Caryl

Hi and welcome muerk. Quite a few others have goldfish as well. I like the comets but do not like the fancy goldfish so much.

Is he in with the new jaguar cichlid then? :lol:

It is him Shelley :lol: . You can't miss him can you? :lol:

After a bit of in-house fighting, one of my Africans was really bad. So bad in fact I thought it was dead until I went to net it out and it moved slightly. To put it out of its misery I put it in a plastic bag (white so I couldn't actually see the fish), swung it around a couple of times and whacked it on the concrete as quickly as possible. It then went in the rubbish.

Very nice Ball.

The May Aquarium World will be posted on Monday. Please do not get confused as the index page still has February on it and so do the bottom of the pages :roll: . The cover says May! :lol: Unfortunately there was a printing problem in the last of the print runs which I did not see so my apologies for the poor quality print on some of the pages for those of you in the South Island at least. They get wrapped in order from the top of the North Island down to Kelly in Invercargill and without unwrapping some, I have no idea when it started. I know Marlborough's have the problem as do all south of there. The centre page (which is the one I was looking at as they finished each print run) looked OK so I only picked up the problem by accident but we have had trouble with a lack of red so the pictures of the National Aquatic Pest Task Force, which should have been red, are a yucky orange and streaky. It also means the pics in Paul's article aren't the best in the faulty copies either. I do not have the time or money to reprint the poor copies I'm sorry. If anyone is looking at buying a colour laser, I personally would not recommend Kyocera. When they go properly, their print quality and economy is excellent. When they go wrong we have trouble getting help. The man in Auckland keeps trying to tell us it is excess humidity. We keep trying to tell him that the rest of the country is not like Auckland and excess humidity is not something we have to contend with in the middle of droughts! :evil:

I think the reasoning behind not flushing fish was referring more to live fish. People would flush unwanted or sick live fish down the loo which was cruel to the fish.

If the water in the bucket stays the same it suggests to me something in your tank is raising the pH. Most likely the gravel. Do the same test with some water and gravelin a bucket. Do you have anything else in the tank?

I always fed my goldfish live earthworms.

I have never noticed much of a pH drop using driftwood. I plant to use some when I get the new 6ft tank built but it is on hold at the moment with unexpected medical bills to pay first

Caper I don't know of any NZ site specifically (never looked them up) but I can direct you to http://photobucket.com/albums/v144/carylnz/ This is my web album. There is one album there called New Zealand, which will show you what my country looks like. Feel free to look in the other albums as well, particularly the Karamea trip we did recently.

MAC - Marlborough Aquarium Club :lol:

I assume you know how big they grow?

Hi and welcome ormali. Did you have all those fish in the little tank or did you go out and buy them all at once once the big tank was set up? I think this might be your problem. Have you tested the water for ammonia, nitrites and nitrates?

That first one is obviously a pregnant male :lol: Are they fish fingers in the background?

I would need to see both tanks up close and 'live' before deciding. If anyone would like to give me the money I am happy to travel over and personally check them out for you. :lol:

You are on the right track - cooler is what I meant and the pads come in both solid and flexible outers. I use the solid plastic ones.

Water sprite - Ceratopteris thalictroides Indian fern - Ceratopteris pteroides Water wisteria - Hygrophila difformis Riccia - Riccia fluitans Duckweed - Lemna minor Rubra - Azollia filiculoides Starwort - Callitriche stagnalis water clover - Nardoo - Marsilea mutica

The heater doesn't need to be turned off as it only turns on if the temp drops below its set temperature. In warm weather it just doesn't turn on. We have small fluorescents here that fit into an ordinary bulb socket. Do you have them over there too? The pads I refer to are called Slikka Pads over here. They are the solid plastic ones you put into chilly bins, Eskies, or chiller boxes (don't know what you call them in Canada). They are full of water and you keep them in the freezer until needed. They do not leak. You can use ice cubes too but this raises the water level as they melt which is why I prefer the pads. My tank is set to 22C (which is lower than many recommend but my fish are all happily living to ripe old ages) but in summer gets up to 28 - 30C.

I believe they still need feeding and give mine bottom feeder pellets and cucumber.

We are in what is called The Ring of Fire which runs around the Pacific. That means we have quake fault lines running through our country plus volcanos. We get lots of quakes but most do little or no damage. They say we are overdue for the Big One though! They terrify me. I still remember one we had in 1967 (that ages me doesn't it?). Don't know how big it was but I remember the power going off, then a roar, then violent shaking. As well as the noise of the quake itself, everything came crashing down off shelves, pictures came off the walls, furniture was flung about the room, the chimneys came down, the toilet cracked in half (luckily nobody was on it at the time ) and the whole house was moved 4 inches off its foundations. You could look down the bedroom wall and see the flowers in the garden outside. I remember the mess of all the preserves, eggs and birdseed slopping over the floor. Amazingly, because the cupboards faced the other way, we didn't lose any crockery though. Two years later an even bigger quake hit Inangahua and people were killed. There were massive landslides and one even blocked a whole valley with the river backing up behind it.

Fancy meeting you here Caper! :lol: Welcome to The Fishroom.

Break them up if you have small fish. A treat can either replace, or be given along with, the regular flakes.

That is plenty. Once you are more experienced you will test even less. I only test my tanks if I suspect a problem. Let the tank settle a bit before the 2nd test. testing twice is just to satisy your curiosity and let you know what your tank is doing until you get the hang of it

The fish ought to be getting enough natural light so I doubt your light routine upsets them. Use fluorescents as they are cooler and cheaper to run. I would never consider a tank without natural plants as it is better for the fish and easier to keep the water parameters stable but lots of people keep artificial plants only with no problems. Your tank will heat to match the temperature of the room even if your heaterstat is set to a lower temp. Ours sit at 28C in summer and get up to 33C on hot days. Then we turn the lights off, lift the lids and blow fans across the surface to cool them off. If necessary we also put frozen pads in as well.