Caryl

Just found this article I wrote for our club newsletter back in 1996... White worms are a good live food for fish and easy to grow. Here's how... Get a wooden box 25cm x 30cm x 10cm high (or use an ice cream container like me). Fill with friable soil (ie. crumbly dirt). I use peat mixed with a bit of sand and Sid Smithies reckons they like the addition of a bit of lime. Put a cover of glass resting on the top of the soil (a bit of Perspex works as well). This keeps it moist, which is vital, and keeps out undesirable livestock (after all, you don't want sheep wandering through your white worms) - I didn't write some of this, I think they are referring to smaller livestock ie. mice. Then put a light-proof cover on the lot - either the ice cream container lid or a bit of cardboard will do. Make sure it is not airtight, as a worm's gotta breathe! Put your starter culture (buy it from a pet shop or scrounge some off another club member) in two or three hollows in the soil and enough bread to cover a 20c piece over the top. You can slightly moisten the bread if you like. If you use milk though, the bread will tend to sour and go off faster. The worms must eat all the bread in two days, which is why you only give them a little bit to start with. Slowly build up the amount until you can gauge how much they eat. When my culture is up and running, I just put a slice of bread in every few days. There are a number of foods you can use to feed your worms. Mashed potato, cheese, porridge, luncheon and bread are all recommended, as is pet food. Once your culture has matured you can start harvesting. You should be able to remove them clean from around the bread, or off the glass lid. As soon as they are exposed to light, they burrow down into the soil so grab them quickly. They should form a tight ball of wriggling worms that you can pick up with tweezers or a teaspoon. Here's a few quick hints on how to keep your worms alive and thriving... 1. Try to keep the temperature between 12- 14°C. 2. Keep the dirt damp but not too wet. 3. If your worms keep trying to climb up the sides of the container, it is too wet. 4. Uneaten food will go mouldy. Check regularly and change it if necessary. 5. Stir up the dirt every six months and add more if required. 6. Don't overfeed if going away. The culture will be ok for 1-3 weeks. 7. An earthworm or two helps the soil. 8. It takes about 4 weeks for the culture to reach full production. NOTE: These worms are very rich (like fatty foods for us). Don't feed them to your fish more than twice a week or they will not be well. You wouldn't want to be responsible for giving your fish high cholesterol would you? Having read that again, I don't know who told me to keep them in the hot water cupboard but I did, and they grew well - most of the time.

Ah the old rotunda dotticus eh? Don't worry about them unless they reach plague proportions

I often kept my cultures in an ice cream container with holes punched in the lid (more readily available than little wooden containers - couldn't be bothered making them specially). Don't worry about the red bugs, they are ok - another source of live food

As far as I know these things (don't know their actual name) are perfectly normal and nothing to worry about. I know I have often seen them bouncing about at the surface of my tank. I think they are too small and zippy for some fish. Why go to the effort of chasing one of them when, if you wait a bit, manna drops from the sky once or twice a day?

Wooden boxes for your worms are better than plastic ones as they breathe, so stop the mix going so sour. I kept my white worms in the hot water cupboard, not the fridge. They also like it dark. They were fed bread sprinkled with a little milk and occasionally yeast. My daughter won a Science Fair category once with her project about white worms. I know Squid (fishroom member) used to breed his white worms in a bath as he needed so many when he was breeding fish in large numbers.

1. Carry them in a container 2. Must be kept warm enough to digest food. All food must be chopped small enough to swallow readily. 3/4 meat to 1/4 veges. Diced beef, chopped fish, canned dog food, chopped beef or chicken liver, beef heart, beef kidneys, earthworms. Tomato, mashed berries, green lettuce, shredded spinach, oxygen weed. Add lots of calcium to their diet. 3. Males have long tapering tails and longer claws. Females have shorter stubby tails and shorter claws. 4. Most aquatic turtles will live in captivity around 50 years 5. Examine regularly for anything that looks injured or infected. 6. Turtles should not get sick. If they do it is usually because of poor feeding, improper housing, or both. Turtles can get worms but parasites do not seem to be a problem. All this information (except No.1) was gleaned from the book Turtles by John M Mehrtens

If you are planning on one betta in this set-up you would not need a filter or airstone as they are air breathers so he would go to the surface. You would need to do regular water changes though. Heat pads are available in NZ. Last time I looked they were $99 for a thing a bit bigger than a hot water bottle. We make our own. The one under our 4ft tank (which is the same size as the tank base) cost about $40.

My Fluval is very quiet. It sits in a cupboard beside the tank so I can't hear it at all. If the cupboard door is open though you can just make out a quiet hum if there is no other noise in the background. Get it back to the retailer fast!

Apparently Redwood Aquatics in ChCh sells live rock for $40 per kg. An average rock is around 4kg.

I would say your tank's too deep :lol: (or your plant's too short) (or the bottom's too low) Sorry Derek, I can't help you. Ira's answer had me laughing so much I had to add my bit of humour too.

Welcome to the fishroom Campbell I have never had trouble with UGFs and have had well planted tanks despite many saying they are no good for plants. Make sure you have a good depth of gravel over them though. My rainbows (boesemani, Mccullochii, melanistrus, blue dwarfs) swim all over the place. Kuhlis are fine in a planted tank.

What are you offering your books to him for? You should donate them to your club! :lol:

Grant and I are off to Christchurch soon too Got a computer roadshow to attend - get lots of freebies at these things. Have to stock up on pens for next year's conference :lol: One of our members has just set up a marine tank with help from Redwood Aquatics down there. She does not have internet access so I will give her a ring and get some prices for you. I am sure she has some live rock. She also has some clowns and an anemone.

I thought DH stood for Despairing Husband :lol:

Do another pH test this afternoon and see what the reading is then.

Tannin leaching from driftwood does not harm the fish at all. Some of them like it as it cuts down on visibility. I would let the tank continue to cycle a bit longer before doing a water change.

White clouds can be kept in cold, or tropical, water.

Barbs are well known fin nippers (specially the tigers) and will attack anything slower than they are - which is just about everything! Keeping barbs in groups of 6 or more helps. They are shoaling fish who develop a distinct pecking order in the shoal. If you have enough of them (more than 6) they spend so much time keeping each other in order that they tend to ignore the other inhabitants.

I have seen white clouds living with goldfishes but the goldfishes in question were all very big veil tails and could not move fast enough to catch the white clouds. Don't get any more fish anywhere Dawn! Sit back and enjoy what you have. Let your husband get used to the new tanks first Wait a few months and see how they all settle in and what happens as they grow.

Don't forget it would need to be heated - unless the room is kept at a good temperature.

There you are then. I would have looked for colour first, not size or shape. I had better leave the guppy picking to you!

I'm sure it was us fishroom members who got you into it again :lol: Don't tell Mariette it was us though! Are you able to describe what you are looking for in a guppy? Perhaps we can keep an eye out for you and report any finds. Grant and I will be in ChCh for a computer roadshow in the beginning on August and may pop into a fish shop or two.

Either that or we think you need more help than others :lol: I actually think it was Fatman who originally asked about AquaClears.

Another point to remember too is that it is OK to agree to disagree. If it works for you - great. A day in which you don't learn something new is wasted. Pleased to hear your looks have nothing to do with us! :lol:

There is a discussion somewhere else in these forums about when you should replace heaters. Some say every year or so but they must have more $$$ than us As a heater ages it gets less reliable. It also pays to have a spare on hand for emergencies. I have a heater I have used for over 8 years and it is still going strong. The heatpad under our tank has been going even longer. Good to see you seem to have your multiple personalities (and password) sorted out :lol: