Ira

oops? Did you give the wrong address? I didn't make it, obviously. Next month!

Colisa fasciata isn't a giant gourami...It isn't even particularly big.

Just an update, still got heaps. Fed them their first meal of brine shrimp today. They now look like a little gold ring followed by an irridecent blue dot with a big orange blob underneath. So, at a little over a week old they're big enough to eat brine shrimp. How long will the BBS survive in freshwater? I kinda expected they'd be dead in a couple hours but it's been almost 3 and they all seem still alive and well.

scrub any dirt off and then throw them in the tank. You can also try putting some vinegar on the rock to see if it will raise the PH a bit(Generally good IMO) and you can bake the rocks or pour boiling water over them to sterilize. Personally, I think anything more than just giving them a scrub is just wasting time.

Remind me not to post if any of my fish aren't perfectly happy for a while. My fish is fat! Kill it. My fish is bent! Kill it. My fish is grumpy! Kill it. My fish is depressed! Kill it. My fish is dead! Kill...Oh, wait.

Depleted uranium doesn't glow. Now, what you could do is sell it as a highly concentrated paperweight.

One of my cats has fallen into my tanks twice. I guess he doesn't understand that when I'm doing water changes I usually take the lids off....

I think you should start havign meetings from the beginning. Even if it's just a couple of you getting together at someone's house and ordering pizza while you chat about fish. Gives people that want to show somewhere to go. Just an idea anyway.

Oh, AGM? Booorring...I'll still see if I can make it though.

But at least they'd be able to get back out.

I'd just plug the return from the sump into the hose going to the overflow and blow him back out...

I use plecos. The rare time I do have to clean the glass on my tanks I just use some cheap magnetic thing. Only takes a few minutes to do all my tanks. Now...The algae that sticks to the lids above the water, that's different. I use paper towels and a pot scrubber.

When and where is the kapi mana club meeting next? It's this coming wednesday, right? What time and where is it?

Yup, was thinking that. They must be free swimming now, or almost anyway. They're all over the tank instead of clustered near the edges now.

Yes, they'll be perfectly fine without natural sunlight. Most people prefer to have as little natural sunlight as possible on their tanks because it's easier to control the timing on fluorescent lights to control algae.

I think you should start off with the small powerhead. You're still going to need a bit of circulation for the plants. And, imo, planted tanks look nicer with the plants gently waving as opposed to basically just sitting stagnant looking.

I'll have to see if I can borrow a digital camera again if you want pics. I went out to practically all the fish stores in the Wellington area today looking for 1' lights, Impossible to find more than one per place, anyway it seems there are heaps of pearl gouramis around. Maybe by the time all of them are gone mine will be big enough to sell?

I'll be there. Hopefully, anyway.

Moved the female out when I went to put the wool over the filter intakes. She made a run at the fry and had a bite taken out of her fins. So, back into the main tank. Take the male out once all the fry are hatched? Ok, I think most of them are hatched, but the lights are out now so I'll wait until tomorrow. He seems to be a good dad, he was taking mouthfuls of fry and spitting them back under under the bubblenest. Yup, I lowered the water. It's at 6" exactly, I measured it with a tape measure.

How about something like a small powerhead? Most of them have a small sponge which should do for mechanical filtration and give you a bit of current. You shouldn't need much as far as biological filtration, in fact, I think you might do a little better without it because the plants eat ammonia and would have to compete with your filter for it if you had one. Something like a fluval 1 or 2 would also be good, like you said, it's basically just a powerhead with a filter.

I have fry! Heaps and heaps and heaps of fry! Wifey saw them first around 2pm. I forgot to wrap the tank up to keep it warm, though. So, I hope it won't make too much of a difference. It's hard to tell which ones are alive, but it seems there are hundreds of them in clumps at the surface. Most of them aren't moving, but when something disturbs them they wiggle. Is that normal? I'm going to get fry food tomorrow when I get up. I'm going to just guess that sunday would be a good day to start feeding them with the fry food, because all I can see are specks with tails, can't see a yolk on them. Should they start swimming more once they become free swimming? OH! I should do something about the filters in there. Just realized the fry might get sucked up by them. I used to have the intakes wrapped with filter wool, but it's not on them at the moment.

how long did you give them in the new tank? Sometimes takes a while for fish to settle in.

It probably happened while I was at work. I've decided I'll leave the female in there for now. I don't think I can get her out without disturbing the nest too much and the male doesn't seem to be too concerned that she's there. He's busy running around grabbing eggs and spitting them in the nest. It's lost its orange color, but I can see heaps of little eggs in it now.

last night when I went to feed them I found that the bubblenest is looking very orange and there were a few dozen small clear eggs(I assume) floating around the tank just under the surface. So, Can I safely assume that the orange color is from fertilized eggs? In that case, I'll take the female out today when I get home. How long about should I have until the eggs hatch? I'm guessing a about 2 days until they hatch, then a day or two until they're free swimming and need to be fed and just liquid fry food should be ok at first then BBS?

Where are you at? Kinda critical if anyone wants them, especially area code for calling. I'm guessing auckland, just like everything else though.