Romeo

Gee whiz! A disease which only affects trout and salmon! Sounds like the new Calicivirus to me, imagine the benefits to the native inhabitants of our waterways if this one got free ;P. Well, I mean the national aquaculture industry for trout and salmon is worth probably somewhere in the billions, but still, I do love the magnificent spectacle of a rare and endangered Canterbury Mudfish!

I've found that boiling and then cooling seems to help get the moisture deep into the wood. Took me 3-4 attempts plus a few days soaking, but we finally got our bit to sink. Failing all that, buy a suction cup and stick it to the bottom of the tank

Hey XMAMX, is that Glosso in the foreground? If so, how'd you get it to grow so well? Did you use ferts/CO2 & what lighting did you use?

If you're 100% serious and have all the facilities to actually undertake the project, I suggest that you get in touch with Vince Scully from Kaikoura. He's a successful Koura farmer with a huge wealth of experience and a great attitude when it comes helping out other farmers.

Very nice, I guess that's your full time job?

TradeMe is your best bet, I'd just email the vendor and ask - as our place was strictly no pets. But whenever the landlord or inspector comes over they always comment on the wonderful fish and fierce Koura. Avoid small rental type websites offering to liase on your behalf - IE: They have a list of properties on their website, which are also listed on TM. If you end up finding one on TradeMe and it just so happens to be listed on their small liason website, they end up sending you threatening emails demanding you pay them hundreds of dollars worth of "Finder's fees". They tried that on me and my partner and we sent them straight back an incredibly threatning lawyer-type email and they folded like a flan in a cupboard. Yeah, avoid at all costs. Good luck though, it's hard to find the right place and don't settle for anything less than perfect. It took us months to find our dream place, they do exist, and they're generally listed poorly on TM ;P. That said, my 20 year old mate just bought himself a HOUSE, so it's definitely a great time to buy if you've got the capital and income.

I've had a Java Fern in a bucket of water kept in total darkness under our sink in the bathroom for two months. It's still healthy and green. You CAN'T kill it! Java moss never took off in my Koura tank, the tips grow, but it doesn't spread or attach.

From my experience down here in CHCH there is very little aquatic life in the city or farm streams. You have to get either close to the native forest covered hill streams or major river tributaries. Also, down here in CHCH there seems to be a LOT of farm runoff, nitrates I guess, which will likely have killed off a lot of the aquatic life down here. You're probably looking in the wrong place trying to align this with global warming, it's mainly a deforestation, habitat destruction and over fishing problem. Just wait for Stella, she'll sort you out :]

I wouldn't use an airstone with DIY Co2, as it creates a white goop around the end of the tube which could block the airstone (and make your bottle explode and spray heinously smelling goo all over the room). I tried DIY Co2 for a few months and didn't notice any discernible difference, then I switched to Flourish Excel and shazam! What light are you using? What plants are you putting in? I was going to set up a nano tank, but I just stole the missus's AR-380 instead .

In my experience you can quite easily scrape silicone off with a razor blade and leave a perfect finish if you're careful. So don't let that stand in your way of sealing it in. Also, I wouldn't rely on the bracing to hold it in, as you may get 20-40kg of upward buoyancy from the poly, I know Spoon had heaps of trouble sealing his in because it was so incredibly buoyant. Might pay to do it once, and do it properly, go overboard with the silicone. edit: PS, I love your work, it's incredible!

I've heard that you can't put Caboomba and Ambulia together in the same tank, because one will out compete the other and just kill the other off. It's my opinion that Ambulia is better anyways. Oh, and avoid duckweed ;P

Do your loaches like to dig? If that's the case then it's probably a bad idea to bury sharp edges under the gravel, as they'll probably wriggle their way under and collapse it on themselves. I made a mistake in resting the driftwood in my Koura tank on top of the gravel. Within a week the Koura had excavated under the biggest bit of driftwood and it collapsed down ontop of it, pinning it underneath. Luckily I spotted it when I went to feed her later that day! <Yes, your pots are unlikely to weigh that much, but you get the idea>

Just make sure there's no small holes for fish to get stuck in, and also smooth off any sharp edges on the pots. Recently someone on here had one of their fish cut suspectedly by a teracotta pot. My partner's got some small pots in her Krib tank and they look really good. I'd recommend them :]

Yeah, stop at the mouth of the buller and pick me up some native hardwood driftwood! Beats paying $30-50 for wood!

I've heard good things about the 7+13 JBL plant balls. They're especially good for root feeders like Crypts and Sagittaria. I bought some Dwarf Sagittaria off a guy on here, his entire tank was covered in a thick mat of lush Sagittari thanks to the fert balls (or so he said, he wasn't exactly going to tell me all of his secrets).

RE aaron11 It could be that Indian fern is such a rapid grower that it's exhausted it's supply of nutrients, or carbon, or both. So it starts small, with a small appetite, but as it grows so does it's almost exponential requirement for nutrients. It happened with my Java fern, it grew really quickly, then started to slowly die off just as it reached it's prime.

I've done something similar here, with my AR-380. It's still a work in process, but it shows that you can actually grow stuff in small low-light/low-tech setups. viewtopic.php?t=38006 The plants I've got in my AR-380 are (ranked in order of best growers to worst): Ambulia Cherry leaf Various Crypts Windelov Java fern Dwarf sagittaria Normal Java fern Indian Fern

How many Watts of light, how tall is your tank and what is the K rating on your bulb? Do you use fertilizers or Carbon additives (Flourish/Co2 etc?).

Well fed Banded? Whatever it is, I want it bad...

Got pictures? Sounds like it's going great! I don't know how your spraybar could add Co2, wouldn't it do the exact opposite?

Love my Koura and Inanga, but that's to be expected. I've never owned tropicals, but would love a pair of Electric Blue Dempseys in a lush planted tank. * Practical Fish Keeping .co.uk

You can get "Washed 6-8mm rounds" from almost any landscaping place. We got 30kg for $6 from Crusaders Garden Makers here in CHCH. Good stuff, it's quite dark and is an alright size. I've got some new smaller stuff from Redwood that's better for plants now, it's about 1-3mm. So it's heavy like gravel, and doesn't stir or float around, but it's also quite light and good for rooting plants. As far as plants are concerned, the smaller the better. But make sure it's pH neutral :]. Edit: Oh, and if you're going to breed guppies make sure you've got some sort of mesh over your filter inlet. And also, you'll need a lot of bushy low-light plants to provide cover for the fry.

Depends what the colour of the water is?

It doesn't look like it's lost any flesh, maybe a tiny tear under the fin. But I've never seen them damaged before by my Koura. I believe my Koura has a pretty good disposition, it generally just pushes the fish away rather than trying to nip, unless the fish get right inbetween it's claws and steal it's food. Which they try to do on occasion and generally get away with it. 29/5 - Fish is back to normal, these guys heal quick!

Just for those who are interested... 02/03/2009 - Day 1 10/03/2009 - Day 8 I got the Sagittaria from a FNZAS member 11/04/2009 - Day 40 I started dosing Flourish Excel and ans API leaf zone, but the leaves started to really show signs of fatigue. 24/05/2009 - Day 83 So now I've just switched to Seachem Flourish Comprehensive. Hopefully the Java Fern will start to look a bit better, and quickly! Clearly the Crypts are loving the Flourish Excel, they seem to be thriving the most. 10/07/2009 - Day 130 - The crypts have responded really well to the Flourish Comprehensive, so has the Java Fern and Ambulia. The rest haven't particularly flourished, the Sagittaria hasn't shown much progress. We've now got 2x Sparkling Gouramis, 1x Whiptail catfish and 1x Female Bristlenose catfish (and an uncountable number of Red Ramshorn snails).