Caryl

If you don't want any fry, don't put the female in the breeder box. As she drops fry she, and all the other fish, will eat the fry as they appear. Problem solved! Not sure if any LFS take fry from random people these days.

I understand they can tolerate cooler temps for a short period of time so you might be OK. Not sure how it stays at "mainly 20C" but drops to 13C. Remember you want to keep your fish in the best possible conditions, not whatever they might tolerate, especially as we are heading into winter.

When people talk about them being cold water, they mean somewhere around 18 - 22C, which many can manage over summer without heating. NZ natives are an option but harder to get. Have a look at Stella's New Zealand Native Fish Facebook page.

They can certainly survive in cooler (not cold) water but surviving and being happy are different things. They prefer the mid 20'sC but can go down to around 15C. If the temperature (including nights) where you live stays above 20C then you'll be fine otherwise, please don't do it. They will also be more susceptible to diseases at lower temperatures.

Different aquarium plants are like garden plants, each needs different things to make sure they grow well. The two you mention need strong light and not just in the afternoon. It may also be if you bought these plants as tropical, from tropical tanks, then planted them in an outdoor aquarium, the sudden change in temperature will have been a shock.

I see you are in the USA Farriis. Water treatments differ from country to country and within councils in different areas. I live in an area with nothing added to the water so have never needed to add anything when doing water changes.

Might help if you stated what area you are in.

If something is small enough to fit in its mouth I think it would eat it.

Just heard on the news that the Auckland council are banning the sale of red eared slider turtles from September this year. They are becoming a pest and are now breeding in the wild ☹️

Sorry there have been no answers to your problem. I would assume something bacterial to affect all the fish, not just one species. Never add any medications to an aquarium unless you are 100% sure you know what it is you're treating. Have they had a change in food, either type or brand? I had one brand (a long time ago now so can't tell you what it was) that was fine when the fish ate it but it swelled a lot more inside the fishes than the usual brand and it caused major problems. Swapped food and they all settled again. In case you're wondering, I know it swelled more as I got one of the new pellets and dropped it in water along with the previous brand pellet. The difference in the amount they swelled was astounding.

Well done you! It is easy to get fish spawning but not so easy to keep them alive after 30 days. Daphnia are very hardy and will appear, seemingly, out of nowhere. I have a fibreglass stocktrough which, if I put it up the right way and it starts to fill with rain water, very quickly ends up with daphnia in it. I also used to raid the stock troughs near the walkways up the Wither Hills behind my house. The walkways run through council owned farm land. I recently hauled a huge pile of Crypt affinis out of my 4ft tropical so the fish are swimming around wearing sunglasses as opposed to carrying machetes. Luckily I found a couple of people happy to take the excess, otherwise it would have had to be dumped and that seems a waste of good plants. The tank has been running over 20 years now and every time we have a quake I half expect it to break. The seals are well past their use by date! In the cupboard underneath are all our board games. I think I need to swap them with the fishy items stored in the cupboard to the left so they have a better chance of surviving the flood if/when the tank goes. The pond is causing problems. It is approx 3m x 8m and was damaged in the last big quake (it's concrete). We are trying to decide whether to have it repaired or filled in. Since we are having great difficulty finding someone to repair it, as we want it altered considerably, it looks like it is going to be easier to fill it in, although that in itself isn't easy either due to the size and depth! We might set the stock trough up as a permanent, much smaller, pond. It will be easier to cover to stop the kotuku, who turns up yearly in the hopes of getting a feed. We are chopping down the Chinese silk tree at the end of it. It has caused a great mess over the years, although i love it and it was the first tree we planted when we built the house 42 years ago. It needs to go as we are getting solar panels installed and the tree is starting to shade part of the roof where the panels will be. My husband is in his 70's (wow, how did that happen so fast?) and I am 3 years off getting a pension so we have to hire minions to do these things. He has rheumatoid arthritis and I have recently had a near death experience in hospital after ignoring symptoms which turned out to be massive and multiple blood clots in my lungs. If my friends had not insisted on ringing the Dr (I kept saying I would wait until my appt booked for the following week) and insisting I be seen immediately, I would be dead. In fact the Dr promptly gave me oxygen on arrival and immediately called an ambulance. Hospital said the friends did good but should have called an ambulance instead of the GP. If I had waited a few hours longer I wouldn't be here! Very scary considering my health was excellent, which is possibly what saved me, and I was on no medication whatsoever. When I went back to the GP a couple of weeks later for my follow-up, the nurse who had helped said they were so concerned I was not going to make it that they kept checking my test results as they came in from the hospital as that way they could see I was still alive! Never ignore symptoms or assume it is just hay fever, sudden onset asthma, or something else. Get seen ASAP! I am now permanently on blood thinners to stop new clots forming but have to wait until my body slowly reabsorbs the oringinal clots, which can take 6 months or more, and hope none break away and give me a heart attack or stroke. Just because I am president of the local stroke club doesn't mean I want to have one! They have no idea why I suddenly developed the clots. Although it was 2 weeks after I had my 2nd Covid vaccination the symptoms had started well before that and before the 1st jab too. I hadn't been on any long haul flighst, had recent surgery, been immobile, or have a family history of them - the usual precursors. My siblings took great delight in saying they always knew i was a clot 🙂 Anyway, I am now on the mend but have to take things slowly and carefully or I run out of puff. Every day there is a slight improvement so that's good. Better you didn't want that much detail when you said you hoped I was well! 🙂

Golfish produce a lot of waste as they are a lot chunkier than the average medium sized tropical. What size are the tank and fish? I'm assuming the fish are quite small. A lot of that initial spotting should disappear as the tank matures. With only 1 live plant, the algae (which is plant) has nothing to compete with it so it is lovng the extra nutrients. Add more plants but you are limited with goldfish as they rip everything up. I add oxygen weed I get from the local river. I wash it well first to make sure it doesn't have unwanted critters living in it then just drop it in to float. The goldfish will eat it too which is why I suggest you gather it from a local water source rather than buy it. Stresscoat will do nothing to help the green water. At least the green is not harmful to the fish either, it is just unsightly. Keep doing regular water changes (25% daily for a week and see if that helps) but leave the filter to build up the good bacteria. Hopefully as the tank cycles the green water will slowly clear. I assume there is no direct sunlight on the tank? Don't start adding products, they usually aren't necessary.

I hope someone can help you but I have not had experience with gill flukes. I can only suggest you buy what you need online (make sure it is NZ based as many meds are not allowed to be imported).

I am so out of touch with the fish scene these days I have no idea who is breeding what, or if anyone is breeding anything! Go to the tabs at the top of the page and look under LOCAL NZ Clubs for the contacts of Auckland clubs and go from there. You could also advertise the fry here once they are big enough. I prefer a tank of one type as their behaviour, when shoaling en masse, is totally different to what you seee if you only have 6 - 12 fish. I remember one member's tank (between 6 - 8 ft from memory) with several hundred neons. It certainly caught your eye! Cardinals are better, and live longer, but neons are cheaper - hence the preference by many for neons. I think you'll find an excellent article about breeding cardinls under Fish then Articles at the top of the page. The problem with raising fry is you have to get rid of them or become over-run. One way to try and break dominance is to remove the fish and rearrange the tank, putting the dominant fish back last. Today has been odd with sunshine, short showers, then sunshine again. We've been having glorious days with warm nor-westers then southerlies!

All tetras are schooling fish so are happiest in large numbers. They are happy to join other schools of fish - safety in numbers. When narrow fish get skinny if oten makes their eyes look bulgy. The females will carry eggs in varying numbers most of the time so if you have one spectacular looking male (who may have harassed the other males, you don't say what sex ratio you have) they will be getting their eggs ready in anticipation.

Good to hear the fry are doing well. These forums used to be a hive of activity but Google, FB and YouTube pretty much killed it with people preferring instant answers. Speaking of YouTube, here is a link to a Betta (not a goldfish as it says) to jump through a hoop so there's hope for you. Not sure about the flames bit though https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEAqBNIa2mA I cut cucumber into 1cm slices and thread them all onto a plastic knitting needle, weighted down with a sinker. The Ancistrus clean the whole lot up, except the outer skins which are easy to lift out.

You may stay in your own island thank you very much 😁 Can't offer you coffee as we don't drink it so only have instant in the house for guests (the ones who have not turned into coffee snobs). So these fry hatched Sept 8th? If you can keep them alive for 30 days you should be right from then on. It is making sure they get enough food in the first 30 days that is the difficult bit. You can buy infusoria in a tube at fish shops if I remember rightly. Click and collect? Is pet food considered essential? Good luck!

You need lots of water changes in the fry tank as the egg yolk will foul the water quickly. Personally, I would stick to your usual water supply but I have no idea what is added to the Auckland water (apart from Covid tracings 😉 ) Fingers crossed!

Very little on the go these days. We have 1, 4ft tropical which just has Odessa barbs and Ancistrus. These have been self replenishing for years as the tank is also fill of C affinis, Anubias nana and rotala. The Odessa spawn all the time but only a few survive each time so I don't get over-run. Outside I have a 3m x 8m approx pond. I'm pretty sure the build of it is in these forums somewhere. It now needs re-doing after a few quakes but we can't find anyone to help. We are both too decrepit to manage it ourselves as we each have different health issues. Would love to landscape the whole front yard again but can't find anyone to do that either at the moment! Here are pics taken in May. Plants have grown even more since then!!

Having never bred them I can't offer any tips at all I'm afraid. I do know getting fry past the first 30 days is the hard part.

Neat photos. I thought the name might be because you had bearded dragons. You will have more success with the tetras if you set up a breeding tank, put the breeding fish in there and, once they have spawned and eggs are all over the place, remove the adults.

Make sure any water boatmen get eaten quickly as they can eat fry. How lucky you were to find a good source of daphnia in the CBD. I've just been to the supermarket for the first time since lockdown began. Got straight in and had no trouble getting everything on my list. When I left the were 30 in the queue so I obviously timed it well (while the Covid Update was on). Of course, I am not in Auckland either!

Well crypts 'melt' just for the hell of it so I imagine adding cold to the mix will make it worse. As freight can be held up as well these days I advise waiting until warmer weather.

I will try having a look at that Interfecus. How about I box up some plants, send then to you ghostknife, then tell you what it cost? It will be whatever the postage cost, plants are free. Are you still at the same address you were in April 2019? I have that one. I was just suggesting to someone else they wait until warmer weather. Especially with freight being held up a lot these days. I have nowhere here to buy heat pads to keep the plants warm and crypts are especially good at melting. I doubt the cold will improve matters!

I have affinis. The fish need a machete to get through it at the moment. Not sure it is the best time to send with it being so cold. I will be passing through Wgtn next week (coming across on the Interisland ferry) but unsure how to get any plants to you as we are heading north with limited time so can't deliver it to you.