Rob

Hi there Snaily - are you interested in cold water snails or tropical snails? I keep a small 'cash crop' of brown apple snails (ampularia snails) which I hock off to one of the local shops for $1 each. The breeding of these snails is a little different. For a start they're not hermaphrodites, they are male or female - this means that just having 2 of them is no guarantee of breeding success. The second difference is that they lay their eggs out of the water. This makes population control easy as you can remove the egg cluster before the hatch. After an incubation and development period the material holding the eggs together starts to disintergrate and the baby snails fall back into the tank.

My understanding of the Gold arrowana situation is that they would be ordered in if someone put money up front for them (ie pay money, then wholesaler would order them from overseas, 6 weeks quarantine - loses in quarantine would be your risk).

I set up my worm culture using some commercial compost (ie a bag of it from the Warehouse), feed food scraps and newspaper - they supposedly need a mix of nitrogen containing and carbon containing foods. Also I'll occasionally sprinkle over some garden lime - to sweeten (ie increase the pH) of the mix. Similar to Warren, I collected earthworms. Yes it does seem that fish are less partial to the tiger worms, the few that have found their way into my culture still get eaten though.

Well, Warrens already mentioned about what malachite green is for. Melafix is a tea tree extract used for ulcers, open wounds, damaged fins and fin rot. It's sort of like Detol for fish.

As far as my fishy pharmaceticals are concerned I have white spot cure, formalin, malchite green and melafix. Most of these are from the 'bad old days' - if I was only going to have one on hand now, I'd have to say that I'd keep the white spot cure - the tank looks so pretty that nice blue colour. I don't have regular out breaks of white spot, but recently had an out break when I got some new fish. I've also used Curex (for internal worms) - have found that it works, though not as well as I would have liked - found to get the best results I had to do a follow up treatment (ie another 10 day course of doses) The most recent ANGFA (Australian and New Guinea Fishes Association) news bulletin had about how to use a particular animal drench with very good success to treat internal worms. I'll have to see if it is one of the ones my Dad (a farmer) keeps in stock.

I mainly feed earth worms to the tank with catfish and rainbows in it. I normally cut them into roughly bite sized pieces using a pair of sissors. I just know Caryl got an image of Rob very carefully cutting individual worms up into premeasured pieces - no that's not the way I do it - its "writhing mass in the bottom of the bowl hacked to pieces with sissors". Once they're bite size more of the fish eat them and they're a bit slower so don't disappear into the gravel so quickly On occasion I put whole worms in, mainly to see just how greedy the rainbows are.

I've bred a tetra (yes that's right a whole one type of tetra ) - the glass blood fin tetra (Prionobrama friligera) the fry were really cool as they were colourless but with red 'demon' eyes. I want to try and breed all the types of fish I have in my tanks - it's just a lack of breeding/grow tanks that keeps me in check. I'm hoping you can offer some advice about the tetras I have (and hence want to breed): The types I have are: Black Phantom tetras (Megalamphodus magalopterus though now I think it's valid scientific name is Hyphessobrycon megalopterus), Cochu blue tetras (Boehlkea fredcochui) and yellow congo tetras (Alestopetersius caudalis). Do you have any experience breeding these? Also generally are all tetra eggs extremely light sensitive (keep hearing about neons and cardinals requiring a totally dark tank during egg development). Also do you have experience breeding hatchet fish - by books mention that they are easy to breed providing the correct conditioning food is available (ie insects on the surface) - I haven't got around to ordering my wingless fruitfly culture yet (it's on the 'to-do' list). I didn't mean this to turn into an interigate Virgil session but it seems to have turned into one any way. While I remember - welcome to the NZ fishroom.

If the tank is still establishing then it's possible that the bacteria haven't got up to speed yet. From memory there are two general types of bacteria responsible for the nitrogen cycle in freshwater tanks: nitrosommanas (sp?) and nitrobacter. One is responsible for converting ammonia/ammonium, NH3/NH4(+), to nitrite, NO2(-). Then the second type convert nitrite to nitrate, NO3(-). During the cycling of a tank you'd expect ammonia to reach a peak and fall away, while the ammonia is falling away the nitrite will reach a peak and then fall away and finally while the nitrite is falling away the nitrate level will build up (and keep rising unless it is removed by water changes). The reason for the peaks is that initially there are not enough bacteria to process the chemicals, then as the bacteria populations grow they are better able to process the amount of chemicals produced. Since nitrite is the problem I would guess that you've hit that peak in the cycling scheme and the bacteria haven't had time to multiply to deal with it. I would continue with the water changes to make sure the nitrite level doesn't get too high, but don't go to extremes - you need to have some nitrite present to encourage the growth of the nitrobacters (convert nitrite to nitrate). Hope this helps

They do seem to appreciate the company of their own kind, aften 'frolicking' around the tank (not sure if I would go as far as say they school). So if you have the space, yes get more.

Hopefully Warren will chance across this thread and reply as he is familiar with what you're getting at - tired of having to keep yeast bottles going etc and want a less labour intensive/more stable way of getting CO2 into the tank. From discussions with the 'Plant' people in our local club (there's 2 of them that I consider plant people) - the way to go is to hire one of those industrial CO2 cylinders (not necessarily one of those huge mommas that you'd have to use as a coat rack - there are more appropriate sizes), fit it with an appropiate regulator and fit it to some sort of bubble device in the tank. I don't use CO2 myself but I understand that there is a relationship between hardness of water, CO2 content and pH (you're probably more familiar with this than I as you've already been CO2'ing) that you need to be aware of to avoid the pH bottoming out. The local plant people don't like the high price of the 'professional' aquarium CO2 systems that you can buy and make the comment that you end up having to get the tiny cylinder filled up more oftne than they would like. From my standpoint (based on shaky knowledge of CO2 systems) important considerations (other than cylinder size) would be a suitable regulator so you can get the fine control required and what grade of CO2 (I assume they have different grades) - I'd tend to steer away from industrial grade and opt for food grade. If Warren for some strange reason doesn't come across your post and you're wanting more specifics give him an email - he's usually happy to discuss the requirements for growing aquatic plants.

Personally I'd remove one of the males (either the least interested one or the more poorly coloured one) when it looks like they're gearing up to spawn, also make sure that there is plenty of cover in the tank that the female can hide in if she's not in the mood. If you keep both males in the tank you may run the risk of the males bashing each other up competing for the female or/ the female not being able to escape the attentions of 2 amorous males.

Hi there and welcome Seahorse. The scientific name for the Leopard fish is Phalloceros caudimaculatus, another common name that is sometimes used for them is Spotted caudo. As for the stocking level it varies. Often the surface area is more important than the volume of the tank (so you get rules of thumb of so many inches of fish per square inch surface area), but then things start getting confused because the presence of aeration and filtration change the rules. I agree with your 'if it ain't broken...' comment - if you're not having problems with water quality or disease then the stocking level is OK. Just beware of those convict fry though, small fish growing larger are going to put more pressure on the system.

I haven't come across live tubifex worms for sale in NZ. The local shop sometimes gets them in their orders as a present from the fish wholesaler - these then seem to get given as presents to people who have, what I call, 'Preferred Customer' status. I usually (though this isn't that regularly) collect my own - the best time was when one of the drains on my parents farm had reduced to a single pool, there were tenis ball sized clumps of tubifex just wrapped around the plant stems (so no mud with them at all) - ended collecting a 2L container of them that was almost 100% worms. After rinsing I fed some out life and then froze the rest in icecube trays (I have a seperate set of ice cube trays for fish stuff only).

OK Warren - I've posted an article on Wingless fruitfly to the topics section. I will attempt to write articles about other types as I have time and gain experience. Note that Cees reviews the articles before their being displayed so there may be a lag before the article is available.

Just a note that cheap doesn't necessarily mean crap - sort of what Warren said about buying in bulk. I usually get a bag of bulk flake from the local fish shop, I started getting it because per unit weight it was cheap, but I was concerned about the quality, but on asking I found out it's Wardley (reputable brand) food that the shop buys in in bulk and repackages. I don't feed directly from the bulk bag, I fill up a container and feed from that (each time you open the bulk bag it's going to absorb some of the moisture from the atmosphere and deteriorate - so pays not to open it more than neccessary).

I'm curious as to what live foods other people feed to their fish. And do you culture your own life food. Because I'm a science geek and always had a facination with creepy crawlies I don't mind pottering around with culturing and collecting live foods. The live foods I culture at the moment are earthworms, whiteworms (though it's not going too well at the moment), grindal worms (mini-white worms, good for feeding to medium sized fry), microworms (for feeding to small fry), confused flour beetles (good for those surface feeders - in my case mainly hatchet fish), daphnia (used for conditioning breeders) and brine shrimp (newly hatched for feeding fry and also adults as a treat/conditioning food). I'm also considering getting wingless fruitfly, waxworms and mealworms. I've kept the fruitfly before but neglected them and they died out. Since my parents and sister live on farms I've also been known to go 'hunting' for fish food. This is usually waterboatmen/backswimmers, tubifex worms and bloodworms (if I can find them). The rainbowfish really like the waterboatmen and it's fun to watch, the waterboatmen swim alot faster than daphnia so there's more chasing of prey. You need to be careful with tubifex worms - make sure that they are really clean before feeding them. Other bits and pieces that I feed my fish are aphids (usually I carefully cut off the Puha stalk/rose stem and then shake it into the tank), caterpillars (usually just cabbage white or lupa types) and snails (some of my tanks have quite high populations of malaysian trumpet snails - these are too hard for most fish to eat but after I've 'tenderised' them with a rock it's no longer any problem). They also get weekly feedings of daphnia (at my LFS you can buy a litre of daphnia for $3 - I could never culture enough to feed it to the starving multitudes at this rate). My impression (based on other local club members) is that I'm a bit extreme in my growing/collecting of live foods - the fish don't seem to complain though.

Often what are sold as cold water guppies are wild type guppies and not really cold water at all. Tepid water would be better - so would probably go OK in an unheated tank inside but not too hot in an outside pond during winter. Male wild type guppies don't usually have much colour in their tails but should ahve some colouring in their bodies. If you want a legal cold water(ish?) livebearer (Mosquito fish are illegal to possess - you can get fined for having live mosquito fish in your possession - that's what the DoC worker told our club meeting anyway) then about your only option is Leopard fish (also called spotted caudos - Phalloceros caudimaculatus?). Leopard fish look very similar to mosquito fish but have irregular black spots over them.

Can't comment on Manawatu water, but here in Hamilton I'm having no problems with the tap water. Out of the tap it is softish (about 7dGH) but alkaline 7.2'ish from memory - so no significant buffering preventing my getting it acidic. I'm a chemistry geek so I tinker with the water during water changes, have got a set routine now. Water for the discus and dwarf tanks get a few drops of sulphuric acid to get the tap water to neutral, water for the livebearer tanks gets some rock salt and some baking soda to boost the pH up a bit. All of the tap water gets treated with a dechlorinator. I also collect and store rainwater for when I need really soft and acidic water for breeding attempts.

I was wondering if anyone has first hand experience with cultering wax worms/moths. These are available here in NZ through a mailorder biosupplies place. My questions are: How easy are they to culture. How quickly do they munch through the lump of bees wax. Is just a lump of melted down bees wax OK or do they need honey comb. Are they worth the effort.

I had 4, they just slowly dissappeared over the course of 9 months. At the time I wasn't having much luck keeping regular otos alive either - but know, with more heavily planted tanks and feeding a bit of courgette every know and then I'm keeping otos alive quite well (slowly built up to 6 of them which I've had for about a year now with no losses). This is why I'm keen to get some gold spot otos (as I think they're a cool little fish). As for the breeder of the ones available down in Wellington - yes that would be Derek. He's had some success breeding catfish and (I believe) built a rapport with one of the animates staff members (who I think has now left). Just a general comment about fish shops: building up a rapport with one of the staff members can really help with getting access to more odd ball fish (which I tend to favour). You can usually do this with the smaller owner/operator stores, with larger stores (possibly with a high staff turnover) it becomes more difficult.

I'd be inclined to see what develops - the fish will let you know when/if they're inclined to breed. Remember that they're open spawners rather than cave spawners so a few flat rocks around the place (referably with some nearby cover) may encourage them (along with correct water conditions, good food, a nice bottle of wine, soft lighting :lol: )

One consideration may be how temperature tolerant are our natives (I'm not sure). Is a warmer water temperature during summer going to cause problems. (You may want to review the discussion going on in the Saltwater Section under the topic of Cold Saltwater).

Hi there Eden, first off the disclaimer: I don't keep marine fish/inverts. One product you may want to investigate is Melafix. It is a tea-tree extract based remedy used to prevent infection of wounds and ulcers and speed up healing. It says that it is suitable for freshwater and marine tanks. I'm not sure about using it on inverts. If you do find that it's suitable for inverts you may want to buy the pond strength stuff (only slightly more expensive but 10 times as strong - so you don't have to use bottles of it to treat your tank).

So far the only people who would know here that are also attending conference are myself and Caryl - I'm sure we could keep it a secret - we wont tell if you wont

Hey Bruce, while you're there visiting try and wangle a visit as part of the FNZAS conference mystery bus tour in June.