Jennifer

I am currently running six of the fluval 05 canisters and they are all quiet unless I have the flow turned down too low, or they get dirty or air trapped within. I am a light sleeper but I would definitely consider putting one in my bedroom... hmmm, that actually gives me a new idea for a tank......

The link I posted has two pdf files of poisonous mushrooms in NZ and how to identify them.

+1 to the Fluval 405 canister, but I always run it in a cabinet. I can't hear it at all. +1 to the Eheim pickup but I'm not sure they have one for a 300L tank +1 to David's comments about shutting down the filter each night, not ideal if you can help it

NZ National Poisons Centre info about mushrooms: http://poisons.co.nz/fact.php?f=31

Thanks guys, it has been a tad embarrassing, :oops: but good for getting the word out there for our community. The Press has been great and has also covered Donna's turtle rescue. I couldn't have done it without the help and support of friends and the great club members we have. It's good to see that many people have been able to take their fish back home now although the rebuilding effort has only just begun. I am eternally grateful that I only have 12 tanks. If I ever start entertaining the idea of having more, please remind me not to! :nilly:

It started complaining as I increased the CO2 in that tank so I took it out. For various reasons it struggled, and I was too busy to do anything, it melted, grew back, melted again and now is finally starting to come back.

I have eggs for the 3rd time and the mum is really doing her thing but still no evidence of fry. Although, I haven't been looking lately so who knows what I may have missed. :oops:

Congratulations mum & dad and welcome to the forums Devin! :happy2:

Plant growth is driven by lighting. The more light you have, the more the plants will try to grow. However, their growth will be limited by the amount of food (nutrients/ferts/fertilisers) they have available. Plants need a range of nutrients, see here for complete details: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=50222 As Simon said, you do not need a lot of light to have excellent growth. In fact, the only reason to have more light, is to have faster growing plants - but faster growing plants also require lots of nutrients. I like to think of my high tech (fast) tank as a teenage boy, it eats a lot, grows a lot and drives a fast car so it basically costs me a lot to maintain and it can go off the rails very quickly. :lol: The idea with a planted tank is that you want to give just enough light to let the plants grow and not so much that you can't keep up with the feeding - if that happens, the plants will begin to starve and this can result in deficiencies, poor growth and opportunistic algae growth. I would advise getting a low tech tank going well, get some plants that do well with low lighting, start fertilising and read up. In no time you will have a satisfying result and in the future you can always go high tech if you want to.

I have been contacted by some quake affected people in town who need to borrow some tanks. Tanks need to be at least 70L or so. Please contact me if you can help. Thanks heaps!

I read this on the Chch City Council website a couple of days ago. You really know it when you are chlorinated as the smell is very strong. From: http://canterburyearthquake.org.nz/category/water/

If the faeces are abnormal that could help you identify the problem as well.

Yup, minerals might be lacking. Plants need calcium and magnesium and both are lacking in rainwater so you might need to add some. You might also find it helpful to supplement with a trace mix like Flourish Comprehensive.

Club dynamics are changing with the internet but it is still a good way to connect with local fishkeepers and an excellent way to share information and resources. It would be easy to start a club that just got together twice a year for a BBQ and tank crawl, or some other event. The rest of the year you can communicate with each other in your own private club forum here on the site. Oh, and you would get Aquarium World magazine delivered to your mailbox as well.

Agreed, they will do better in a tank that isn't acidic because high acid conditions 'dissolve' their shell. They also do a lot better when you feed them regularly. They can randomly crawl out and land on the floor so it helps to have a good lid! :roll:

You can still have a club, even if you only have quarterly or 6 monthly meetings. 8)

Ngaww, Ira has a soft spot.

When sexing fish based on photos I try not to say definitively since that is a sure way to be wrong! :roll: :lol: At any rate, your bottom two photos show fins that have black edges and I never see that in females, also all fish have a proportionally longer body than I usually see in females, but again in young fish it is hard to tell. Note in my pics how the females have short little faces, that will become more apparent as they get older, the colour change will also make it more obvious. Good luck, these are such great little fish!

Whoops! I meant to say microworm cultures, not whiteworm cultures (edited my post above). :oops: Joe, I know the whiteworms don't like acid, but I can't be bothered using other types of soil. Every time I try other types of soil I get mites so not I just use peat now. The worms are fine, and have actually survived the hot summer with no problems. I have mine in two plastic bins that are the size of large shoeboxes. I guess I believe in having two cultures of everything in case one crashes.

I make only enough porridge to make a layer about 1cm thick, it is a very dense hard porridge. Alan advised that I try brewers yeast from BinInn and now I swear by it, it makes the mixture much less stinky. I add enough yeast powder so that it completely covers the porridge. Then I add the worms and a teaspoon of water so they don't dehydrate in the dry yeast. I keep them at room temperature. I always run two microworm cultures in containers that are the size of a medium yogurt pottle and they provide far more that I can use. I harvest a couple of teaspoons of worms from the sides of the containers every day. It is way more than I can use so I harvest and dispose of worms most days. I replace the mixture once a month. Edit: was supposed to say microworm cultures, not whiteworm cultures. :oops:

Here are some pics of some of my mature shellies (pics were taken when they were 6 to 10 months old). You can see the distinct differences in appearance as I described above. Hope that helps a little. Females Males Pairs

blissful sigh.... I am so very happy that you are so happy with them... it does my heart good. Hope you are well.

This is so hard to explain - it is a body and fin shape thing... but I am pretty certain the top two are male. The bottom looks male too, but it may also be too young to tell for sure. That is just my guess though. Post some more pics in a couple of weeks and we can re-evaluate.

I keep mine on medium grey sand from the beach. If you post some pics, that might help. They are hard to sex when young, then one day they just change and it is easy to sex them.

I saw this with some of my fry that survived some quake dramas. Some were stunted for quite a while but then when things settled down, they all grew up normally. I don't know if there was a real correlation, but it has never happened before, or since and I had sent some fry to someone else out of town and they all grew up normally - control group I guess. :dunno: