twinkles

the pellets should go a long way a bag is supposed to last around 2 weeks each bag is 15kgs so 1tonne should last 4 years?

oh and they did have some tanks under treatment and not for sale, just not this one. I could see they were sick but thought i'd take the risk.

I rang and they said if i'd brought it straight back in they would have swapped it, but not the next day. Nevermind, lesson learnt. Although the other one is looking very happy now and has coloured up heaps, he must be pleased with his new tank all to himself. He's in quarintene for a while anyway

yeah i guess i will i feel silly buying sick fish in the first place then complaining when one dies, but i felt sorry for them and thought the healthiest pair would be ok. The other one is doing fine though.

I bought a pair of fish yesterday, from a tank of sick looking fishies, and one of them died 2 hours after purchase. I know i shouldn't have bought sick fish but i felt so sorry for them and really wanted them, and picked the healthiest 2. Anyway do you think its worth trying to get a refund/replacement? I can't take the dead fish back in myself because i'm back in taumarunui and fish is in auckland, but i could get someone else to take it in...

i know they don't work without power, so you'll freeze in a powercut and the pellets make great cat litter

yellow water on right is from one of those ial teabags, not just scungy water lol

lol i'm slack at updating here's some of the tanks only just realised when i went to take pics that the left bottom tank is so far back its only supported by the poly on the front edge, only the back is sitting on the beam goes to show how little they need to support them lol *me runs off to drain tank and move it* like my homemade sponge filter?

no, i forgot one that awful song-add for thin lizzy, because it was on the radio every single add break for months, then a week after that finally stopped it came on tv instead

i loved the old instant kiwi ones, like the guy bungy jumping for fish, they were great. And the one with the 'happy together' song and the couple trying to kill each other off so they could drive the new car. I used to like the ferret guy too, but now they've gone under. I have to admit i quite like the national bank ones too, when they just have the music and the horse, love that bit of music. Most awful adds have to be - that dubbed over one with the kid on the toilet, as someone mentioned the second add featuring the surfing toddler, because the animation when he goes up the tree is so badly done and worst of all the big save furniture ones, they're so loud and i don't have a remote. Puts me off ever shopping there.

there's a pair of them at our lfs, about 10cm. I don't think they're ugly, they're cool looking

they're big snails, fist sized, and the hunt down worms and eat them

here's a pic of the space the white outline is the space to be cleared, the yellow is where the current clear walking paths go, blue is the school, green is the swamp and the other little swamp by the river, the red is the part we own. yes i know i can't draw a straight line on my touchpad where the yellow path that crosses the red runs along is the stopbank, about 3 metres high and 6 wide, which will be completly cleared of all vegetation so it wont fall apart, it was built after the town flooded years ago. Its a big area, on the town plan there's 4 more sections and a road there, road was never built because where it is on the plans is where the river now goes. I think its about 1 1/2 acres all up.

I gave the kids a bag each and miss4 collected 18 beer bottles and mr2 got 6. Miss 4 complained indignantly in the way that only preschoolers can about how 'its not nice behaviour for people to drop there rubbish everywhere, we need to tell them not to so the fish don't get killed' lol well trained

apparently the area needs to be cleared so its not a flood hazard, but they will leave anything native and just clear the other stuff. All the big (poplar?) trees that you can just see at the top will be going too. If they do clear everything over the swamp and the tree growing in the middle of it, any suggestions on what they should be replaced with? As the edge of it is our land if they want to drain it and make a field we'll be blocking them at every step. All the old fallen trees covered in plants look very cool, definately don't want to disturb them, and they provide alot of the shade too.

just been for a tramp over there, it looks heaps nicer than last time, largely because all the leaves have fallen and covered the mud, and we've had a bit of rain so there's more water. Its longer than i though, about 15m by 2-4m Here's what the edges look like the water and above it All that stuff above is what they want to clear, i worry the water might dry up in summer without the covering. Would we need to plant something else around it to try and shade it more? At the moment its all moss and ferns and lichen, dripping and prehistoric looking. I couldn't see any fish, but did see some tiny water insects, couldn't get close enough to see properly though. No doubt there's lots of things living in there. Saw lots of ladybugs

Carlos there's definatly a market for organic milk, i buy it when i can afford it. If it was sold closer to the price of normal milk i'd buy it all the time. I think more people would spend the extra for it if they were aware of how much damage dairy farming does, but its rather idealised in the consumers mind, same way that pig farming is.

good searching livingart, i tried to find anything relating to this region but couldn't find any info. Says there's only .6 hectares of wetlands in the whole region, thats a very good reason to work on restoring it, even though its only small. There's no farm runoff, its filled by rain i think and the neighbouring paddocks just have a couple of cows to keep the grass in check. The primary school edges the other side, they'll be using the rest of the area for picnics and to learn about the bush. All non-native trees will be cleared, i don't know if they're planning on planting any more natives though, they want to keep it relatively clear with plenty of grass since thats supposed to be better for flood protection. Its all the land between the river and the floodbank. Apparently wetlands are good for absorbing floodwaters though so that should be in their favour, and there'd be a benefit in planting round the edges of it with swamp plants.

oh and was planning to get photos but never got time, will go grab some tomorrow

thanks for the links at the moment the cows are fenced well away from it, but dogs are walked there and there's alot of cats, i doubt they'd pest fence the area so not much chance of ducks breeding there. They all seem to stay on the opposite (house free) side of the river anyway. There are possums too. Loads of tuis and fantails, silvereyes and hedge sparrows live in the plants over there now, and the paradise ducks swim over to the paddocks to eat the grass. Rabbits in the paddocks too but i don't think they go near the bush/swamp. Where its black, sludgy water and mud, is that what its supposed to look like? Or does it need more planting/digging/something to make some clean water? Its not deep in the dry season, maybe 20cm of water in the deepest part, but the muddy stuff is really deep if you step on it lol. I imagine it would look nice if they planted some plants around the edge of the swamp, to define it sort of, and give cover for birds round the edges, and cleared out all the rubbish and fallen down trees in the water, but i don't know if the old trees should be left there? They're going to clear everything not native anyway. There is a second swampy part that is connected to the river, but its over the other side and i don't know if they're planning on using it too. Would it be worth putting nesting boxes on some of the trees for birds too? Or would the possums come and scoop them out? And could mud fish live in the swamp?

i think its a peat bog, at least it looks boggy and black and sludgy lol. I might have to go for a hike over there later and grab some pics. Its about 8x15m of water i think, with trees growing across it.

anyone?

Over our back fence is a stretch of overgrown land, then the whanganui river. We own a small part of the overgrown land and the council has decided to develop their part for the neighbouring school to use. They want to use our bit too if we agree, in which case we get to decide what we want done with it basically. They're looking along the lines of clearing all the non-natives and just having grass and native trees. Our part includes most of a big swampy thing, which at the moment is just black sludge and rubbish year round. So when the council man was here going over it, I asked what they planned for the swamp and he suggested it could be drained and filled in, but if we want it to be set up as a proper little swamp/wetland thingy they'd definatly look at that instead. So what should it be like? I've never seen a 'natural' swamp, would it be like a pond with plants? What would live in it - just mosquito larvae or would fishies live there? Its not connected to the river. I can see it could be lovely if it was cleaned and restored, but don't know what i should suggest they do.

wow check this one out http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1008/127 ... b3b993.jpg I found this "The Lithobiomorpha are shorter and more compact centipedes and are very active. Adult Lithobiomorpha range in size from 0.5 cm to over 3 cm....Occasionally one finds beautiful violet individuals – these are freshly moulted Lithobius centipedes, which become reddish-purple when hardened." so maybe thats what ours were, but they were much longer than 3cm. Fascinating creatures, i would have loved to have kept one but i have no idea how to look after centipedes lol.

and after looking at the link, ours didn't look like that at all, more like a normal centipede.