raewyna

Is the bowl one of these? http://www.charterhouse-aquatics.co.uk/ ... 3_392.html If so, it's 45 litres. I have one and it's great, but I have guppies and platies in mine. It's too small for goldfish. Originally it had it's own filter system up under the lid, but it was unreliable and after having a crisis in the tank I replaced it with an air pump under the lid and a simple cheapo filter that just lies on the bottom. The visual distortion factor isn't a problem. If you are up close the fish at the back look funny, but sitting back in the room and watching it they look fine. I was worried about fire when it was brand new - the sun light gets focussed on the wall behind like a magnifying glass. But it didn't happen and now that it has a biofilm there is no longer a point of light magnified on the wall. One point about your boss's feng shui concepts - I doubt that it's good feng shui to keep live animals in overcrowded or otherwise unhealthy conditions. Maybe some white clouds and a simple filter are better feng shui after all.

Is it whitespot, or just the white spots on the gills of the males which signal they are getting ready to breed?

My pair often eat eggs/fry but every now and again they get it right. One thing I have learned to do is leave a night light on for a couple of weeks. I make it dim so they can still rest, but give them enough light to see. I don't know why it helps - unless it's just giving Mun a chance to keep Dad away. But it does. I had several spawnings when I lost about 50% every night. Until I left the light on.

Only that that's the only information I've ever seen about them (have to admit I've never looked). I'm very happy if they are longer lived. I have a self sustaining population in an outside pond so I have no idea of the life spans of the individual fish. I just sell some off when there are too many.

"What are you going to do with these extra fish when you get your tropical tank??" Minnows can go out to the pond with the goldfish, or can stay indoors in the tropical tank. I have minnows in my goldfish pond. I also have minnows inside in a tropical tank and this is now the third winter the same fish have been in that tank. The original 15 is now down to 11, which is reasonable attrition for fish that are meant to only live a couple of years anyway.

I think that would be the case - as with other fish.

Thanks guys. Since I posted the original I've had another male mature the same as the one in the photo. Also a few corresponding females that are a bit hard to spot but you can just see a colour change from their gold body to the whiter colour near the tail. I haven't been able to separate them out properly - I've had a batch of baby angels taking up lots of tank space. Once they've moved on I can refocus on guppies again and sort out what I have. It's interesting that they should be called 'bumblebee'. I have a strain of females that are much better match for that word - they are gold bodies with dark rear half. On some the dark area is khaki coloured, but a couple are very dark. Not quite black though.

I looked this up a while ago - took ages to navigate through the acts, etc. From memory I think it works out that the definition of fish includes crustacea, and the selling of any fish without a licence/permit/quota is illegal except for whitebait. So you can catch all the shrimps you like for yourself, but can't sell any without a permit.

I have jugs that have open handles that can just hang on the side of the tank (hanging in the tank water to pick up the warmth from the heater). Into each jug goes 1 tbsp salt plus however many brine shrimp eggs - up to about half tsp is good. I then hang the jug over the edge of the tank and put an open air hose in it (ie no airstone on it). That gives enough aeration to keep the eggs moving and get a good hatch rate. I can use as few or as many of these jugs as I want depending on how much I need to feed. To feed, I just fill another clear sided jug with fresh water. I tip the brine shrimp mixture through a 'net' I made from fairly finely woven polyester fabric. That then goes into the clean water. Wash out the net and the used jug and make up the next batch. And meanwhile put the clean brine shrimp brew next to the tank light to attract the shrimps to the bottom, then siphon them off with a meat baster to feed. It's all quick and easy. I have baby angels at the moment and the morning feed takes only a few minutes in between me eating breakfast while I wait for the shrimps to settle.

I guess it's just the combination of genes. It could be worth breeding him back to one of the parents to see what the next generation produces. Or may not be worth bothering with. That all depends on what you're objectives are. Certainly breeding him back to parents will likely result in more the same, but might also enhance some of the good genes in some of the young.

That was interesting and seems to be new information. A few years ago I read a scientific book (came from Otago Uni I think) that had results of various experiments. Its conclusions were that female guppies take far more control over who they mate with than is usually apparent (eg the 'sneaks' don't usually succeed) and that they are usually only carrying offspring from 2 males at a time, sometimes three. Trouble is of course that the colours we like might not be the ones the females guppies like.

Maybe you have four females. They will spawn without a mate, but the eggs are sterile when they aren't fertilised. Or even it you do have a male and female together, they might not like each other. You did the right thing in getting 7 to start with, it's just unfortunate that you lost some. When I started out I bought 6 that did turn out to be three of each sex. The pair I kept are still going strong - a very strong pair bond. The second pair looked like a good pair too but when I sold them, they never bred for the buyer. The third pair did breed together but fought over the eggs and babies because neither accepted the other fish's right to them. Very problematic. That female also breed with a young male but when I sold them as a pair the first thing that happened was she paired up with a different fish in her new home. So you might need to bring in some more fish to have enough to get proper pair bonding going. Good luck.

The FNZAS plant page has a search function and also a link to the accord which should cover everything, including explaining that a few plants have special status which means that no one can have them, v. the majority of pest plants which may not be propagated or distributed in any way (ie if you already have it you are not required to get rid of it, but don't give any to anyone else).

Something to read - "Ecology of the planted aquarium" by Diana Walstad. She is a scientist who is also an aquarist. If you go to your local library it probably won't be there, but you can always interloan it. Tauranga has a copy.

Mine eat their eggs more often than not (I'm sure it's him). Occasionally they get it right and having babies growing up with parents is a joy. It's down to what your objective is. If you want lots of baby angels then you might have to separate them out. If you are just into the pleasure of letting the fish do their thing, then it might be worth waiting it out to see if they do finally get it right.

I have planaria too - I don't see them often but if a tank gets too grubby the planaria appear. The leeches are different. The planaria glide in one plane along the glass, but the leeches hang on at one end and wave their heads around looking at where they want to go. And they're bigger and browner. I ID'd them on website pictures, just didn't find much information about their effect in tanks. I killed the inside ones i found, but if they're harmless, I might leave the outside ones alone and see what I can learn. They're in a 10 litre bucket with a dwarf water lily and no fish. another one of my water lily buckets (42litres also with no fish) has some tubifex in it. Where that came from is a mystery too - we wonder if it might have been in the water lily potting mix.

Thanks for that. It's good to know.

I think I finally have Photobucket sorted - it's been a mission - so here goes with some photos. One of the tanks has a lot of silica staining so apologies for lack of clarity. I've seen mention (and pictures) of pingu guppies on here and elsewhere. I'm getting a smattering of those shown in he first two photos below. Are they likely to be pingu? From reading, I think pingu is actually a pink base body colour and those in the first two photos seem to be grey body colour (as in the first two photos), but their back halves look just like the pingu photos. The coloured back half is pale pink, nearly white, with a fine bright pink, nearly red line running through the lateral line (I think). The tails are yellow and short. One of them has a longer dorsal fin, the rest have all been short. I currently have two adult males of these, and a selection of babies that look like they are similar but with much less of the pink colour on the back half - some just a splash on the caudal peduncle. If there is a pingu gene happening here, what is the standard to say if a fish is 'good' or 'bad'? I'm not line breeding terribly seriously, but on the whole am selecting for gold and looking at what I get colour wise that I like. The following two photos are of a single male that is obviously a cross between the ?pingu colour shown above, and gold. He has the same pale pink colour on the back half of his body, but the front half looks more like a gold guppy, and the top line from head back to dorsal fin is almost red - but in a see through way if that makes sense. His fins are quite yellow. His colour changes quite a lot according to light and the camera flash is too white to bring out the pinkiness of his colour. This fish is unique so far, and he's with a variety of females in my "A" tank in the hope of getting the right combination for more. Is this a pingu gene at work do you think? Or just a gold guppy with pretty colours?

I have leeches in at least one pond and from they have got into one fish tank (presumably via plants). They don't seem to be a problem - baby guppies unharmed, plants look OK, plenty of snails still. Do they do any harm? Thanks

Adding an airstone breaks the surface of the water and assists with oxygen exchange. If the water is chlorinated it would help to dissipate the chlorine a bit quicker than if it is just left sitting. Another way you can do it is to fill a bucket from a garden sprinkler so that the water is well aerated as it goes into the bucket. I don't think I would trust it totally though - I would still use some Stress Coat or similar. When I want to freshen my ponds I just put the sprinkler on them for a while but that's only a partial water change and it's very well aerated.

I have a little one that looks like the Jaycar one (bought on TM). Before i bought it I phoned everywhere to see what else was available - especially that might be better. A landscape supplies trader said they used to have solar pumps that were over $1000 and very hard to sell so they didn't restock after they finally sold the last one. No one else I rang had any knowledge of solar pumps. The little one I bought is tiny, but does achieve some water movement when it is operating. It says is has electronic 'smarts' to cope with cloud, but has no battery and I think really goes off as soon as the sun goes. The problem I wanted to solve was water stagnating in the deep hole at the bottom of my 700 lite pond. I have the solar panel up on the fence, the little pump just under the water surface, and a hose from the outlet to the bottom of the pond. It does work - just keeps a tiny bit of water movement going and seems to be preventing the build up of bad water in the bottom.

Most of my tanks are bare bottomed with plants in pots, but the 'display' tank has substrate - clean garden soil with schist pebbles on top. I bought the schist on Trade Me so don't know where it came from, but imagine that probably originated from South Island rivers. The caveat for shells is as above, that they do increase pH. And as said above, some fish are happy with that but many South American ones are not - eg tetras and SA cichlids like water to be slightly acid.

I wouldn't use parcel post. I think they need to go clearly labelled for what they are otherwise they'll get a hugely rough ride, and the liability of having a leak could be astronomical.

I long ago gave up separating fry in the guppies only tank. I found that when the tank had very few adults, they did eat the babies. But now that there's a community of all sizes and plenty of indian fern, the babies seem fine, although of course I don't know how many actually are eaten too. I think it's something to do with the movement - the total fish mass becomes 'one' so the predators don't see the individuals. Or something. That's how the schooling effect works in the wild I think. To illustrate: A while ago I needed to separate my angel pair and I put the female into the overflow guppy tank. The reason was to feed her up because she gets a bit down providing her mate with eggs to eat every week. So I thought time away from him was needed, and there was nothing special in that tank and I could handle her eating the smallest ones in the name of good quality live food. Well, I was flabbergasted to see that she hardly touched them. She watched and stalked some, but didn't seem to strike. One morning at feeding time I saw a baby right in front of her mouth and thought that one was going to be a goner, but she shoved it out of the way to get to the food behind it. Conversely, another time I put a few adult guppies into the angel tank and with just a few larger fish as tank mates, the angels ate any baby about 10 seconds after it was born. To me it seems to illustrate that the safety of babies depends on the whole tank dynamic rather than just the risk factor of individual fish. I wouldn't risk fish I wasn't prepared to lose trying these things though.

If you moved the whole nest and only a few fell out, I'm sure you have plenty left. The parents will probably spawn again as soon as they have built the new nest. And maybe he won't eat them this time. Are you sure he wasn't just mouthing them the first time? I bought a pair and quarantined them in a little 10 litre tank. They spawned and I removed the fry to a net in the corner of the guppy tank. Lost most of them when I was doing a water change and trying to control the net height in relation to water depth - the guppies got in and I only saved 2, which are now nice little fish. The next time the parents spawned (still in the 10 litre) I just left them alone. When the babies were a week or two old I moved the parents to their new outside tank and left the babies in the 10 litre. I found the biggest hurdle for the babies was getting them to eat anything. I tried liquifry, egg yolk, newly hatched brine shrimp, etc. They didn't seem to die, but didn't appear to eat and didn't grow for ages. When they eventually started accepting baby brine shrimp they finally started to grow.