Ianab

What hit them in this round of fires was the Winds. They are used to, and prepared for normal bush fires. They burn across the ground and you can fight them with fire breaks and hoses. Thats consdered 'normal',. you stay and defend your home from a 'grass' fire. What they had this time as a firestorm, where the flames jump from tree crown to crown in a suburban area at 100 k/p/h. You just cant defend against that. So what worked for the last 20 years, was just overwhelmed by flames Ian Edit : ligthing a fire in those conditons is like throwing a petrol bomb into a Kindy or old folks home, and should be treated the same! #$%^

Main thing I dont like about them is the corner joins are much weaker then a normal 90deg glue join. I had one (that was given to us), about 100l. One of the joins split and dumped 1/2 the tank water around my bedroom That plus the smaller surface area and poor general shape for fish... Well I would never buy one. Ian

A clip of the big Eel in my back garden is up to 42,500 views now Once you get to certain level they seem to get a life of their own. The Yanks are still convinced it's a Salamander :roll: Ian Ian

Aww.. Vodaphone Homegrown is that afternoon... 8) We do have tickets.. and we AINT gonna miss it Otherwise I would have been a starter. Ian

A 300 L tank should be OK for an adult Oscar. Even a pair if you have realy good filtering. Shop around for a basic tank, build a stand with some 4x2s and plywood, lights dont have to be fancy as you aren't grwoing plants. I am still in the process of building a stand for 2 X 300 L tanks I have got for a good price. Might be out $500 once I have them set up and running with basic filtering. Ian

Once you smell it there is no doubt that it's smoke Ahhh... The distinctive smell of fried electonics, sounds like a paying job Ian

Yup.. Once you let the magic smoke out, they never work the same again....

The bigger fish looks like a Shortjawed Kokopu - http://www.niwa.cri.nz/rc/freshwater/fishatlas/species/inanga They are also a species of Whitebait. The smaller pair look like Inanga - http://www.niwa.cri.nz/rc/freshwater/fishatlas/species/inanga Those are the most common Whitebait species. This is only my guess though - The Niwa site has good info on on the various fish. Stella will probably see the thread and have a better idea exactly what they are. Ian

OK.. a quick bit of research. Your machine should have 2 memory slots, and if it has the original memory, one will be free. It will take any combination of 128, 256 or512mb memory modules, for a max total of 1gb of RAM. You may have trouble finding the exact memory, but a faster speed module should generally work. What you are actually looking for is "266MHz DDR Non-ECC CL2.5 SO DIMM " Also called PC2100 DDR. I would just drop in a 512mb module for a total of 768mb of RAM. Any good computer store should be able to supply one, although it may be have to be PC3200 spec and they may have to order it in as it's an older type. Hopefully not too much Jargon - but this is my day job :roll: Ian Edit: Running 2 x 512 modules will work slightly better, but it will cost twice as much, and you probably dont want to throw too much cash at an old laptop.

Have a look at this link, it's a way to set up a planted, unfiltered tank. It wont support as many fish as a conventional tank but you balance the growing plants with the fish numbers. Walstad Method http://www.theaquariumwiki.com/Walstad_method So yes it can be done, it's a bit trickier to set up, but no filtering needed. Likewise if a tank is big and only contains a few small fish then it is possible to run with no filters. But personally I would just put in a little internal power filter. I have a very nice Eheim (expensive but good) and a range of small cheapo AquaOnes. All are practically silent, maybe just a bit of a hum. Ian

Best option is to keep the filter running 24/7. It's not just about the oxygen, it's about the cycle bacteria that live in the filter and process the waste ammonia. If the filter isn't running most of the time the cycle bacteria start to die off and you can get ammonia problems in the tank. I guess the problem with your air powered sponge is the noise of the air pump and bubbles? A little internal power filter may be a better option, being totally underwater there are no bubbles and hardly any noise. Ian

Dropping them in a tank with an Oscar will fix that quick enough. 8) Ian

I use my garden hose to refill my bigger tank. Possible problems - the water is colder, so I dont do it in the winter, and in the summer I set it to spray in the tank slowly so the heater can keep up. - Run the hose for a minute first to flush out any nasty crap thats leached out of the plastic over the last week. - Chlorine - depends on your tap water. If you dont use de-chlorinator, then there is no difference. If you do, them mix some into the tank before you refill and it works just the same. Ian

I would think you could rig up something with a light bulb, a big funnel and a bucket. Moth comes flying along, hits light bulb, falls down funnel into bucket and gets trapped? Ian

That sort of temperature could certainly be stressing it, low oxygen level etc. I've been floating bottles of ice in my native fish tank to keep the temp down. Switching off the lights during the day will help too. Ian

If they do it occasionally it's normal, gives you a fright if the room is all quiet and a foot long pleco comes up for air. If they are doing it all the time, check your water quality. They use the air breathing thing to take a gulp of air into their gut. If the water is low in Oxygen they can use that air to survive, so if they are doing it all the time they may be getting stressed. But occasionally, they just want a breath of fresh air. Ian

To illustrate Stella's description. Look in the middle of the last set of legs and you will be the "boy bits" And yes, thats Stella's fingers Ian

Best way to get some Bullies is to wander down to a local creek after dark with a torch and net. The smaller ones (3-5cm) are best as they seem to adapt to tank life better. You dont need a license to catch and eat an eel, so I dont thing you need one to bring it home and put it in a tank either. You may be thinking about commercial fishing or farming which probably have all sorts of paperwork and fees. Just check with local rules, like you cant catch them in National Parks (or Western Springs), but pretty much anywhere else is OK Ian

100m coil of black polythene pipe layed on a tin roof will produce a lot of warm water. Enough to make a noticable difference (several degress) to a Parapool anyway. Probably enough to cook the fish in a small pond!!! The problem with a pond is you need the heat at night... Ian

The Eheims aren't cheap, but they are good. The flow is usually adjustable, so if you have delicate fish you can turn it down, or wind it up for full filtering goodness. Otherwise if you just want an auxillary filter to help out a puny built-in then a cheapo Aqua-One internal filter will probably do the job fine. Ian

They can definately territorial for sure, and dish out some punishment. Mine seem to have settled down now, but there have been a few ripped fins and scuff marks in the past. At least they are tough, he should recover OK. Ian

It's food, it got that fat in about 5min and it's looking hungry again now. It just a greedy littlle fish :lol: Ian

So who ate all the Pies (bloodworms)

The quality of the original water would have a big effect too I suspect. If it's comiing out of a dodgy river and already has a high Nitrate level then the chlorine will have the effect that Alan is describing. The water test that our local council provides has a Nitrate reading of ~0.25ppm for our tap water, so the level of chloramine formed would be pretty small. I dont bother with declorinator when I do water changes and my fish seem healthy. If my tap water had a nitrate reading of 5 or 10 and that dodgy smell (chloramine?) then I would be using it for sure. So it depends on the quality of YOUR local tap water. Ian

The thing is you dont need 100% efficiency. If some parts of the filter are only running at 50% because of low water flow, so what? It will still be filtering, and 50L of media in a sump working at 50% is still better than 10L working at 100% Of course the better the flow and more even it is, the better the filter works, but if the bacteria in the filter have some water flow they will do some good Ian