tHEcONCH

They are on special now for about $30.00

Almost - another few days and it will be undetectable

There already is one - its called the Christchurch City Council. They have that huge orange barge trawling it out year round.

That doesn't mean they require a 100% guarantee - it means a balanced decision based upon the relevant factors, including other potential diseases being carried. The importation of some sorts of fish presents a demonstrably low risk, whereas (in the eyes of ERMA at least) the risks associated with some parrots is either too high, or there isn't enough information (or perhaps someone willing to invest the time and money to present it) to make a decision.

My big old female will only eat turtle treats, brine shrimp (go figure) or live house and crane flies. Anything else is below her standards :lol:

Should be fine, but be aware that your Oscars might refuse to eat anything else if they really like them.

Agreed - so I'm find with the powers that be banning their importation even though they'd look cool in my tanks.

No it doesn't.

Yep, which is why I'm happy to go without freshwater Stringrays, marine Lionfish, etc. I'd love to have them, but not at any cost.

The point is that they didn't know the danger at the time, released them, then regretted it. They made the best decision they could given the information they had at the time, but it was still the wrong decision in retrospect. Being unaware of a danger doesn't make it any less dangerous.

No it doesn't. What it means is that we shouldn't add to the damage already done, i.e. we should learn from our ancestors mistakes. Anyway, the only way we will settle this is with an arm wrestle. Who's keen?

Yep, I'd recommend you try Organism for a start - he has a good variety of good quality truely aquatic plants (unlike some other shops that sell terrestrial plants that will eventually rot away - although their black mondo grass is actually cheaper than the garden centre if you are, in fact, looking for terrestrial plants, however I digress...), many of which are propogated by people on this forum because they are suitable for aquarium use.

There are, however, plenty of places around Christchurch where you can find densa (no, I'm not telling you where), but check out Organism for what is presumably anachris.

I think you've got the wrong end of the stick here - there is a process under the law that allows new organisms to be considered, if you are willing to pay considerable amounts of money to jump through the appropriate hoops - but doesn't mean automatic approval, and if an animal is declined under that law, that's that.

Just about every fish shop on the planet (including Organism). AKA 'Oxygen weed'

Here's a fact - Its against the law.

Agreed. Aussie is only 3 hours and $500 bucks away.

Anubias

Ouch baby!

Some fish change colour / pattern depending upon their surroundings and how they feel (the bars on Discus being the most obvious example).

Get his bollocks chopped off (by a Vet)

Give us a pic if you can, but are you sure it isn't just its natural colouration? Depending upon what species you have, it is quite natural to have some brown colouration.

Yarr... can you split it off?

I'm not sure where your going with that BK, but I don't think its as simple as that. Governments change every three years, but their advisors don't. Successive governments get advice from MAF, or Treasury, or whomever - that's why some things take far longer to change than a government (thankfully). Personally, I'm in favour of erring on the side of caution and I'm OK with not having access to every single critter on the planet. The point I'm trying to make is that there is already a lot of cool stuff here - we just overlook it in favour of what is considered 'exotic', precisely because they aren't readily available. If they were, I suspect they'd lose a lot of desirability anyway.

Don't apologise - your right on the mark. Ever seem a bunch of European nature lovers ooing and arghing over our 'amazing' plants? Its all relative - perhaps we just get a bit blind to our very cool homegrown stuff in our own back yard.