cees

Correct, . My brain hit a blind spot. But I told you, never used a canister filter myself. Always used wet/dry and then pumpheight is absolute.

Confusing , define normally. (I intepret that as tank height What's the diameter of you outlet tubing ??Is that restricting ? Aaahhh found the link I was looking for http://www.hagen.com/uk/aquatic/manuals/fluve08.cfm My guess, you get 384 L /hour, you are pumping up about 1.5 m which is about tank high on a normal stand (assuming your is a fluval 403 or 404)

Welcome reef, Good to see a marine aquarium club getting started in Auckland. If and when you guys become really serious and perhaps join up with the FNZAS than I'll be happy to help you setting up http://marine.fnzas.org.nz/ Anyway, good to have you here.

Only add if your nitrate levels, properly measured, are 0 ppm and you are absolutely certain that everthing else is perfect and you can see signs of nitrate deficiency in your plants (can't remember what they are now). hmmmm, measure pH, measure kH (but how realiable is that) read the chart (see link by Derek). Much better way, observe your plants, observe your fish, are they healthy, are they growing, is algae growth at acceptable level, am I happy with my tank. If the answer is yes then I suppose that the levels of whatever I'm supposed to measure much be good. Now, if you want instant something (and keeping fish/plants in a tank isn't like that) I'm sure there will be lots of people who are happy to take your $$ and sell you testkits, measuring gear etc etc etc etc ... sorry, thinking out loud again read the book 'optimum aquarium' by the Dupla people (if you read Dutch I can lend you my copy) to understand the philosophy of it. Read the discussions on the aquatic plant list (link anyone?). Than decide for yourself what you are going to do about that planted tank is it going to be a) traditional no fuss b) all out technical and $$$ or c) your own thing trying to achieve your optimum at a budget.

ideal conditions, add enough CO2 to maintain a pH of 7 at a kH (carbonate hardness) of at least 4 dH, it's that simple. Than you know that CO2 is not limiting. Most likely it'll be light that will be limiting, fix that and micronutrients go, fix that and before you know it you'll be adding, yes adding!, potassium nitrate because you are getting into nitrate deficiency problems. If you get that far you'll be supplying a lot of people with a lot of plants. Do regular water changes. Oh, and did I mention it, add a lot of fast growing plants. Having ideal growing conditions but not enough plants is asking for trouble. Not sure about your CO2 bottle size but a common size bottle (50 cm heigh?, can't remember the code now) should last you a year if not longer on a 70g tank (is that gallon?) CO2 tester, if you can, get one of those dupla 'divebell' testers see http://www.dupla.com/e008.htm At the UHAS club a few years ago I actually made a few myself from a 10 mL glass bottle with cap and a piece of airline tubing. Works well, problem is to make the holder to stick it to the glass. Never got a satisfactory solution for that, but than again I didn' need to, I had a dupla tester. The dupla indicator is I believe a 'mixed indicator' but bromo-thymolblue will do. Some pet-shops actually have it. It's a pH sensitive indicator at with color change blue/yellow at about 7.

1 liter of water, a hand full of calcium nitrate, a dose of concentrated nitric acid and you have very hard, very acidic water Sorry Pegasus, just couldn't resist. And it's true, when it's fish and/or aquarium related you either find soft-acidic water or hard-alkaline water

Hi Derek, Don't know what type of test one is talking about. Is it a 'titration' or a colour comparison? In any case, fwiw Carbonate hardness is defined as that portion of all calcium ions (Ca2+) and magnesium ions (Mg2+) present in 1 liter of water for which there exists an equivalent amount of hydrogen carbonate ions (HCO3 -) and carbonate ions (CO3 2-) originating from dissolved carbonic acid. (sorry, forum doesn't allow sub and super script) The so-called "German degree" is frequently used as a practical measurement unit for hardness; this degree is defined as follows: 1°d = 10 mg/l CaO (and that is 10 ppm CaO or 17.9 ppm CaCO3, or zillion ppm sheep) The methods to determine carbonate hardness rely on the acid consuming character of carbonate/bicarbonate. It's either a titration (obvious colour change, count the drops (or use a buret if you want to get technical). Or the test measures the resulting pH after addition of a fixed amount acid. Usually done by colour comparison of some sort. Strong bases or other acid consuming substances such as phosphates and polyphosphates interfere with most (if not all) carbonate hardness test. And that would result in an artificially high value.

A tank full (about 30-40). All males identical, all females identical and all pretty close to the international standard. See this site for standards http://hem.passagen.se/mikeno/english/eistand.htm What I'm trying to say is this. At this stages size and shape is more important than color. A single male guppy of good shape is enough but if he's in a tank with similar looking guppies it is more like to be some form of 'line-bred' fish. I've got 200+ guppies again at the moment so in a few months time I'll be able to do some selecting.

Hi Dennis, no I haven't. Peter McCleod (another fishroom member) has been trying very hard to get quarantine facilities but no luck sofar. I've decide to go at it the hard way again. Starting from what ever stock I can get my hands on now and improve by careful breeding and selecting. I suppose the road to perfection is much more enjoyable than the perfection itself. Anyway, we'll be starting a 'serious' guppy club soon. Perhaps that way we can at least can better fish by eduction and sharing resources. I'm serious into breeding again. My fishroom was in a bad state a few months ago. I've just added 4 more tanks to the 10 that were still running. Glass for 15 more tanks is on it's way. I just bought an airpump that can drive air to at least 100 tanks. (yes, I'm going heated room and corner filters, central filtration is too much hassle). Sorry, I'm rambling here. I'll make some photos of the fish I have now this weekend and post them on the web somewhere. Keep a log of some sort and see if it improves.

http://www.jehmco.com/PRODUCTS_/HARDWAR ... boxes.html

Just reporting that those traps arrived today. Cost me about $10/each and they are great!. Well worth it.

Nooo, it's nice, esp chicken liver and fettucine in a nice creamy sauce .... yummy

You're kidding me right. Ira is the second person in UHAS who actually paid money for duck weed? Must have been an auction with the good old auctioneer (the other Derek) doing his tricks again.

This topic is drifting all over the place, great The fishlsurvey http://www.fnzas.org.nz/tropical-fish.0.html was my response to http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/viewtopic.php?t=342 where wholesaler said 'reply to the questions of why the variety of fish imported is limited' who I believe said that in response to questions about the limited number of species available in New Zealand (other posts) My thoughts at that time were like this. Lets get some facts. What species are in New Zealand? is it really that limited or are we discussing a myth. 4 people in NZ keeping fish, well only 4 people have responded to my call for speices registration. As a side effect I'm seeing all kinds of possibilities with the little script I wrote. If interest is there I'm willing to expand it to include plants and include who's keeping what, who's breeding, who's selling etc etc

I've order 12 breeding traps and will keep you posted on what they are like. $10/each is very reason. I was at animates this afternoon and the net-type breeding trap that I've used before (and just doesn't cut it) was $8.95 if I remember correctly. Another clue is the anal fin. With practice you'll be abe to see that they males is pointed and the female is more rounded.

I checked my notes, these fish that Derek talks about are the ones you gave me Peter and yes, you told me the male was a bit younger than the females

We forgive you. I'm going to try raising my fry on killie eggs. Thanks, the NZKA model translated to 'internet based' would be a good one to use.

Hi Bill, yes I read that and it's a good design and under different circumstances I would give 'home made' another go. I'm just at the stage where I want to 'breed guppies' and use what the pro's use. For now at least, I've 'experimented' enough. It's a bit like golf. If only I could afford to buy a 'Cobra Steel driver' I might one day hit the ball like Tiger W http://www.rolemodel.net/tiger/tiger.htm

When attempting proper line breeding of guppies it is vital to separate about 6-8 females from the rest of a litter at 4-6 weeks and keep them virgin. To safe tank space common practice is to place the females inside a 'breeding trap' in the same tank as their siblings. Over the years I've tried everything from home made to store bought traps with netting. Nothing really worked well in the long term. Traps with netting gets dirty, difficult to clean. Home made is well, you know, home made. Never been able to find a plastic mesh that would do the job well enough long term. And the cost of raw materials isn't worth the effort to make something yourself really. A popular trap with guppy breeders overseas (USA) is a lustar picture window breeding trap. In Stephen Kwartler video he shows the use of these traps for guppy breeding. These traps are not available in New Zealand , and believe me I've tried. I found a place in US that can supply these traps. I'm going to buy a box full LPWB-LC Large Breeder Box, coarse mesh 6" x 5 1/4" x 5";. To keep shipping cost down I'm willing to share some of these traps with you all. Cost per trap will be about NZ$10. Please email or PM me with expression of interest and number required. I'd like to get order out this weekend.

http://www.fnzas.org.nz/index.php?id=404&puid=278 The display of 'unlisted species' is anonymous. I would still like to see a valid email address upon registration. Problem, how do we deal with 'verification' ??

New topic could be started on this. Why the MAF list. My personal view - number 1 reason = keep out disease. How's your mysql and php ?? For now, if you know of a more up to date scientific name just register it with email address [email protected]. You're on! Once the scripts have matured to a useable form you're the man.

I'm getting the feeling (also because of Derek's comment a few days ago in another topic) that the number of fish species in New Zealand is much larger than the number listed on the 'allowable import' list. Did they come into the country before the list was established? Did they come into the country under an 'allowed name' and misidentified or did they come in unchecked? Or do we have the wrong list here? Opinions please. Should I add a category to the Fish Survey called 'Not on List' where all of you can register species that you 'spotted' (not necessarily own) that are not on the list?

hhmmm... Another species spotted? Anyone care to go here and find it in the list and register it. Or is this another one of those that isn't but is on that list ??

Hi All, looks like we've got a Guppy society in the making. Give me a few weeks and I'll have a website setup (Peter, will contact you about that) with registration page. So, tell me all, what's the purpose of a Guppy society.