Rob

10mm glass for an about average 4 foot tank seems a bit extreme. I haven't checked on Warrens glass thickness calculator but my 4 foot tank (which is only a couple of cm short of 50cm) appears to be made of of 6mm glass with no problems, perhaps 8mm could be called for but 10mm?

Females seem to have been only a minority of the shipment, it wasn't a single sex shipment, just low on females. Of the 10-15 specimens I've seen locally only 1 or 2 were females (I now have 1 or 2 females)

Another live food you may want to consider for larger fish is mealworms. Can be cultured easily in icecream containers. Medium is just bran flakes with them getting fed slices of apple. So far I haven't had any problems and they seem to be reasonably prolific (if I remember to feed them regularly) - I've got multiple icecream containers so that if something does go wrong with a culture I still have reserves.

I know that crown tails (probably poor quality) have come into NZ earlier this year something like $45 each. There is someone in Rotorua who's breeding double tails.

There a few hobbyist breeders in the waikato club, no one really specialises though. Currently I'm growing on whiptails, brazilian butterfly plecos, Norman's lampeyes, Agassizi dwarf cichlids, sheephead acaras and the checkerboard cichlids spawned a couple of days ago.

Just so people don't think I'm slacking off - FancyFins has been in contact with me via email.

The breeding pages have not been forgotten (though you could be forgiven for thinking they had). I'll have to remind Cees about the ftp site so I can upload the pages. As for the question about breeding tropical seahorses in the North Island - Greg at Brookfield pet centre (Tauranga) has been breeding the Kuda (sp?) seahorses.

Even has recipes for when you have an over supply of them

Have a look here, should answer most of your questions Microworms

The fish listed are the ones currently available from wholesalers, Fee is planning on indicating which ones she actually has in stock. I think it's great that Fee is including all that is available - as unless our local is actually stocking it we're often not aware of what's currently out there. Also she's still getting all of the fish on there - didn't help that the server was down when she wanted to get it sorted.

As has been mentioned plants require a number of things to grow. The most common reason I've come across for poor plant growth is insufficient light. As Ira's mentioned the lights should ideally be on 12-14 hours a day. There are also different rules of thumb about how many watts of light per litre. I'm inclined to generalise and say for a 'normal' depth tank you'd want two flourescent tubes (I suspect people will comment on this and say that you should have more - but from my own tanks having 2 tubes gives me adequate plant growth - ie enough that I can hock off cuttings every now and then but not need a machette). Also light quality from fluorescent tubes deteriorates with time, so the tube should be replaced every 6-12 months. Yuo mention that it's second hand so it's possible the tube hasn't been replaced in years. Replacing tubes can get expensive if you've got a number of tanks and are getting the 'proper' tubes from aquarium shops. One of our club meetings discussed this and the people who are into growing aquatic plants recommended that you just go to an electrical supply house (eg MasterTrade, Ideal Electrical etc) and get the appropriate length #86 tubes. The 86 has to do with the light spectrum and colour rendering produced by the tube. Apparently this code is the best one for plant growth (Warren probably has a better idea) - though I've only ever managed to find 86.5 and ahve had no problems so far. Just an indication of price - I recently replace two 5' tubes and two 4' tubes - cost be $40 total. Once you've got the lighting sorted out then you can start worrying about fertiliser, CO2 etc. I'd personally wait a while after sorting the ligths to see what response you've got from that change. Whats laterite? - Laterite is an iron rich clay that people will often have beneath a layer of gravel. The reason is that one of the more common deficiencies in aquarium plants is iron.

Now that I've seen and got more information about these scarlet badis I realise that I've put people wrong about naming. For regular red badis my previous naming would be correct. However the little badis available at the moment don't appear to be the regular ones. The wholesaler lists them as Badis bengalenis/Dario dario. Of these two names Dario dario is valid. This type of badis stay significantly smaller than the other two types of badis we have seen in NZ - with females being sexually mature from 10 mm (yes millimeters) with a max size of about 15mm and males getting up to about 20-25 mm. I assume the breeding regime is still similar to other types of badis but providing suitably sized food may be an issue.

I'll have to encourage the current fish to breed some more so that I can afford the next lot. Had much better success with the whiptails this time - must be about 40 of the little buggers this time around. Only thing I can put the success down to this time is greater diligence on my part (hatching out brine shrimp every second day etc). The wallets still recovering from buying the new computer, next on the list is pay off the car.

Yeah the pictures of the Queen Arabesque and Peru Stripe plecos look good and they're of the type that doesn't get too large. Unfortunately the wallets a bit light already and as I'd want to buy either a pair (sexed) or a trio (unsexed)...

Hi Alan, The species name for red badis used to be Badis badis burmanicus, the current valid name is Badis ruber. Which saves me some problems as I wasn't sure of how I'm supposed to deal with subspecies (as far as breeding registrations are concerned). The breeding of them should be similar to the Badis badis that you have done previously (ie similar to dwarf cichlids, I know they're not dwarf cichlids but a member of the perch family but the breeding style is similar). Supposedly the red badis is more prone to TB than the blue badis. And as per most badis can be a bit on the picky side as far as feeding. Did Frans have many of them? I'd definitely like to get my paws on some of the offspring.

Initial dream would be space to have more tanks. As for what tanks I would like (other than more, more, more...) would be a 6' reef tank (that would definitely have a pair of Mandarin fish) and a 6' native tank - Charles' description of a lowland Puriri forest tank really struck a chord with me (a kokopu or three, school of inanga, bullies lurking on/under rocks, perhaps some freshwater shrimp and crayfish, don't know if the biolumeniscent freshwater limpets would last though).

I suspect that the $8 ancistrus aren't the matto grosso or snowflake types of ancistrus (these two type are the expensive types of ancistrus that I'm aware of currently being available in NZ).

Thanks for the link Chris. Now I'll have to rumage through assorted books to try and figure out what species the black worms in NZ are. From the description it's a little uncertain if they're CBW or not (mainly the quoted length causes problems, as the black worms I've come across were longer than 1 inch, but then following subsequent links from Simply Discus they say 1-2 inches which is better). In following subsequent links there was also a method to culture them - which seems pretty easy.

I haven't observed any obvious sexual differences in them, I had a couple of them show what I would call pre-spawning behaviour once and couldn't see much difference between them.

The scientific name for it is Hara hara. Comes from asia (mainly India), has an adult size of about 7cm (according to the book but the largest I've come across are only about 5cm) and yes they definitely go crazy over bloodworms and white worms. There is no information about breeding them. I've got 5 of them and haven't witnessed any social interaction between them - but may be because it occurs after the lights are out (like alot of other social interactions :lol: ).

Yeah buying livefood (other than as a culture) is pretty limited. My LFS sells live daphnia pretty well year round. Sometimes the daphnia supplier will send along some black worms. That's why I was wanting to know what Californian Black Worms are, as I know there are black worms in NZ (same sort of length as tubifex, but thicker and darker coloured) - I'm just not sure if that's what CBW are though.

You'll have to forgive my ignorance but are these similar to tubifex worms but thicker and darker?

You say the discus are 1/3 to 1/2 size and regularly fed blood worms, they should be fine going 4 days without feeding. Also when you come back don't go straight back into the bloodworm routine. Try them on flake or something else - see if you can ween them from their expensive habit. Also they may benefit from a varied diet.

I know from when I kept them that sexing them can be a little difficult. Often for gouramis you hear about pointed vs rounded dorsal fins, this is difficult with chocolates as when their dorsals are down they all look pointed, it's only when they flare their dorsal that you can get a decent look and then it's still difficult. The most reliable way IMO is to look for colour on the caudal (tail) fin. Usually males will have the top and bottom edges with some colour (red, brown, gold). In females the tail is usually colourless. It still all a bit subjective though - can be difficult with young/small or stressed specimens. Also as you've found out they need plenty of cover and not too small a tank as while they're peaceful towards other fish they can be nasty toward each other. When I had mine they were in a heavily planted 3' tank and they went fine, some were even spawning (but they never kept the eggs long enough - she'd swallow them after only 3-4 days). Then I had an unforunate experience with an algaecide - it killed all the ambulia in the tank, which ment pretty well all the cover disappeared, then the chocolates proceeded to kill each other.

I know that riccia will grow in tropical tanks - hence my suspicion that the change in temperatures was just too much for it. Perhaps over a couple of days get it use to a tropical temp ie from pond to container in cool part of house, to warm part of house, to tank