Rufus

Another thing that might help stabilise things in your new tank and will jump start the filter would be to get some squeezings from someone else's filter, sounds revolting but it'll contain good amounts of the bacteria needed for cycling your tank. You might find someone local who is willing to let you have some gunge. It always works a treat when we set up a new tank.

We have a hexagonal one with a goldfish and a few white cloud montain minnows and it's the most stable tank we have in terms of water quality and health problems. We were deliberaely cautious when stocking it because of the small surface area and we have plastic plants and some elodea (sp?) because of the lower lighting levels. Ours is made by Blue Planet, has been hassle free and looks great.

How high can phosphate get in tap water? I'm in Hamilton and am wondering whether our algae is being contributed to by phosphate. I know people with strange water sources are at the mercy of what drains off the land their well is in but does the town supply also get high phosphate levels from time to time? I am well aware the easy way to answer this would be to actually buy an extortionately expensive phosphate testing kit but if all is well I will hardly use it will I? Are phosphate testing kits particularly useful? :-? I was wondering if there were any clever people out there who might know something about phosphate? Andy

OK but it's nothing special but if you REALLY want to waste 30s of your life your most welcome to do it watching our fish!

Hello again all, I haven't been on for quite some time. We put some video of our tanks on youtube so family on the other side of the world could look. I just checked it again after about a year and, amazingly, our tank has been viewed 1370 times! The clip is about 30 seconds long which means the good people of the world have spent 11 hours watching a dodgy clip of our fish tank! It's amazing how some people have so little to do!

It's awesome isn't it? Well worth the $14 to get in !! I spent about an hour in the tunnel thing (much to my wife's displeasure) and have hundreds of awful photos of blurred underexposed things that are probably fish, an hour well spent I feel! The two foot long Crayfish have to be seen to be believed! I was like a small child almost skipping around from tank to tank "Look at theeeeeese ..and this.... and this.... andthisandthisandthis....". I promised Kelly (my wife) I wouldn't drink coffee before my next visit. Here is the website http://www.nationalaquarium.co.nz/

I originally saw it in the Australian Aquarium Magazine (or whatever it's called). It's this big green thing that has a mchanism to clean all the gunk out of it. Their website is http://www.aquagenie.com.au/ They make some pretty impressive claims but it looks really interesting and on thinking about it no uglier than my air driven sponge filter. Apparently they are working on a cannister (is that what you call them?) and a hang on the back variety too.

Hello. Meet Dave (because he was bought on St David's day) Hopefully you should see a photo, taken from my phone, bluetoothed to computer, mucked around with then put on Photobucket .... I feel like James Bond! (Yey - I think that worked....) He has caused us all sorts of hassle today. We bought a tank and cycled it like good little fish keepers, then we planted it ..... all going well. Today was the big day - we went to get our new Betta - Yey!! We put him in the tank where he promptly got sucked onto the (very puny little) filter.... already cycled filter that is .... DAMN! We have had to whizz off to the LFS to get another (even punier) filter which we now have to start from scratch and do water changes every 10 mins etc... You must admit he is very pretty though!

Has anybody seen the new "Aqua Genie" filter brought out in Australia? It looks quite interesting! It has this odd backflushing system to clear the filter of accumulated gunk. It's run by an air pump and has what are described as "marbles" inside as a filter medium. It looks absolutely hideous but the concept sounds interesting doesn't it?

What would put me off it is the sellers name!! What else does she sell?

SPCA have doubts about new cocktail decoration fad.

A few white cloud mountain minnows might be OK. They look nice in a well planted tank. You can get little lights that clip on the back of the tank for about $40, might be OK for a small tank.

Fishing line and a few weights did the trick with our wood.

Did you support the world cup bid? :-? Mind you, my lot got knockd out by Fiji ... so I shouldn't try and wind you guys up.....

What a great idea!..... Has anybody noticed how cold it has been South of the Bombay Hills recently? Really freezing......

Is the next meeting on the 6th or the 3rd? The wife and I are keen to come along.

Heres my two cents. The worst thing you could do to stop poor conditions is to "rescue" the fish. These big chains care about profits so all these "rescues" achieve, noble though they are, is a sale for the fish departmet, making it more profitable. What will change things is to never spend any money there and tell others who keep pets your horror stories .... as you all have ..... thereby reducing their spending and reducing profitability. If they sell no fish they'll close the department 'cos it makes no money and no more fish will be kept ineptly. Your stories have certainly made me think twice about getting fish from my local branch.

My gourami nibbles his plants. (When he's not beating the **** out of his "friend", also a gouami .... who went back to LFS in shame). Do you have snails? I found lods of snails came free with our plants. They put small hols in leaves like you describe as well as the fish mentioned by the others.

Has anybody thought to tell the South Island yet?

Just to let you know, if you lot came to my clinic asking for erythromycin, or anything else for that matter, for your algae/fish I'd do one of two things - kick you out and ask you not to darken my door again. - refer you to the shrinks. Are you sure doctors can prescribe for things like that? I haven't been registered in NZ that long but I thought prescribing for any use other than the patients medical condition was a big No No. Having said that I'm not a GP and they probably have a lot more freedom than I do ...... Mind you who would know the drugs weren't for the patient as long a the doses weren't stupid?

Bugger. Maybe I should stay away from "consoling" people in future !! :oops:

I find it has it's small downside though. Usually when one of us gets into some stupid hobby, underwater yodelling or whatever..., the other curbs enthusiasm by saying "are you sure you need that .... " and you kind of negotiate and spend less. When you both get into it she starts saying "lets not get that .... this one is bigger and better". Soon it's snowballing out of all sensible proportions. It's bloody good fun though.

Poor you, poor Mum and poor kitten! At least people can't run your fish over I suppose! :-?

Hey! From the Tron! Welcome!

Welcome! :bounce: I suppose I'm an expat too! I have only had NZ resident status for a month and have already had a jury summons!! Where in the UK are you? Is the weather still terrible?