Rob

The thickness of filter wool that I use with the QuickFilters is enough that when the wool is dry and uncompacted (ie not tightly wrapped around the inner stem) it just touches the outer cage. Hope this was the info you were after John. The only annoying thing I found for the QuickFilters is that when I bought a replacement filter cage it didn't come with the internal stem, so I had to jury-rig something instead. Rob

Just leave them there Bruce. Providing there is adequate humidity (as provided by the standard cover on the tank (or any where in your fishroom from memory)) they should hatch out fine. After an incubation time the material the eggs/baby snails are contained in will start to disintergrate and the baby snails will fall back into the tank. From memory the incubation time is about a month - but don't quote me on that.

Warren's written a good article on glass thicknesses. see: http://www.fnzas.org.nz/glassthickness.0.html A brief look at the table of common tank sizes and required thicknesses leads one to belief that you're not going to be able to safetly make a tank of your desired dimensions out of 12mm - the depth of the tank is the main problem.

The NZ native seahorses Hippcampus adominalus (spelling?) are also being breed commercially in NZ (these are the type that Fee has available) they grow larger than the Kuda type. Also Kuda types are tropicals, adominalus prefer more temperate conditions.

Well, that will teach me for repeating stuff without the reference readily to hand - I've dug through books to get a couple of references for you Andrew - unfortunately they aren't reports of scientific investigation but comments in popular press aquarium books: from Live Foods for the Aquarium and Terrarium, Willy Jocher, TFH Publications, 1973, pg 11: "It would be quite wrong to feed fish on whiteworms alone; this leads to obesity, particularly in breeding animals." from Aquarium Atlas vol 1, Hans A. Baensch & Dr Rudiger Riehl, MERGUS, Paperback edition 1997, pg 881: "They [whiteworms] are rich, fatty and if given in excess will cause constipation and degeneration of the liver."

Waikato club hasn't received any info either, address to use is: 37A Carrington Ave, Hamilton Thanks, Rob

Just remember to only include them as part of a balanced diet. If you feed only white worms you'll get obese fish and there is a risk of their liver being damaged.

Kluyu, I did a rudamentary search for biosupply houses in the US that offer daphnia, here are links to two of them: http://www.livefoodcultures.com/ http://www.lfscultures.com/cultures.html I haven't collected daphnia 'in the wild' but my LFS gets them in each week so I just paid $3 for a litre and used it to seed a culture.

I would say that they are not A.agassizi - ignoring colour differences the fins are the wrong shape - Agassizi has a spade shaped tail, these blue faces have a rounded tail. As for how they get past MAF - as all Apistogramma species are allowed they may not have given a species name or just called them A. agassizi (who at MAF would be any the wiser?) I'm not aware of any Waikato member having bred the blue faces - but then I'm not the breeding coordinator so it may have slipped past me, and not all fish keepers in Hamilton are club members.

The way I've used laterite in the past is put a layer of it in the bottom of the empty tank, then a layer of gravel substrate over the top of that. Providing there are no fish that move excessive amounts of substrate around then there shouldn't be any problems.

We've got laterite here in the Waikato, I just dig it out of a road cutting on the road to Bridal Veil falls out in Raglan direction. Rob ps Andrew, you should ask Len Trigg about it - he was the one that looked at the soil maps and then told the club.

Hi Dennis, good to see that others have steered you away from chinese algae eaters. I'd recommend bristle noses (Ancistrus sp.) or/and black line flying foxes (also known as Siamese algae eaters). The blacklines are one of the few fish that will eat the black beard algae. I've kept a number of black line flying foxes in the same tank without any problems (an I know Warren has a whole squadron of them in is big tank) - they can be a bit boisterous but other than that no problems.

Rob still has them I need to set some more up and running so will also do some extras. May see about setting up other cultures (microworm, grindal worm, confused flour beetle and fruitfly) for the Napier auction. I'm giving waxworms a test run at the moment - fish like 'em, still too early to judge how easy they are to culture. In the articles section (not forums but the 'fnzas.org is here') I've got articles on microworms, grindal worms and wingless fruitfly.

You need to be sensible with waterboatmen. Only feed them to larger predatory fish (rainbows love them and it's great to watch). Yes, they probably would eat fish eggs given the chance, they'll also eat small fish given the chance (waterboatment and back swimmers being predators). I haven't had any problems - but then they don't live long in the tank I feed them to.

Like Caryl I have only recently realised that I haven't put anything into the welcome section as it didn't exist when I first joined up. So here goes (some of it may sound familiar as it was posted in one of the other forums ages ago, but I've updated some of the information). I feel compelled to preface this message with something along the lines of "Hi, my name's Rob and I'm a fish-a-holic" - I think I'm probably in good company here though, with like minded people. The obsession began for me when I was helping my sister shift (about 7 or 8 years ago). One of her flatmates had a small 18" tank crammed with guppies. I gave my sister (one of these competent DIY'ers, as opposed to my incompetent DIY'ing) some sheet glass that I had lying around and asked her to "Make me a fish tank for Christmas". Since then the number of tanks has grown, initially because there wasn't enough room in one tank for all the fish I wanted to keep and also one tank ment I was restricted to one set of water conditions. The second round of expansion was when I became more interested in breeding and raising fish (partly for the challenge, partly for monetary gain). Flatmates saying 'get more tanks Rob' didn't assist in trying to curb the addiction. I currently have 13 tanks, ranging in size from 4' long down to 10" long. There is also an attempt at a White Cloud breeding scheme in a series of plastic bins out on the veranda (which is a state of neglect at the moment, which I feel a bit guilty about) - no wonder I'm in no great hurry to shift any time soon. There are four, what I call, display tanks: 4' Catfish and Rainbow tank (has an assortment of catfish - synos, clown plecos, pictus cats, porthole cats and a couple of types of talking cats; the rainbows include Boesmani, Lacustris, Madagascan, Lake Tabera and a couple of others that I'm not 100% sure on the ID). 3' Discus tank (it has 2 discus in it so I call it the discus tank but there are other things in there too: a few tetras - Cochu blue, Black phantom, Rosy and yellow congo, Neon dwarf rainbows, Marbled hatchets, a pair of Golden eye dwarf cichlids, dwarf flag cichlids and a hodge-podge of cory's) 3' Dwarf tank (well, the tank itself isn't dwarf but the fish in there are all of smaller types, the largest fish in there are Honey gouramis and chocolate gouramis, there are also Dwarf rasboras, Emerald Eye rasboras, pygmy cory's, silver hatchets, indian hatchets, Hara hara cats and spotted scooters) 2.5' Livebearer tank (mainly guppies, with some Berlin swordtails, hawaiian variatus platys, blue maculatus platys - I don't generally like Orange or bright red fish so hence none of the common sword tail or platy types make it into the tank; there are also some Celebes rainbows and Caudimaculatus cory's in that tank as well). As for the breeding side of things, I like to try and breed the fish that I like to have in my display tanks, yes a feel a sense of achievment when I say that I've officially breed 19 different species, but I'm not going to run out and buy a pair of convict cichlids just to get another breeding point - there are still far too many fish already swimming around in my tanks that I want to breed. At the moment I have 4 tanks that I am trying to breed fish in, one has a pair of twig cats (a recent purchase), with some female Boesmani rainbows conditioning in the same tank. Another breeding tank has a group of Trilineatus cory's (usually sold as Julii corys) I'm trying to encourage to do their thing. The third breeding tank has a pair of Furcatus rainbows (they went straigth into the breeding tank after buying them as I've had some bad luck with them before)and finally a tank with three Brazilian butterfly plecos and a pair of clown plecos. For those who have been keeping track of the number of tanks, the total is only up to eight so far what about the other 5 to take me up to my total of 13? Two are permanently used for growing on the fry from the live bearer display tank and also breeding and raising ancistrus (since the livebearers don't bother the ancistrus and vice-versa), one partitioned tank that is currently being used to grow own dwarf flag cichlid and nannacara fry, one small tank is a species tank for a threesome of dwarf puffers (think I've got an ID for them - if I'm right they only grow to 1" long), and finally an old battery jar (about 1' cube) used for growing aponogeton seedlings and growing on some whiptail pleco fry. I'm keen on growing aquatic plants providing it doesn't require too much effort on my part - so three of the four display tanks have either laterite or potting mix/commercial compost below the gravel substrate, I haven't gone to the expense/effort of setting up a CO2 system, yes I do use liquid fertiliser but not as often as I really should, occasionally fertiliser tabs are inserted near the roots of some the sword plants (mainly when it looks like they're slowing down a bit). I haven't gone overboard with lighting (mainly because I don't want the powerbill to be too high) just your standard fluoros, twin tube fittings for 3 of the 4 display tanks (Livebearers only have a single, but the crypts are doing well since they don't require too high a light level). Overall I'm happy with how most of the display tanks look (plantwise), look reasonably lush, I am making some money by selling plant bits and pieces but am not having to trim back the triphids on a 3 daily basis. Still have a battle with black algae in one tank but hopefully a combination of removing the worst affected leaves and more siamese algae eaters will get it under control. I am also keen on raising live food for my fish, I keep cultures of: microworms, grindal worms, white worms, earth worms, confused flour beetles, daphnia, wingless fruitfly and brine shrimp (this is not just hatching the eggs, but growing them on to adulthood). If recently started culturing wax moths and meal worms - they're still in the getting up to speed phase (can't feed these out yet as there haven't been any adults yet to start the cycle). I also occasionally collect live food for the fish: mainly aphids, water boatmen and fresh water shrimp, occasionally tubifex and blood worms. I also enjoy flicking through aquarium books and drooling at the possibilities (buying the three Baensch aquarium atlases was one of the best things I've done and I'd thoroughly recommend them to everyone). I also like a challenge such as trying to ID mystery fish - the most recent example is the Glowlight Danios that are currently available in NZ, with some internet sifting and an email to Sweden we now know they are Danio choprae. At the moment my living situation and employment future doesn't allow me to have more tanks. At some stage I would really like to set up a large (5-6') mini-reef system ($$$ ) and also just generally have larger display tanks - we shall have to wait and see what happens. Brief personal stuff about me? Currently 28, have recently finished my PhD (managed to survive the oral exam so it's all official, should graduate in October) and now employed (temporarily) at the University of Waikato and trying to sort out a post-doc. No the PhD wasn't in anything even remotely fish related. I'm involved with the local Waikato club, currently as secretary, treasurer and newsletter editor(mental note to self - must learn to say NO), I've also wound up on the FNZAS fish committee and also plant committee (though these don't involve as much of a time committment as they club duties).

There's one Auckland club member you breeds neons by the thousands to sell to the shops.

My understanding (based on discussions with ex-importer) is that in NZ you wont be able to buy live rock by the pound or kilo - it's not allowed. The way they get around this is to have an identifiable organism (ie anenome, leather coral etc) on the rock (then they don't need to sterilise the rest of the rock and hence you get a chunk of live rock). Only thing with this system is that it's way more expensive for you to get the amount of live rock you want.

Now that I'm home with the reference infront of me (rather than relying on the grey matter) yes you're correct John re: total, carbonate and permanent hardness. As for the how many ppm to a degree I did site the reference I used but as other people have pointed out my just saying ppm without refering to ppm of what is meaningless - is it ppm CO3(2-), some sort of CaCO3 equivalent, I don't know, the reference didn't say - could be the happy occurence where we're both right.

There are two types of hardness - general hardness (which is a measure of the amount of calcium and magnesium ions that are dissolved in the water). The second type of hardness is carbonate hardness, the amount of carbonate dissolved in the water (I think the differentiate between the two for a couple of reasons - carbonates influences pH, where Mg and Ca don't; also carbonate hardness can be removed by boiling the water). So GH = general hardness KH = carbonate hardness (only thing is the Germans thought up these scales and they spell carbonate with a K). You may also come across both of these with a 'D' infront of them, usually the d isn't an abbreviated degrees but rather an abbreviated deutsch (ie german). ps. baking soda is Sodium bicarbonate - hence it's effect on carbonate hardness (and also pH).

There are different units used to measure KH. ppm = parts per million is one of them, another is dKH. From memory 10ppm = 1 dKH. Just went and checked, 10ppm = 2.8 dKH (according to Aquarium online australia)

Hi there Dawn, welcome to the group. Yep it does seem that you've got the bug bad. I've been to Hollywoods a few times - my favourite fish shop up in Auckland. In my experience they give good service and good advice.

There are (at least) two general types of Aquaclear filters available (I'm going by what's in stock at the LFS - some of this is old stock though). The first is the hang on the back type, that have a reusable sponge and water is returned to the tank via a spill way as Caryl as said). The second type are the Aquaclear Quick Filters. These are basically a power head with a tubular filter attachment. When bought these are equipped with a filter sleeve that slides over a plastic slotted support tube. I've found both types to work well. I've given up on using the filter sleeves for the quick filters. I wanted to reuse them but they are hard to rinse out thoroughly - I now just wrap a layer of filter floss around the support stem, the filter cage keeps it all in place. I find the filter floss is easier to rinse out and I can buy it in bulk rather than have to fork out for the 'official' filter sleeves.

Actually the $19 is about right for the little Uarus currently available. Brian at the Goldfish Bowl (Hamilton) still has a few (I think) - around the $19-$20 mark (he knows what they are aswell).

:roll: White clouds = livebearers!? Easy to breed yes, but not livebearers.

My general method for spawning rainbows is have the female by herself conditioning on tasty treats for about a week, then add the male and let them do their thing for about a week and then remove both of them and then the fry should hatch over the next week to 10 days. Rainbows are continuous spawners, so lay a small amount of eggs each day for a number of days, also the eggs take a while hatch (so that if eggs are laid on the first day the adults are together they about ready to hatch on the day you're taking the adults out of the tank). I was using a couple of large indian ferns as my spawing mops (finely divided leaves and lots of roots) I found with the Madagascan rainbows that when I was conditioning a couple of females together that they were spawning with each other (obviously no fertile eggs though). The fry a small and need green water/infusoria as a first food (the fry of many rainbows are too small to take baby brineshrimp). One way of providing a sort of continuous supply of green water to the fry is to have a container of green water with syphon tied off to provide only a small continuous trip to the fry tank.