (costing too many $$)! Will then submit a step-by-step photo gallery of the tank as it is made.

Hi Cees, I don't know the background of the source, but Kelly has some very nice Guppies. He has been concentrating hard on getting good strong lines for a couple of years now. He may be willing to part with some fish. It could be a good starting point if you cannot find an imported source.