Janelle

Plus it keeps you more up to date with local news and issues Hope to see lots of people tonight. If you get lost txt 021-239-1845. (Dowsons Shoes is on the corner of Mackworth St and Ferry Rd.)

You can keep rats in fish tanks, right?

Sounds like my Eddie. Good thing she's in a pond now and not in a tank, especially now she's like a fish murderer after chasing some white clouds to death. Ask jn about that, lol.

Not at my place. 2nd February I don't even know where I'll be living yet but that's the day the lease is up where I'm at now, lol.

Aww, thanks so much jn! I recognised my Eddie straight away. She's really grown since I saw her though, even though you might not have noticed, but she's definitely looking a lot bigger than I remember, although the water does distort sizes a little bit and I guess I don't have anything to compared her to in the photos. I miss my goldfish. I'd like to overhaul my tank again and start over with new fish next year. The sooner I have my own pond (that I won't have to move around much) the happier I will be. I really appreciate you looking after her and I'm glad she looks happy with some company now. =)

Virote would tend to disagree with you there. Virote is my fiance's betta and he DOESN'T STOP MOVING. EVAR. He eats like a horse (in a manner of speaking only) and we have not seen him lying on the gravel since pretty much when we first got him from the pet shop. He lives in a 29 litre and it still doesn't seem big enough for him. I doubt he'd be very happy in his "natural habitat." He'd be the one jumping over the dirt to get to a bigger puddle!

Unfortunately, that doesn't accurately describe the manner of my own WCMM's deaths. They were not gasping at the surface (I have seen oxygen starvation before in my mum's goldfish). In fact, they were not gasping at all, they were TRYING to gasp but it seemed like they had some kind of lockjaw, and they were staying at the middle of the tank but just looking very dispirited. It only happened one fish at a time and I would think if it had something to do with oxygen levels in the water the other fish would've also been gasping instead of swimming around normally and eating healthy and otherwise being their usual selves. I also had a Shark ADV powerhead filter aerating my water which was quite powerful. It certainly did not look like oxygen starvation to me. I have not had a single WCMM die in the same way since the one that died when I started this thread and since then my tank has been hotter and more overstocked than ever. I would say it was just the weak ones dying off for some reason... Still don't know why though.

You can get over that now. It wasn't meant as a personal attack no matter what you thought. I also have babies in a community tank and if I don't want any more babies I would just give away my male. As it is, I would really like to see your tanks because I hear you have fish I would not have the skill to keep and breed.

Sigh. I meant selfish for letting the fry die if there was an alternative. Anyway, whatever.

I think I would be far more appreciative of getting fish from someone I knew took care in breeding them rather than someone I don't know who may have bred purely for profit. I like to support people I know even if I have to buy their fish, and why spend mark-up if good people are breeding fish and not looking to make a profit? It's not like I'm neglecting my LFS in the meantime but if something is available cheaper because someone I know has an excess, I'd like to think I could give their fry a chance and leave the LFS fish for others who are willing to go there. I've been very happy to breed my fish but if I ran out of room I know I have several people on-hand who would be happy to breed out my babies, and I would care for them enough to want them to go to good homes if I know they are wanted and will be well looked after. At the same time, it's been fun to raise fish I know I don't want to keep in the long-term, just to get them to the size they'd be interesting for someone else to have (ie. the baby guppies that accidentally came with my mum's other guppies - I don't like guppies but it's fun raising the fry until they can go back into her tank with the other adults without getting eaten by voracious danios). So I really don't get it, it just sounds like selfishness to let the fry perish because you don't want to give them out.

Edit: The website has been updated.

There used to be a really good woman at Tower Junction, I met her at Moorhouse when she was relieving once. I haven't seen her in a while but if I saw her again I'd follow her advice. It's more the store that has a problem with not retaining the people who actually know anything.

Well, from what I know, Animates hire salespeople, not pet people. I think it's funny playing silly buggers with some of the salespeople by asking questions I already know the answers to. That is... when I can even get someone to talk to me... which is about 5% of the time...

That reminds me... I should probably feed my white worms, poor guys. They can't be enjoying this heat either.

Meeting details have been updated on website.

I have corys with nice, long barbels on smallish rounded gravel. I wish I could have sand but seems a bit impractical for my purposes... =(

Rice sounds good. I have rice quite often so I'll try to remember to spare some for the worms.

Hi Kelsta, I never did find out what caused it but the last time I posted about it was the last time it happened to me. I have had other white cloud deaths but they were all explainable... some kind of tumourous growth, a murderous goldfish.... etc... Sorry I can't help to enlighten you. I just found that eventually they stopped dying off and the ones that were left are all very hardy.

I was told no by someone... They had other fish in the same tank so it may not have been the clown loaches. Sorry if I've worried you for no reason. someone else may be able to enlighten us both.

I would seriously warn against Ferry Road, but you may try it if you like. Last time I went I saw they had corys with clown loaches and all the corys had at least one eye picked out. I have never gone back.

I sit mine on the tank in my lounge.

Dixon, I'm literally just around the corner from you. Wyn Street end of Dalkeith Street.

You can buy it at the supermarket. I use the Deb brand but anything would do probably. Maggi have a similar product but they flavour theirs. Deb is straight instant mash. I keep mine with the rest of my fish food at room temperature beside the tanks in an old, plastic cat food container. I cover it with glad wrap to keep it humid and this also helps them crawl up. If it's warm but not covered they won't climb so readily. Air holes are good too but I don't usually bother because I take the glad wrap off at least once a day.

Yes, I culture mine in instant mash potato! It's the powder stuff in which you just add boiling water. I mix up the mash a little on the hard side, wait for it to cool before adding a starter culture, and the worms usually cover the surface and crawl up the sides within a few days. It really smells MUCH less than the rolled oats mixtures, lasts longer (perhaps the preservatives in instant mash help keep it from going bad?) and when the culture starts to slow down all I do is mix up some more and throw it on top and the worms crawl back to the top within a day. I do add a tiny amount of yeast either in the form of marmite or sprinkled baker's yeast, but I don't think it needs it since the mash will harbour lots of bacteria for them to eat, and it doesn't seem to go mouldy on me. I mixed up one culture with some marmite and left it for almost three months. The worms didn't die and the culture didn't become biohazardous. I can't recommend it enough. If you ever split a culture I suggest at least trying it out. It's so much easier to maintain than a culture of rolled oats, plus I don't worry as much if I accidentally scoop small bits of mash into my tank water.

I have horny peppered corys.