Simian

Haha a bit of both, Brians a great guy and very knowledgeable.

Ditto Most peple dont realise the expense incurred to purchase and breed some of these fancy plecs. and dont forget this is purely experimental stuff often. I am trying to assemble a breeding group of my L067? plecs I am fortunate enough to get mature ones of I hope both sexes (due to some fluke) yet it will still cost me approx $500 for three, plus a entire new 3' setup, I'd expect that if by some miracle I can get a spawn out of them in year 1 it will take at least another year to grow enough F1's to sell on. These guys are cheap in comparison to what Mr Pleco would have had to invest to get his Choc's to a point of being able to sell them on. We dont do it to get rich quick..or even slow :roll: we do it to secure the strains in NZ for others and hopefully get enough $$ to get another group going. Keep up the good work those who are working hard on this and update the pleco list at teh top of this section when you can be bothered...I need to :oops: Owen

Zebras you say? Hmm that would be something to see, fingers crossed for Juvies :roll: yeah right they will be big old bull males.

Haha :lol: Miscounted 11 eggs hatched on my trilineatus! :bounce: If I can keep all alive for another 29 days that will make 8 registered new breedings this year...hmm better get some Brine shrimp going. 8) Anyone else up for the race?

The old school wire would ballasts and plug in starters for fluros are almost extinct now(or should be), they were originally replaced with wire wound ballasts with internal electronic starters which were marginally better, ie flicker free starting and slightly more efficient, the new generation fluros T5 & T8 have electronic ballasts that provide the ignition pulse with pre warming of the electrodes prolonging lamp life and have replaced the current limiting function of the wire would ballast with electronics to do the same, eliminating about 10w (on average) losses per fitting. As for electronics over water, Amazonian would I'm sure agree if any cct (circuit) board is not conformally coated (shiny varnish stuff over the tracks and components)and is operated in a damp environment, corrosion of joints will most likely occur causing failure of the fitting. The same thing would happen in Roto-vegas or Kawerau but much faster due to the high levels of H2S in the air.

Damm you Paul Bilaney! :evil: You should be running outta fish by now! You are making it a major task to catch up! Even for this year! grrr! Well done mate I have some more up my sleeve, so dont get complacent. C.Caudimaculatus, and Swords just past 30 days and my other Cories are getting better at fertilising their eggs, I saved 9 (sooo close :evil: ) from my Trilineatus last week.

Looking forward to it Caryl :bounce:

CAN I GET AN AMEN!

Its interesting, we just changed to having it at mine and our VP's place and turnouts have doubled, from 6 attendee's to about 15 per night. The difficult thing is finding a venue which has anything to do with aquariums. Having my display tanks and breeding setup available stimulates a lot of conversation. I'm not sure what we will do once we get more people comming along, butthat will be a pleasureable experience, worrying about expanding numbers not shrinking. The zoo had lots of potential but the time restrictions made it unpopular. I did have plans to use a cafe' and set up a display aquarium but that fizzeled out when we switched to the zoo. Owen

I get them in the floating plants in my 1st stage fry growout tanks, I power feed hence my over abundance of planaria and snails, but lotsa water changes keep the water all good

A quizz is always a good way to get some laughs, we had one last month with some jolly obscure questions :roll: , we were in teams so that made it fun. a few choccy fish for prizes and your all good. Another thing that is popular is live food, get a big white/micro/grindal worm culture going and split it up distribute and show others how to grow their own In summer a table show is a possibility The biggest thing is to make sure you start and finish on time and keep the "club business" to a strict minimum. the venue is also important, at peoples houses is good when you are still small. Owen

Another spawn last night, salvaged a good # of eggs, about 1/2 look fertile.

IMO stick with guppies or swords, convicts and kribs can be a little spiney for some fish (oscars wont care tho).

I agree with both the other guys. If you want him to grow fast, lots of water changes, good food and keep it at the top of its recommended temp range. Sev's are cool, 3' tank min size pref 4 or 5' tho IMO

what size is he Bulldogod? If there are greedy tank mates he will find it hard to compete.

For those of you who are interested in, or are having algae issues have a look at the clubs section, we are getting a guest speaker on it this month. Bring a sample. Other clubs are welcome to visit too if there is interest.

Just waiting for the final nod, but it looks like we are going to have an algae expert from NIWA lined up for our August meeting. We are teeing up a microscope we can connect to a monitor/video. So bring along your slime and lets see what it is and why its growing in your tank, maybe a water sample would be good too so we can do some tests on it and get to the bottom of some of our algae battles. Wednesday 5 August 7.00pm 7 Forth Crescent Glenview

Whips are pretty simple to breed as a second step after ancistrus, raising the fry is the tricky part, they are a fraction of the price of the fancier plecs too. Get a nice group of royals, there are farowellas on the lists atm too. If you want to try red whips I can sell you a mob of 5 juvies to grow out for a good price, grow them out and sell off the extras once you get a pair sorted. Clowns panaque maccusare cool and relatively easy to breed also, but the hard part is finding females, I have two males who need a girlfriend at the moment, but haven't seen any for ages. Good on you for extending your horizons the pleco way and let us know what you decide :bounce:

it comes down to money Im afraid, my power bills up to $450 again this winter despite my insulated fish cupboard so finances are stretched

It was from a pretty reliable source, he sells em to fish shops, it was from a LFS employee that I heard it from. Maybe he does have a pair and just feeds out extras to keep the price up....I dunno, I'll chase the source and let you know.

Looks like I've found a possible female at the goldfish bowl! I put a deposit on her, now I just need to find some more cash then I can get them jiggying.

Glad to be of help. Once shes better you best breed her so I can get some starlights too :bounce:

Yes. especially in female only groups

Lazy :roll: only 2 topics down!http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=39968

I was cleaning out the Sterbai tank last night and found one lonely approx 2 month old young un. Sneaky little blighters!