Caryl

Just you wait until I send you a postcard from Vanuatu Bill! PS. You know where you can stick your doggy bag :lol:

Hi Cid and welcome. I try to visit the VCS forum often and would be joining their BBQ if someone had sent plane tickets.

Riccia is readily available in NZ. If you are looking for cheap plants I suggest you join a local fish club. Auckland has 3. Club members are always willing to help fellow members.

The Fishtank in Stanmore Rd and one I can't remember the name of. It is at the side of the carpark of Pak N Save or Countdown (can't remember which) in Moorhouse Ave. Opposite Science Alive (in the old railway station).

Welcome Robert! Hope you get a lot from the Fishroom and tell others about us. We certainly do have a number of discus lovers here so you should feel right at home

Thanks for thinking of us Chris The place is Kritter Kingdom. Petworld and Redwood Aquatics also have a good selection of marines but I have no idea how their prices compare with Auckland.

As an aside - in the computer industry wholesalers will not deal with you unless you are a registered company due to too many people ripping them off in the manner Warren mentioned. They set up, get what they want then the business disappears.

As I am sure you can tell Pete, the North V South is just a friendly thing. I don't mind confessing to having told you to visit a Tauranga shop either! 3/4 of our population lives in Auckland so, as you can imagine, it doesn't leave much for the rest of us. We don't have any fish shops at all where I live (although the local garden centre stocks the basics) and the nearest is 1 1/2 hours away. I'm sure Bruce will be smug when I confess that - if I had to live in the North Island - I would choose Napier. I am also looking forward to our next trip there in October.

From a fish point of view - you did. More people = more fish shops

Hi Pete, welcome to The Fishroom. I hope you realise the South Island is far superior to the North Island so I hope we see you down here :lol:

Can't see any problem with meeting somewhere. I do believe there are rooms left. Contact Bruce by email and he will give you the lady's name and phone number. Looks like we got us a convoy! 10-4 buddy! :lol: I do believe my age is showing :oops:

How boring! I was picturing all these fish milling about putting mud packs on their little faces, using the cucumber slices (dropped in for the bristlenoses) to refresh their eyes, and discussing the possibility of getting melanomas from the glare of the lights :lol:

Java fern - fishy broccoli

What on earth (no pun intended) is a miracle mud system? Is someone giving fish facials to make them look younger? :lol:

This is what Andrew said except he (quite correctly) softened the J sound as is used in French eg J'aime le poisson! or J'aime regarder mon poisson. Translations: I love fish!, or I like looking at my fish

Thanks Andrew. I wondered about the Dah zhay bit. Should have guessed he was French.

Don't know about the middle pronounciation but I read an article which said if the fish name ends in 'i' it is always pronounced 'eye' not 'ee'. If there are two 'i's at the end, both are accented, first one 'ee' and second one 'eye'.

I have just had a heart attack!!! At the beginning of this thread you said Labour wekend and then you put in brackets (October 19). I checked my calendar because I have just booked the ferry for the next weekend (25 - 28). One of my calendars also had Labour weekend on the 19th but the rest (and my diary) said it was the 28th. Your July newsletter also has the dates as Oct 26 - 28 so I hope this is the correct weekend. Do you know how long it took to get the bookings sorted?????????!!!!!!

Yeehah! Marlborough has just booked 2 vans on the ferry and will have 9 members heading to Napier for Labour weekend. Accommodation has been booked too. We are getting together items for auction - fish, plants and equipment. Look out Napier - here we come!!! PS. We have 2 or 3 spare seats (unless more club members join us) if someone needs a ride and we can pick you up as we pass - share fuel costs.

http://www.bio-elite.com/waterbridge.htm Check this site out. He has a water bridge between his tanks - different!

Once Cees finds out where exactly it is, and if it is accessible, I am happy to put up with ... er I mean put up a group at my place then take them over there to go digging. Grant knows the Takaka area reasonably well. We could do a day trip from Blenheim. It takes about 2 and a half hours to get from here to the top of the Takaka hill. Too far for a conference bus trip (and very windy - as in winding roads, not strong winds) but easy for someone who wants to stay a day or two extra and do the trip then (a lot harder to dig in the frost though!).

I must say I find the colours used on our site here are very restful (but it does have white in it). Hope your meeting accepts your board. BTW I didn't go on a junket with the boss, I AM the boss! I call myself the credit manager. Grant does the work and I manage to take the credit :lol:

Welcome Peter! I like the hoplo cats too - a good chunky fish with character.

Caryl said... > I got this from a 'local source (geochemist)', apparently there > is a big band of laterite in the takaka hills on the Golden bay > side (top of South Island). I said that?? How clever of me. Where did I say it? I don't know any geochemists. Did I say if it is accessible and where exactly it was? Grant goes over that way fairly often and could pick some up if it was beside the road (and not too heavy) and had a big sign and an arrow pointed at it with "Get your Laterite here" written on it.

It is my understanding you should only have one flying fox in a tank (someone will correct me if I am wrong). I had a flying fox once which was great until it grew. The older it got, the stroppier it got, and it kept chasing all the other fish. They are also very good at leaping out of your tank through the smallest of gaps! I like the bristlenose (ancistrus lineolatus) as an algae eater. It also depends on what sort of algae you want a fish to eat. Some algae is ignored by ALL fish!