oneeyedfrog

I have decided it would make a better hot house nursery for seedlings. I wondered if concrete bottoms were the norm years ago but perhaps not. The lady kept goldfish in it up until a few weeks ago. I like old things ( luckily for my Hubby :lol: ). I like to think about what it has "seen' in its "life".

We live on an isthmus not far south of Russell so it’s pretty busy here compared to the rest of the of year as all the holiday makers come here. Coz its an isthmus we are surrounded by beaches. My family comes up for at least a week every year. This year Mum , my sister and nephew come up on 22nd. So we will decorate the trees. We have one little old tree from my childhood ( so very old ha ha) and still have some decorations my sister and I made over 30 years ago. Then my brother and his wife and three kids will come Xmas day. Hubby’s Mum will be here too as she lives next door. We also go down and decorate Hubbys’s Dad’s grave. On Xmas Eve the kids leave out food for Santa and the reindeer. In the morning all the food is gone and you know the reindeer have been coz there is a pile of magic sparkly reindeer poo! I think this may be the last year my kids believe in Santa. I think they are choosing to believe this year. We have a good old relaxing holiday with the adults chilling out, lots of eating, reading, playing board games etc. We do a lot of laughing. We spend heaps of time at the beach, all piling on the back of the ute to cross the paddock to a private little bay or to the harbour on the other side where a couple of regular families congretate – the kids play on a pontoon and the guys sit under the trees and have a quiet beer . We make a huge water slide beside the house and the kids play for hours on that. On the 31st Hubby’s brother arrives from Aussie with his wife and four of his kids. They will be here for 2 weeks .His best mate will come up too with his wife and a couple of kids to camp here. Another nephew and girlfriend are coming too. There will be a couple of boats so fishing, dragging kids on biscuits etc. Hubby and his bro will be collecting and eating heaps of sea food and then having farting competitions!! :roll: We have a local fun day at the beach with a sandcastle competition , races and tug o war etc. We usually get a few friends coming up as well. It’s a great time and as mostly we all get on pretty well and laugh a lot and everyone pulls their weight we all feel relaxed and happy. I can’t wait! :bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

I guess if I did end up using it for fish I will seal the concrete. Any suggestions on the best product to use?

Hi, I recently acquired a metal framed tank nearly 5 ft long . I was surprised to find it had a concrete bottom. It belonged to an elderly lady who said it was her fathers so it must be pretty old! I was just interested to know if a concrete bottom was a common thing as I have never heard of it before. Or perhaps it was something the father did to fix a broken glass bottom. It doesn't seem to leak and is outside filled with green water and daphnia at the moment.

Aww that's cute. I showed my daughters and they thought it was neat. Now they want to decorate their tanks.! I guess they will want to buy pressies for the fish too :roll: . They already get stuff for the cats and dogs. Now look what you've started :lol: That's the fun part of Christmas- decorating etc with the kids.

Ha Ha Ha ..Hubby tells me it wasn't as bad as he thought it would be. I guess its either that or sleeping on the couch for the rest of your life!! :lol: :lol:

Hi, I would be interested in coming on a tank crawl. We are 1hr 20 out of town so probably to far for people to come look at ours but would like to check out others tanks. Congratulations on Baby No 4!! Better get your TV fixed!! :lol:

How cool!!! :bounce: :bounce: You are so clever! My daughters were looking over my shoulder and saw these pics now they have got ideas! Oh no! They'll have to sweet talk Nana. I hate cooking. My best friend gave me a toast rack for a wedding pressie coz she said that's the only thing I can cook!

Sorry for your loss. You did all you could for her.

That looks so neat. :bounce: I was gonna say what Caryl said- needs a big fish on the bonnet.

Wow impressive

We went checking today too! Seven ponds , 4 troughs, one gumboot stuck in the mud and a container of pond water thru the van we found ....no Daphnia! Heaps and heaps of boatmen. We found a few bloodworms too and some sort of sword plant Carlos I was hoping you had found some so I could get some from you! :lol: Oh well might go another day and check out the farm's troughs. We had fun looking

Thanks Piggyvir. I'm sorry to hear about your fish - six years is a long time. Fish keeping is hard on us animal lovers. I hate it when fish suddenly up and die or get sick (or equipment fails) and there is nothing we can do. It seems to happen quite often too. I guess I have to accept I can't control/fix everything! :-?

Thank you guys - most helpful . I was pretty amazed at the variety of greeblies in the ponds etc. Lots of Eeeeewww look at this one! Some were pretty scary looking when you look closely. Glad they don't grow bigger or that I'm not tiny! :lol: Will have to find a book to identify some .

Hi Can someone tell me what daphnia looks like to the naked eye. Does it move around? I have seen magnified pics on the net but nothing that sez what it looks like without a microscope! The kids and I went down to the ponds/troughs looking for stuff and found heaps of bugs etc but we're not too hot on the identification. Thanks

They are in a tank. 2 goldfish in 250l . Oh dear looks like there might be tears here. I didn't think we would get so attached to a fish. Orange fish is the first fish DD (8yrs) got (she waited for 2 years) . Every night before she goes to bed she feeds them all ( 4 tanks in her room now) and we watch and talk about them and she says how much she loves her fish! Aawww! Then she leaves her bedside lamp on to watch them as she is lying in bed! I have warned her it doesn't look too good but she told me that maybe tomorrow all will be well coz there is always hope. Time will tell

Hi, This lump on my goldfish's side has got bigger and is looking like more like a boil. The scales are starting to stick out on the lump and you can see pink skin underneath. Does this still look like a fish full of eggs ( I've never seen one before) or is it something else? ( Yep Im neurotic )

Yeah we realised that! we just thought they were both boys coz of the little white spots on the fins and reckoned they were typical males ( if there are no girls around we'll just have a go at something else- anything will do! LOL :lol: ). Just like our ram who will try it on with the boar!! The pig is remarkably tolerant- Huuumm

Well DD sez Orange Fish was the one being chased the most so it must be she's a girl. Luckily Orange Fish is a unisex name!

I hope so Caryl ! A month or so ago they were chasing each other around and both appeared to have little white dots on the front of their front fins and around the gills so we thought they were both boys but I just looked now and this one doesn't have any but the other one does. Thanks you have put our minds at rest.

Hi, one of our neons has been looking odd for a couple of weeks now. Its been acting normally but it must have slowed down now coz I finally was able to catch it. I'm trying to convince DD to euth it but she's not keen. so its in a tank by itself. Its surprised me that its lasted so long. From above it looks as if its eyes are sticking out. Does this look like neon tetra disease? I have more neons in QT at the moment and I dont want to add them to the main tank if there is a disease in there. The others in the main tank look fine. Thanks

Hi, My daughter has a comet that in the last 5-6 days has started to swell around its middle. It seems to be more on one side than the other. We are pretty sure he's a boy and he lives in a 250l tank with one other goldfish and a bristlenose. All water tests seem ok. I have just fed him peas for two days incase he is constipated. But nothing has changed. He seems normal otherwise.? Any ideas? DD is very attached to orange fish and we would hate to lose him. Thanks

Hi Sally , I am impressed with the efforts that you went to to save your fish. That was a big growth. Good on you for trying - you did all that you could. I can understand how upset you must have been to loose him. Not many people would go to the lengths you did to try and save him. Other fish may be saved in the future by what you have learnt thru this. Well done.

Hi, I experimented with a few oils when thinking of what to put on our kauri doors, floors & furniture. I read that just boiled linseed can go mouldy. I tried it on a carving that was outside and on a floorboard and it did end up with black mould in the grain. So I would read up on it. I loved Haarlem oil from NVf oils but I think they have stopped making it now. I think it was linseed oil, tung oil , veg turpentine and a hardener.

Hi, We have 6 neons in a 100l planted tank with 12 girl guppies and a bristlenose. I noticed today that one neons red line is a browny red not bright red like the rest it also looks as if its blue stripe is bent. It seems to be behaving normally. Amon- 0 ,Nitrite 0, Nitrate 20 ( did water change),Ph 7.2 temp 23 I had just set up a QT ready for a new lot of neons as we were going to move the guppies out and have a neon only tank. Guess I won't be doing that for a while now. If I can catch the little bugger I will move it to the QT. It hasn't slowed down at all. Is there anything I can try to treat it with? Is it likely to be neon tetra disease? These fish have been together for over 6 months and have not been fed live foods so how would it get it ? Thanks for your advice