Ianab

New Plymouth tap water comes from the Waiwakaiho river via the Duck Pond (Lake Mangamahoe). It's pretty much rain water with a bit of duck poop added. It's naturally very soft (no dissolved lime) and pH is pretty neutral. Fish should have no problem changing over to rain water. Ian

Not quite ;-) Technically it's a standby power supply. A UPS switches over automatically, you will have to start the inverter, if you run it all the time the battery charger wont keep up and your battery will eventually go flat. If you had a big enough battery charger, that could power the inverter AND keep the battery topped up, then you would have a true online UPS, the best kind. But your plan will work and give you a usefull amount of power for a while. Ian

A car battery and small inverter will get you a lot more run time than a small UPS. A normal UPS only has a motorbike size battery, maybe 12V 6amp/hour A good car battery should be maybe 60amp/hour or 6amps for 10 hours, much more usefull, especially if you just run the load for short periods. Ian

Generally no. They are designed to power a PC for 15 minutes or so while you save your work and shut down normally. A filter / air pump / heater may draw less power than a whole computer, but you are still only talking about an hour or 2 of run time. The tank can handle that amount of time without power. It's the 12 hour + power cuts that are a real problem, and in that situation the UPS batteries have run down hours ago. A small generator is a better option, at least it will keep running as long as you keep putting gas in it. Ian

Replacing filter media could have caused the Nitrite problem, that will go away fairly quickly as the filter recovers. The Nitrate level is a bit high, especially for Discus. But that just indicates you need to change more water. Dont be scared to do larger or more frequent water changes. This will help with the nitrite level in the short term as well. When you have to replace filter media, just do one element at a time so the rest are still working. Ian

Have a watch of this video clip. A pleco is quietly minding his own business in a tank of large piranha, untill one of the piranha steal his food :lol: Looks like a large Goldspot - they have a real attitude 8) Ian

The tank is designed to hold almost 1/2 a ton of water... It's not really a delicate item, well unless you drop it. As long as it's supported on a flat padded surface and you dont do any crazy manouvers it will be fine. Nice tank 8) Ian

Between introduced trout, farming and road building, whitebaiting and loss of breeding territory around river mouths, I dont think collecting a few for private study or just as a 'pet' is going to cause any harm. Realistically everyone on this forum could go and catch a couple and it would do less harm then extending a motorway and filling in a swamp or releasing a truckload of trout. And a good whitebait fritter takes about 100 fish!!! As most of NZ isn't even aware these fish exist their protection will allways be on the backburner. Takahe, Tuatara and Yellow Eye Penguins seem to have much better PR setup and get all the TV time. The more people know about the existance of these fish, the better, and if that has to be done by keen 'amatures' then so be it. DOC seems to have very little resources to devote to them. Keep up the good work Stella. Ian

Buy one of the big (300w) Jagers, they seem to have better temperature controllers than the cheaper types, so the element will run more of the time when it's really needed. Thats how they can heat a bigger tank than a cheapo of the same wattage. Either put all three in the sump, or replace the 200 with a Jager and it should help. I have a single 300 in my 200l tank, although it's only set to 25deg it has no problem with room temps down to about 8 deg. Ian

Another pic. Little female Bristlenose, she's in a tank with a young male, so here's hoping Ian

Looks like an Albino Sailfin. Pterygoplichthys gibbiceps (L083). http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/species.php?species_id=148 Compare it to my normal colour one on the previous page, they are almost identical apart from the albino thing. Ian

NZ has a very unusual native ecology, no native land mammals apart from seals and bats. Thats why you see a lot of birds and insects taking over niches that would normally be taken by mammals. So you have flightless birds, huge 'crickets' (Weta), Tuatara that look like a lizard, but aren't actually related, Alpine and flightless parrots, carnivorous snails that eat earth worms. Because no humans arrived in NZ untill about 800 years ago there is still a record of the original animals. Many were wiped out after the original polynesian migration, and then more when the Europeans arrived. Because the native wildlife evolved with few predators they took a huge hit from rats, stoats etc that people introduced. As for the sea.. yeah, there are sharks, whales , Orca etc. But thats just normal open ocean stuff Ian

This is my big fellow, a Sailfin. 8) And a belly shot. And my big Goldspot. Ian

You need to seperate them as soon as you can tell the sexes apart. The females can breed at a very young age, they may only have 5 or so fry, but they can do that several times before they run out of sperm. So if you do want to selectively breed then you need virgin females. Keeping the females unmated will let them grow faster too. Ian

More progress has been made, but not finished yet. :oops: The wooden panels above the tanks are removable, just held in place with magnets. That is enough to give access to the lower tank. The upper shelf and tank are set back as well to give a bit more space. It's a bit awkward to work on the lower tank, but I've already built a couple of double stands so I know how much space I need. Ian

I agree a SLR with a couple of good lenses will give the best results, but dont discount the top range 'point and shoots'. No they wont give you as good picture as a $2,000 SLR with a couple of extra lenses. But you are only out $500 for a good Sony or Panasonic. I have a Sony H7 My Crayfish My Pleco Decent pics - $1500 left in your pocket. :-? It's your call. But the extra cash buys a lot of aquarium gear. And the Sony I have now has a 35-420mm equalivant zoom. One camera and lens to do everything. It's not as good as a modern SLR, but I bet it will do 99% of the shots almost as well. Ian

They are pretty resiliant to temperature, if the tank stays over about 19C they should make it. Depends how warm your room is really. If the tank has a light, leaving that on longer may be enough. At cold temps they will grow a lot slower, but as long as it's not too cold they can actually live longer. Ian

If you transfer some cycled media into the new filter then the tank will have some level of cycle right away. Enough to support one momma fish or a batch of fry anyway. Ian

I dont do water changes that big, but if you do need to, you can add the water conditioner directly to the tank before you top it up. As for the heavy metal thing... It's drinking water.. if you have any significant level of heavy metals in your drinking water you have bigger problems than your fish getting sick :-? Ian

The Bristlenose plecos are probably the next easiest after livebearers. You just need a pair, a suitable tank, and let them do their thing. Ian

Great you found a good spot. Small rocky streams like that, or even smaller seem to be ideal. I'm sure they live in the bigger streams too, but there is no way to catch them in a 6ft deep pool. My stream is probably only 1/4 of that size, but still has a 3ft eel living in it, some Koura, and I guess I should take a torch down there and see what else comes out at night. 8) Ian

Test assembly for the uprights. Screwed and glued together. The first two uprights and shelves, so it's coming together. I have now got the 4 upright sections built, and the shelves have been edge and sanded. Now all the visible parts need to be made :roll: Doors, light hoods etc, and a few braces to hold the whole thing together. I think it's going to have to be assembled in place though :roll: Ian

This is my 200l tank, it's a bit dark and minimalist, but the plecos seem to like it Ian

Walked into the bedroom this afternoon, whats that noise? Why are my feet wet?... Oh Oh. 120l hex tank had split a seam and sprayed 1/2 it's contents over the room, the bed, the laundry basket. The heater and filters were all out of the water, that was the noise. Luckily the room has wooden floors, so cleanup wasn't so bad. Anyway, no fish losses, got them all moved to other tanks, which are now even more overcrowded :-? Now I REALLY need to get the new tanks set up :roll: Ian

That sort of fluctuation isn't a problem, and it's a limitation of a heater that has the thermostat in the same tube. Dont worry about it, even in the tropics the water temp of a small stream or pond will vary a few degrees between day and night. It's a gradual change, and as long as it doesn't go outside the fishes temp range they can handle it. Ian