Moya

Gah, she's currently away and I cant find plain picture of it. Zev has it though. It's kinda a yin/yang fish, with one swimming into the other. Styled though, so wont really make anatomical sense. Here's some others in the mean time, till I can find the proper pic.

Hey there! A friend of mine does a lot of artwork and has produced a very lovely fishy t-shirt design that shes going to get made for me. Just wondering if anyone else would like to support a local artist and get a nifty shirt in the process! Here it is... P.S Don't know price yet, but if there is some interest then ill get right on to it!

I really like your idea! But instead of taking the 'does stresszyme work' tack, I reckon if you took Jennifers mention on ammonia toxicity to bacteria, and conducted an experiment on how their effectiveness dropped at increasing toxicities, this would be really interesting. I know that if the ammonia is too high, that the environment becomes too toxic for the bacteria and they start to die off. You could do the same thing as planned, with varying parts per million of ammonia per container, going all the way up to very very toxic, and then be able to produce some interesting graphs of what sort of toxicity bacteria can stand. While this information is probably readily available, what your teachers will mainly be looking at is your scientific method, and the conclusions you draw from the data you compile. Or on another idea, you could have several water containers all with varying pH. Would have the same type of media, amount of media, ammonia concentration and stresszyme added, and you could look at the optimal pH for nitrobacter and nitrosomonas. If you can try to have several of each independent variable (the variable that we are changing, ie the pH) then this will make your results much more trustworthy. Only difficulty may be in making sure the pH stayed stable. Remember: A big part of experimenting, is sitting down at the end of it all and talking about what could have been done better/differently. So if the idea you go for has a couple of 'holes' in it, try to rectify them as much as you can, and then have a good talk about it at the end!

Yep, so long as you keep several or more of them they're pretty cool. Its just the one v one that ends badly most of the time.

Male Congo Tetras? At 3 or so inches would these still be too teeny? Anyway, they are pretty sweet, and the males are truly gorgeous when fully grown.

Dwarf gouramis are real cool. The downside is that 99.9% of the time we will only get males into the country. And the males are not too terribly friendly to each other. They do a whole 'this tank ain't big enough for the both of us' western showdown and the smallest of the two will generally lose out. If you would like to keep them try to keep a bunch of them so the aggression isn't so focused. Blue rams are perty. As are Keyhole cichlids.

Hehe, that's the one. Passive aggressive note stickerer. Never actually done the note thing though.

I second the Andrew recommendation. He is tres lovely.

That would be great! However the only medium for us to mention anything to them is through the questions section (as we don't have their details). I often feel compelled to write help in this section but worry that my comment will be misconstrued as accusative of them mistreating their fish. People can get quite defensive and offended, which isn't the best state to have them in when recommending better practice. Basically I cant think of a good enough way to word it to them. Also I'm mortally afraid of conflict.

Ooooh yes I really like that one. I believe it was Ludwigia repens? Very glossy and pretty and slightly reddish tinged. http://www.aqua-fish.net/imgs/plants/lu ... repens.jpg

No problem! And yep, your right, they are not a true aquatic species. They can be grown immersed, but as for submersed, they will slowly die off. There are quite a few plants sold in the aquatic trade that only really have a lifespan of a month or two underwater. Eg, Hemigraphis repanda http://www.aqua-daho.cz/aqua-daho/obrazky/H03.jpg Hemigraphis colourata http://www.guida-acquisti.com/images/He ... lorata.jpg The acorus too, are only kept alive if immersed. This can be achievable if its kept in quite a shallow tank, as they do grow quite tall. I have a single piece of it still going strong in my parents 60L tank from about 6 years ago as it is sticking out of the water

I dunno. I feel kinda sorry for them. They have obviously tried and tried again. Perhaps they have never been informed on proper goldfish care and needs. I always feel a bit sorry for people who leave the hobby because they keep being unsuccessful at fish keeping, when probably all they needed was a good ear and someone with the right info. Either that or they did and they ignored it. In which case *anger*.

Oh god, firefish this is one of my biggest pet-hates! (pun! win!) I believe its the blue planet classic 50L that has a picture on the front that has: 1 large angel, a school of 12 cardinals, a red tailed shark, a siamese fighter, 2 killis, what I think is an electric yellow, and two reasonably sized loaches. Also the Juwel Rekord 60L has a beautiful mix of platys and tiger barbs and sharks on the front. I think about 25 in total. Now I'm all for making the tank look exciting, but it does make the job awfully difficult when you are showing it to people who are just starting out in fish keeping. Ive had someone get quite nasty to me because I said that no, they could not stock their tank in such a way. Perhaps she thought I was being a nasty deceptive sales staff? I'm not sure. Really I don't blame her so much. If I was in her position and was being told information contradictory to what was being very beautifully displayed on my new purchase, my 'sales person distrust' would kick in too. It seems that not much thought is put into misleading images placed on fish tanks, and that they really are just put together to look good. On another note, I have spoken to customers fresh into the fish keeping thing, who, once questioned, want to put their fish in a bowl. When told this is inadequate and refused the purchase of fish, it is not unusual for them to then try a different staff member and say they have a bigger tank. :evil: This is always going to be a curly one, because there is still this prevailing attitude that "its a fish oh well nevermind". While we can certainly have better practices in place to make sure people are properly informed when they go to make a purchase, this does not mean that people will adhere to the recommendations made. P.S Rabbit hutches are a bad one too. Some of the itsy bitsy cages that are advertised as rabbit hutches are just scary

If its all soft etc, could be chlorophytum bichetii, called wheat plant by the suppliers http://www.aquaportail.com/aquabdd/phot ... chetii.jpg Otherwise if its quite rigid then it should be either acorus gramineus var. pusillus http://www.h2oacquariofilia.it/public/f ... sillus.gif or acorus gramineus var variegatus http://www.aquaplante.fr/upload/191209_ ... rvWwyh.jpg

Hey gaga! Whereabouts are you from?

I haven't read the posts by cricketman and phoenix (I probably should) but here's my reasoning for what I do. We use to use gravel as the sole biological filtration method in aquatics using the under-gravel filter system. This was wear a tray was placed under the gravel, with an air or water pump attached to it that was responsible for creating water flow through the gravel bed where the bacteria would live. However we have come a wee way now, and have better, more effective/tidier ways of filtering! While gravel is certainly porous, and will contain many bacteria, it pales in comparison to the surface area available in the special biological medias you find in your external canister filters. More surface area = more bacteria = a better rate of fish waste being broken down into fantastic plant ready nitrate. The problem with relying on your gravel bed as your biological filter is that, as you mentioned, this is where some detritus ends up. This detritus breaks down into the gravel and can 'clog' the gravel, giving it even less surface area than it originally had! This problem of clogging is why you will always find the biological media in your canister filters pretty much near to last in the water flow. We use all the mechanical forms of filtration (sponges etc) first to make sure all the biological media is kept nice and free of big bits of grime, which would otherwise limit their biological capability. Because we are not reliant on the biological capabilities of the gravel anymore, we don't have to be so thorough in removing the grime from the gravel; we can leave a nice bit of goop in there to fertilize the plants, and just skim the syphon over the gravel when we do the water changes to remove any of the more heavily soiled areas. As to the phosphate/nitrate thing. I for one have fish I feed ALOT. Everytime I see them. Sometimes 8 times a day (they're discus). As a result I get lots of nitrates (yay!) for my plants but also alot of phosphates (booo...) that contributes to algae problems. Because of this I end up doing large water changes more to get rid of the phosphate than the nitrate (but phos-zorb helps too!). Reading over this im not sure if I quite answered your question properly...but I hope it helps!

Hmmm. I thought salt was meant to be bad for planted tanks too. The cells get sucked dry of water through osmosis, as they try to balance the higher salt content outside the cell. I'm pretty sure its only really bad if its prolonged or at ridiculously high lvls though.

Q1 - I certainly like to have test kits on hand. If your a close drive to an LFS then it might not be so important for you to keep your own, but I find mine very useful. I am however one of those people that likes to just check up on things for the hell of it. Some, like previously mentioned, are more vital than others for cycling however. Q2 - If you have test kits (namely ammonia, nitrite, nitrate) then you'll be able to track how your cycling is progressing, and as such will only need to make water changes were you see it to be necessary. If not, then I would recommend you do partial water changes each week for the cycling period (about 2 - 3 months). The amount you change will depend on your stocking level. How many liters is the tank your setting up? Q3 - The great thing about a planted tank is that if you get the balance of nutrients right it should only need very little changing, as the end nitrate product of your bacterial filtration will service your plants. A bit of a syphon wont go amiss here and there, but remember to only hold it just on to the surface of the gravel, so as to not disturb the nutrients in the gravel bed.

Man that's so cool. Really different to anything Ive seen (which is not much, granted). What is that lovely red seaweed. Also, how many liters?

That is one spectacular photo! I love that your keeping her fully flighted too. Its a lot of extra effort, making sure they stay safe, but its totally worth it. I decided to let my Alexandrine's flight feathers out around a year ago, and I'm so pleased I did. At first I worried about the effect it would have on our bond, but hes still just as lovely. The only difference is that now if he wants to go investigate something in the room, he will Interestingly enough, he seems to be more comfortable with letting me try new things with him now.

That is just so cool. Very pleased shes back!

I once chatted to a guy who said you talk to DOC to attain a license to keep natives, with varying grades of licensing corresponding to difficulty of the reptiles and amphibians you can keep. He said that this was free to attain. However the cage and equipment you planned to keep them in must first be ok'd by a DOC member, with checkups occuring a couple of times a year. Also, your obviously not able to take specimens from the wild, but have to have one donated to you from a breeder. Sounded mighty cool

Ooooooooh the white butterfly is BEAUTIFUL. Until this instant I had thought them kinda unattractively patterned but that one is just awesome!

Adtape is Praziquantel based only, and so only effective on for flukes/tapeworm. I've never used Fenbendazole, though I think now I might grab some to have on hand (cheers Jen!). I know the Allicin is broken down by cooking, but I'm not sure about freezing. The enzyme that makes it certainly becomes inactive but not sure about the compound itself.