BikBok

I've got my female betta in the hospital tank right now because she broke her ventrals trying to get under the driftwood and they wern't healing as fast as I'd like in the main tank. She's got 1 1/2 teaspoons in about 18L of water, she seems to be doing ok with that. I think adodge has recommended up to 1g/L in the past and a teaspoon is about 5.5g depending on how fine. what about acriflavine for finrot?

oh here you go.. here's their facebook page with photos of their store. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Auckland/ ... l&viewas=0

PETPAC - the fish section is called Fincity. Not a huge store but they will get things in if you need. I always stop to say hello to ol Crusty the Lorikeet who is 20-30 years old I think and likes to steal the plastic bag of goods you've just bought! meet the friendly staff: http://www.petpac.co.nz/about-us/ and: http://www.primepetproducts.com/wawcs01 ... ut-us.html

My preferred LFS have a loyalty card, it's great. I even got a $20 voucher just for signing up. Family owned business, personal, reasonably priced, friendly and knowledgeable.. what else could you want! :-)

I don't keep any of the fry offspring.. save the very first female tux that was born coz she's cute. But otherwise i don't want offspring interbreeding with siblings and parents and slowly reducing the diversity of the gene pool. If I want another guppy I will go out and buy one otherwise I might end up with a drab looking bunch of guppies after a few generations. Besides, I don't have room to keep all my favs.. so goodbye to my latest little cute snakeskin.. ;-( wish I could keep him!

the ones I bought look exactly the same and were also packaged in plain plastic bags. They were advertised as "INERT ceramic noodles"

I'm sure there are some absolutely lovely people working at animates and have come across some myself. And having little animal knowledge does not make you an unlovely person at all.. but in a petshop it would be nice to have staff actually know their stuff. I once had a sales staff not know what a cuttlefish holder was and she started to walk over to the fish section, I mean come on! Professional Development in the core of their business (animals and pets and supplies) would go a huge long way to customer satisfaction. If I'm not sure about something I would like to have confidence that the person I'm asking questions of , actually knows what they are talking about and not just trying to sell me the item anyway. I have had both good and bad experiences at Animates.. but the bad were really bad and so I usually go elsewhere as my first port of call.

check out the brief for store manager: http://www.animates.co.nz/default.aspx? ... rs&ax=list absolutely nothing about experience or passion for animals.. same for the "sales professionals" and Merchandisers. Only "fish maintenance " prefers you have some prior experience though not essential! these statements says it all : source: http://www.animates.co.nz/default.aspx?x=Employment - Great Staff that's fantastic for for Sales and retail training ... but don't expect to to find good grounded animal advice as the norm.. that's a bonus if you do! Pity they don't put as much effort into training staff for animal knowledge and care.

but you would still need to cycle your tank.. unless they're going to throw in live bacteria at point of sale. (JBL filter start works a treat)

5ppm is fine , it will add to the amount your tank produces though. Our water supply here has an avg of 0.21mg/L (roughly same as ppm) and the maxium allowable value in drinking water is 50ppm which is of course too much for fish.. but our tap water is not even 1ppm. Maybe it's a temporary level in your water supply

I've got a question. If noodles were left to soak for several weeks before using, would this stabilise them so they dom't have so much affect on pH? I wouldn't need to throw them away then!

I just tried that, air bubbles came out for about 1/2 minute but it didn't really fizz.

i think I have a hygro plant .. not 100% sure, but my whiptail leaves holes in the leaves - yet he won't eat veges!

I was in a store recently and noticed a yellow betta looking very unhapy and had the beginnings of white spot. I pointed it out to a staff member and he said "oh he's fine, just resting" ... but 20 minutes later , said betta was in blue water . so he must have gone away and checked with someone and at least they did something. But why did it take a customer to notice?

eeek!! I've seen worse at a LFS though.. it was hideous and I couldn't believe they left it int he tank for people to see.. i mean it was seriously deformed I wondered how it could even swim.

Well Guppys and Platys will breed wherever and whenever lol! expect a new batch every 4-8 weeks. Provide lots of hiding places for the fry (plants etc) Lots of good water changes will encourage regular birthing .. 9 times out of 10 my females will birth straight after a water change as they can be known to hold on or reabsorb if the conditions aren't right. water changes also encourages fast growth of the fry because there will be less nitrates. Make sure you've got suitable food for tiny mouths.. i use decaps brine shrimp eggs which they love and then move onto crushed tropical flake and in no time they are eating what the adults eat. My females are young so their drops are 7-20 but this will probably increase as they get older. As Sam said, more females than males.

my ones look the same but from a different seller who doesn't have any currently listed. They were said to be Inert ceramic noodles. my current pH test kit doesn't go above 7.4 so not sure whether testing after a night in a bucket will show anything of use. .. plus our tap water is high to start with.

sounds like the same ones I got.. hmmm, worried about adding any more now. I've still got most of an icecream container full which will go to waste.

Hi Skippy and welcome!! Your nitrates are perfectly fine IMO. Mine are 10-30 at times. Plants will help if you're worried though. Maybe the LFS were thinking of nitrites which do need to be zero. Believe it or not , not all LFS have competent staff.

oh my gosh, I caught him just trying to mate his mother !! and yes he is def 5 weeks old.. no mistake.

there does look like some neons there. I was interested in the gravel and pH comment.. I didn't realise gravel would affect pH by much so I might look at changing mine. I have the harvest/fruit salad mix . pH is keeps creeping up but I'd like to keep it under 7.2

Cockatiels are lovely gentle natured birds. I know they don't always mix well with bossy budgies as they get dominated by the budgies but I'm not sure about lorikeets - I would imagine Lorikeets are bossy too. Lorikeets have been known to displace even Cockatoos from their homes in Australia, and in NZ they drive out our natives such as the nectar feeding Tui. but a pet situation might be different. Good luck with rehabilitating the sick cockatiel - is he/she tame?

Sam I have a male blue VT .. feisty thing.. and a red female VT (with some crown) , she's a real character. I had them within line of sight for a day but the male got his breeding cheek stripes and went crazy, then went into instant bubble nest mode and all that. So I had to change things abck again. Once I've had my tanks running for more than a year I will look at getting a big community tank and get a fancy fighter!

but what about his tail pattern? Is it Mosaic? I'm almost tempted to keep him coz I like snakeys but I have another batch of younger fry growing fast!

I have two of adodges fighters - they're cool!