Caryl

I will PM you some other member contacts. The secretary is away at the moment I believe.

zzzzzz. Oh sorry, have fallen asleep as I am absolutely buggered! Thank you for the praise and we are glad you had a good time. Did I really get elected as editor? I thought that was a nightmare I had last night.

We're missing you too goldie. Just going home to change for dinner but will be online later so keep an eye on the chat room tonight

There are 3 clubs in Auckland so I am not sure which one is closest to you. I gather you have seen the club list with contact details. Paul Monckhof, secretary of one of the clubs, is away at the moment as he is in the NZ champion boccia team and they are building up for the next championship (or the disabled games, I can't remember which) so it would pay to contact the president of that club instead, if it was the closest to you. The Auckland clubs have inter-club shows, or competitions, but we do not often have large fish shows these days as they are very expensive to run, and get to! The last one was a public display in Napier, organised by the Hawkes Bay club. We took a van load from our club to the event and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. You may have seen elsewhere on the site that this weekend is our annual conference. It is being held in Blenheim this year with me organising it so check out the chat room during the weekend as we hope to be in there during the evenings after dinner. We may even get a web cam set up.

If you want colour then guppies are certainly the fish to get. Plus watching them drop their fry is always interesting. Fast moving, shoaling, fish would keep his interest I think so perhaps a school of tetras. At least 6 or more. Tiger barbs look good in a group too.

Hi bikiegirl and welcome to the fishroom. I am rather intrigued by your 'coldwater tropicals'. Do you want to start the tanks again or add to the current inhabitants? Sometimes it pays to find out the pH of your tap water. If it is particularly high, or low, it may influence which fish you choose.

Shilo I don't know if you can get refill bottles as I use the kit so rarely none of it has run out so I haven't looked. The kit comes in a plastic carry case with several test tubes, bottles and stuff.

I won a JBL testkit (well, Grant did actually) at conference once and it has tests for pH, ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, Gh, KH,CO2, phosphate & iron.

You will probably get several different answers. Many people don't use test kits until something goes wrong and then they are useful in helping pinpoint the problem. I use (when I use them at all) pH, ammonia, nitrate and nitrite kits. If you are having trouble with your tank or fish and post a question about it, these are the 4 things you will be asked about - along with tank size, type of fish, stocking level and temp.

I had just finished reading this post when we had a short sharp earthquake!! I don't think I will read this thread again :lol:

Hard to tell who from the fishroom is going as I don't necessarily know their real names but the ones I do know are... Caryl, Cees, Alan, Andrew, Warren, Janey, Pies, Derek, Mitch, Julie and Bruce

We will take everyone to the appropriate ferry at the appropriate time, no problem. There are already others on the later sailing as well. Luckily we have 4 vans available so don't need a huge number of drivers with cars.

You need to kick Bern out of bed earlier! :lol:

There will now be 29 conference goers on the same ferry. Hope it is a smooth crossing folks! We have vehicles organised to pick you al lup at Picton. I forgot to ask when everyone was returning home so would appreciate anyone here attending to tell me here what ferry they are returning home on.

An update for those interested. We have 44 attending from other clubs around NZ. 48 will be at the Saturday AGM, 52 will chow down at the Bamboo Garden restaurant, 50 will enjoy themselves on Sunday at wineries, breweries, and pubs and travel on a virtual flight, then 54 will tuck into the evening meal at the Beavers Restaurant, followed by the anniversary party at the motel. My lounge floor is covered in boxes full of goods donated by various wholesalers and retailers. ALL SYSTEMS ARE GO!!! :lol:

Hi hop2it and welcome to the fishroom. Are you planning on totally restocking from scratch or do you want to keep the existing fish? That Jack Dempsey will limit your choices. How big is it? Have you gone off rainbows? How about adding more of them? What are the fish dying of, just old age? If not, you need to find out what's killing them before you do any restocking. I think a big tank of gouramis always looks good.

Does that explain why you did not turn up at the meeting tonight, or put in an apology? Hmm? :lol: Good luck with the corys.

I heard back from Dominique but he does not have them anymore sorry. Look after your two Andrew!

I agree with Warren. Totally inert.

We had a coldwater rock pool aquarium set up and it attracted a lot of attention. We could not keep it cool enough in summer though as the room temp sat around 25C - 28C and this was too warm. They actually prefer up to 15C only. We got our crabs, fish, anemones and shrimps etc from the rock pools down the Kaikoura coast.

Well, WHERE WAS HE??? :lol:

We saw it too - very interesting. My boss rang to say it was on, otherwise we would have missed it. My mum has videoed it so we hope to play it at conference sometime for those interested.

If you mean the Pantodon buchholzi - butterflyfish, these are not a community species. They grow 10 - 15cm (according to my book, I have not kept them myself) and prefer a diet of live foods (large ones, won't notice small ones) like spiders, moths, crickets, cockroaches and small fish. These fish jump so need to be in a covered tank.

Thanks Warren but our breeding coordinator is now Chris Brew. His details are in my last post.

I am sure Stanley the knife didn't go around killing people like Mack the knife did! :lol: It is an old song I am sure you would recognise if you heard it. Robbie Williams re-released it on his last album of old Frank Sinatra-like songs.