coelacanth

my 'banded eel' likes to dig under the sand sometimes with just his head sticking out, but my fire eel (in a separate sand-bottomed tank) prefers to live in the gaps between plastic pipes that are in there for catfish and never burrows. When cleaning I just vaccuum over the top of the sand to pick up detritus, and give the sand a stir from time to time at the same time. Gravel is a LOT easier to look after, but the sand looks way better, and is good for things like Geophagus, horse-faced loaches, Corydoras, etc. When I first put sand in two tanks heavy algal mats grew all over the substrate, and came back as fast as it was removed. Emerald cats (Corys would do the same job) got it under control in one tank with their constant foraging through the sand, and a Geophagus took care of the second sand tank quite nicely. No algae on the sand anymore in either tank.

yeah, they can be sexed in a rough-and-ready way by how broad they are across the fore-body (males being broader), but you need a lot of experience to do it well (that is, have had lots of bubby bristlenoses go through your tanks). Hard to do otherwise, especially if you've only got one Best way is just wait till it grows bigger and see whether it grows bristles or not.

with regards to Synodontis, I've got a vermiculated, two decorated and a zambezensis/membranaceus, all in the same tank, and they don't show any sort of teritorial behaviours. They may be VERY mildly defensive of their respective hidey-holes but not overly-so. Maybe mine are just well-behaved though lol.

fair enough

I had a Chinese algae-eater in a coldwater tank for ages with inanga, bullies and freshwater crayfish. He was fine. Now he's in a tropical tank though. The only things I've had troubles with him chasing were black ghost knifefish and a horseface loach. Everything else he's been in with he totally ignores. But, yes, they do have a reputation for being aggressive...

I would say most people would remove the eggs to another bare tank for hatching. Especially if it was a community tank the eggs were laid in :-)

I've wondered about them too. Are they are colour-bred variety of red-spots or a seperate species? They are cheap so i assume they are bred commercially in Asia.

I've seen both in Chch shops, the brown ghosts not for several years but the greens last year I think (sometimes they also label them as "glass knives" I believe)

dude I know says he just bought a senegal from Redwood in Chch for $45

thanks, I was wondering about that myself, but I couldn't really find any good pictures of zambesensis to know one way or the other

how many people in this trip? Organism might end up overflowing out the door with fishthusiasts. :lol:

I bred them in a 4ft tank, and the same pair also in one side of a divided-in-half 3ft. Most books recommend using the drop-in-water-temperature trick to induce them to breed but this was only successful some of the time with me. But when kept at 30 degrees they just bred easily all the time no problem. I used a plastic lid off a steam pudding bowl container for them to build their nest under (with a wire attached and clamped to the side so they didn't push the lid all over the tank). The nest isn't all that big. The 4ft was a community tank of medium-sized fish (angels and such), and the male hoplo was fine. He just sat on a sword leaf under the nest or simply hovered in the water under it, and only defended the area immediately around it. The bubbles they blow to create the nest contain chemicals that aid in the development of the eggs, and the male continually adds new ones. If in a community tank and you need to remove the nest to its own tank to keep the fry safe (the bubbles are 'sticky' and cling to the lid) you need to time it so the eggs are just about to hatch, otherwise they die very quickly. This takes some experience (it can be judged by the colour of the eggs). I tried using a transparent lid so that i could see the eggs without lifting the nest but the hoplos wouldn't use it. The fry are very easy to rear on brine shrimp etc.

a handy place for lunch near Animates Papanui is the food court at the mall round the corner. I love the Hungry Wok there. As for buying fish, Redwood has albino bichirs at the moment, but these may be gone by then. I haven't seen them myself but I'm told they're senegalensis and cost $45 (don't rely on that though!)

they may eat some algae but their main diet is invertebrates. If you try maintaining them just on algae or spirulina or whatever they won't last long.

I used to have them in a tank about 18 degrees and they did fine. They come from mountain steams so like lots of water movement. Some species have been bred in unheated tanks overseas, but its not easy (more random than anything, I believe). They look a bit like plecs but actually feed on invertebrates, so things like bloodworms, flake etc. They feel really wierd too, because they look like they should be hard or rough like plecs but they're all soft and squishy. Awesome wee fishies.

I'm sure the butterflies would love the mountain minnows :-)

they should be fine with baby bristles. They really only go for free-swimming fish or things on the surface (insects and such)

bristlenose pair + various young albino bristlenose x1 GBA x4 decorated synodontis x2 vermiculated synodontis x1 Synodontis zambezensis x1 dwarf marbled cats (Microglanis) x6 chocolate-stripe cats x3 flag-tailed cats x2 emerald cats x6 also, seeing everyone else is putting loaches and such on: clown loach x7 skunk loach x7 horse-faced loach x2 bumblebee garra x1 algae-eater x1 and various other bits and pieces a few years ago I went over to England so had to sell all the fish I had at that time :-( but back then I had breeding lots of Panaque maccus, Sturisoma festivum, a couple of Otocinclus spp, zebra plecs (Hypancistrus), bulldog plecs (Chaetostoma sp).

there are many species of mudskippers and they have different requirements. Some species are the 'typical' ones that spend lots of time out of the water, while others are found up in rivermouths. These latter ones can live for periods in freshwater (but not permanently) but are also largely aquatic, rarely coming out of the water. The only mudskippers I've seen in Chch shops were the mainly-aquatic ones, which are really more like regular gobies than the mudskippers you probably have in mind.

I've had a few over the years. Dead easy to care for. Just make sure you don't keep them with little fish -- butterflyfish have EXTREMELY large mouths and although normally at the surface do sometimes cruise around lower down to pick off tetras etc. Its best to feed them on live or recently-dead food (flies, moths etc); if using spiders, pop them in the freezer for a bit first to kill them so they don't bite back! Butterflyfish make good disposal units for any white-tails you find lurking around the house! They're easy to sex, not so easy to breed. They are fantastic fish.