spent

Hi Julie, thanks for replying. Do you happen to have any fish for sale at the moment? I am mostly set up and stocked now though. I got guppies, swordtails, mollies, honey gourami, angels, kuhlis, sterbai, pygmy cories, hillstream loaches, bettas, gold bristlenoses and brichardi.

Hi all, I'm wanting to buy angels, dwarf gourami, corys (julii, panda, similis, habrosus, axelrodi), rams, kribs, apistos, brichardi, jewels, julidochromis, or similar dwarven varieties. Also floating plants for the gouramis to build their nest in. Is the Napier club still quite active? Think they used to have a designated evening to bring your stuff along and sell at the meeting?

BOP polytechnic needs some coldwater plants for their tanks. Is there anyone in the Tauranga/Mount area with offcuts we can have?

That's a shame Ira. I wouldn't have thought frogs would be too fussy about their water parameters, but did you cycle the tank before putting them in?

Jaguars are Nandopsis Managuensis. Nandopsis Dovii are seriously mean fish Chris. They need at least 600 litres for one fish. But they're not on MAF's approved species for import list anyway.

I don't think it'll make too much difference either way, just thought it might be a waste of power.

interesting. What species was that Ira?

Fish have colour vision, hence their bright markings. So red light will bother them no less than any other frequency of light. And don't quote me on this but I would assume fish to be geotropic (gravity dependant) rather than phototropic, as they maintain orientation with the aquarium lights switched off. More likely it's to do with the location of their swim bladder above their centre of gravity though.

I can't imagine they'd be too worried about circulation if they're swamp/lagoon dwellers though.

If they're found in the wild in NZ all year round, why would you need to heat the tank, other than to keep it humid if you had it set up as a terrarium?

It's probably not worth the hassle of hatching out brine shrimp for your tetras, unless you're intending to breed them. They'll do fine with a good quality staple flake food, and spirulina flake and frozen worms give them variety if you want.

If you have the tank near a window where it will be in dirrect sunligt, having a backing on it can help stop algal growth and the water from overheating.

My kuhlis climb in the plants sometimes too, but only occasionally. Khulis don't often breed in captivity, but when they do, they prefer to spawn in water sprite, and they have green eggs. Maybe yours is about to.

Good idea Joze. From what I hear, trout and catfish might be the only fish we see, as land developement in the area the mollies are in mean there might not even be any left. Anyone else able to elaborate on this?

Hi Robbo, and welcome to the fishroom. Like Caryl said, Kapi-Mana is the closest club to you. I joined it myself just 3 months ago. There's about 12 of us in the club, and we meet once a month on the last Wednesday of the month at the president's place in Plimmerton, to discuss all things fishy and some things not so fishy. It's a very relaxed setting, something you don't see from the larger clubs that meet in halls due to the number of members. We also have a lot of activities on the weekends, which I hear most of the other clubs don't. If you're keen to come along some time and see what it's all about, give Roger Smith, the president , a call on 2338985.

hmm, I don't think I'll ever succumb to the discus fetish then.

Sure pacus are the closest thing to a piranha visually, but if you're talking aggression wise, maybe you'de be interested in some of the larger species of cichlid, like Red Devil, Midas, or Jaguar. They're fairly nasty customers. Besides, piranhas are pussies anyway. If it's aggressive fish your interested in, check out www.aquatiqterrors.com

The poor beast. I agree with Caryl, even an 8ft tank would be cramped for an arowana approaching 3ft.

Yeah peltier thermoelectric coolers are cool, but they don't actually cool, they just move the heat from one side to the other. You'd still be limited by the rate you could cool the hot side of the peltier, which would be the heatsink's C/W rating. And if you were drawing 600W thru 300W of TECs, you'd want a massive surface area of heatsink fans. Even in terms of high quality computer CPU HSFs you'd need like 10 of them. Wich would then need to be mounted to a large copper heat spreader plate, to distribute the heat from the small TECs to the big heatsink setup. Sure you could use the peltier as a space heater in winter, but why would you want to freeze your fish? Remember that heat dosen't come from nowhere, you're drawing it out of the tank water. The best way I can think of, short of refridgeration, is a radiator to pipe the water through. I suggest an old automotive one (or more) from a scrap dealers, as they're cheap, reasonably compact, and effective. Then get the largest, slowest moving fan possible to mount in front of it. When it comes to fans, Nigel is the man... http://www.trademe.co.nz/structure/show ... ember=7527 If you're not the DIY type, something like this might be more your thing. http://www.pcgear.co.nz/code/products.a ... bcatid=260 And if space is an issue, there's extremely efficient and compact radiators built specially for computer watercooling setups. The cream of the crop is the "Black Ice" series by www.hwlabs.com. They're a bit pricey though. Still, their top of the line model is only about NZ$170, apparently can deal with 900W of heat, and is only 153x133x45mm. The good thing is they have standard 12.5mm inlet/oulets on them, as they're designed to be used with regular aquarium pumps and tubing.

I would pay $80 for a percula, if I was going to buy one. I mean discus are often more expensive, and are a lot easier to get hold of.

When you say number one do you mean most popular, or most common? I don't see how Hua Luo Han can become common by 2004 if only large corporations and hotels can afford them. And as for popularity, the shark, or even the humble goldfish are always gonna be the most popular of fishes. Then there's the fact that most people dont have space for a 5ft tank to accomodate a foot long Luo Han. The only thing flowerhorns are going to be by 2004 is the number one overpriced and overrated pet ever engineered.

That's terrible news Sheila. I meant to compliment you on your badass tank when you started posting pics of it. A bit late now huh. So who was building it for you? and was it their design or yours?

I've just said I'll take Kapi Mana's 3 tier 3ft display setup, because my ciclids are getting too big for their tanks and because it needed to be moved from where it's being kept at the moment. But I know nothing about multiple tank filtration setups. Can I filter 2-3 tanks with a single external wet/dry?

$245 for a pair of bristlenoses? That doesn't sound right.

Ok so most people think the flowerhorns are kind of ugly. But check out the competition from Singapore... http://www.kirin.com.sg/species.html