Caryl

I would have give him more time to recover too. Another point is...it is now considered cruel to euthanase a fish by freezing as they die very slowly. The best way to kill a fish is to dash it hard onto concrete. Hope this does not put you off fish keeping! :-?

I will be doing a proper report on conference once I am home again Cees. At the moment I only have sporadic access to the Net.

Conference has been very interesting so far. I have met a couple of people from The Fishroom too We went on a mystery bus trip today and visited a winery, a British Car Museum, lunched by the gannet colony and ended up at HB Aquaculture where they are breeding seahorses (about 60,000 of them), paua (abalone for you non kiwis), brine shrimp (to feed the seahorses) and crayfish (rock lobster). This evening we are off to tour the new HB Aquarium. Tomorrow Grant and I head for a week in Mt Maunganui so hope to visit Living Waters there and meet Fee in her shop in Tirau. Bye from conference for now as our taxi will be here shortly. In 2004 it has been suggested conference be held in Vanuatu. All are keen so any FNZAS members interested had better make sure they have a passport and start saving now!

Being good I started a new topic. We used to have a vacuum siphon. It was green plastic with a thin uplift. The water went up through the device and then went through a fine mesh bag back into the tank. Any debris was left in the bag. It was pretty useless as siphons go as it did not have much power and lacked suckability It was for those who wished to clean their gravel without having to do a water change. Handy for picking up leftover uneaten food from the bottom of the tank but too slow for proper, thorough, gravel cleaning maintenance

I have no idea whether doing water changes during the cycle period is a good idea or not. I am terrible at water changes and my tanks only get them two or three times a year (if I think of it).

Is this a freshwater or marine tank? I never use anything in my tanks, especially during the cycling process. A well balanced tank should never need any sort of additive (my personal opinion). You will occasionally get a white bloom when setting up a tank but it should resolve itself after a few days. I know that when I do water changes in summer I am more likely to get an algae bloom than at other times of the year. I now don't do water changes when the local water tables are low.

Hi Karen, Welcome to The Fishroom. To calculate capacity, multiply the internal length, height and breadth in centimetres and divide the answer by 1,000. This will tell you how may litres your tank will hold. My maths is useless so doublecheck this but... 48" x 12" x 17" is 122cm x 30 x 43. Multiply and divide by 1,000 comes to 157.38 litres. Don't forget this is water only. Once you have gravel and rocks, your internal measurements will be smaller. Put the gravel in first and then measure your internal sizes as it will make a big difference. If discus are as expensive in Aussie as they are here, you will certainly want to make sure you have everything right for them before purchase! Good luck. At least you know where to come with your questions now. There are plenty of members ready and willing and able to answer most questions.

"Brackish water is halfway between fresh and marine. It is found in estuaries where the river meets the sea. Depending on the tides, or season, the salinity (saltiness) can vary greatly." So begins the article "Try A Bit Of Salt" written by me and found in the Aquarium World Dec. '95 magazine. I will send a copy of this to Cees and ask him to add it to the articles section of The Fishroom. It details how to set up a brackish tank (perhaps Midas could print off a copy to give to the shop) including what gravel, filtration, plants and salt to use. It talks about covers, lighting, hydrometers (to measure specific gravity s.g. - salt content). Also covered are what species of fishes are suitable for the brackish tank and suggested stocking levels. I will send it to Cees as soon as possible and hope it will be useful.

I have just read, in the EDAS Fishtales April 2000 magazine, that experiments seeking memory enhancing drugs are being done on the plant Bacopa monieri. They don't say whether it enhances the fishes' memory, or if it is for humans but one member reckons it must work for humans as he remembers how terrible it tasted! BTW: EDAS stands for Eastern Districts Aquarium Society (Australia)

Once again we got off topic from the original thread Perhaps we should ask Cees to move these earthquake posts to a separate thread as I am sure the information Warren has given will be interesting and useful to many but they might not realise it is here since it is under the heading Fibreglass Tanks.

The water varies from region to region. Here in Blenheim we had no problems until the council decided the pH was too acid as it was eating the pipes (pH 6.8) so they now pour tons of lime and caustic soda into the town supply. A number of people are now having algae problems they never had before and I have had reports of dead pond fish after a water change. Picton have to let water sit or use water conditioners (or agers) to get rid of the chlorine. The most successful fish breeder we had in our club lived in Renwick and had bore water. I don't know how aquarists find Nelson water (you can eat their tap water it has so much rubbish in it!).

Warren's reply was still in transit when I read the orginal post so I didn't read it until after I had posted my reply above. My wall unit is attached to the wall but I doubt it is good enough judging by Warren's information. We already had extra piles under our wooden floor so it is braced from below. The wall unit itself is 3.6m (12ft) wide and goes from floor to ceiling as it covers the whole end wall of the small end of the lounge. I do not have any chairs near the tank so no-one should get injured from it in the event of a quake. It also has a solid wooden lid covering the glass lid beneath so when all my souvenir glasses from the wine and beer festivals and the Ansonia clock and books come crashing down, they should bounce off the lid and miss the tank below. Here's hoping the polystyrene absorbs a lot of movement!

Quite frankly, I don't think most fishkeepers in NZ give earthquakes much thought when it relates to their tanks. It is a case of - fingers crossed. Besides, when the big one hits I guess we figure a cracked tank is going to be the least of our problems! I have a 1.2m tank built into a wall unit so it is enclosed on 3 sides with a raised lip along the bottom front edge. It also sits on 3cm thick polystyrene. We are on a faultline which runs up the valley so an earthquake would most likely move my tank forwards and backwards, not side to side (although the solidly built, well braced, wall unit would stop the sideways movement). Because of the way it is built into the unit, any earthquake big enough to manage to tip it forward would also do serious damage to the house itself. Having the glass break would be most likely and indeed, I have had that happen after a very minor quake caused a stress fracture. The tank at the time was 250 litres approx. and the water travelled through almost 7m (22ft) of carpeting, across 8m (26ft) of vinyl and was making its way up the hall carpet when we got up in the morning and thought - gee the floor looks shiny! Splash splash. The fish were lying on their sides, still wet but no water left. Luckily we had a second tank all set up (the one in the wall until which has almost 350 litres in it I think) as we were waiting for it to stablise before transfeerring the fish. We grabbed them and threw them into the second tank figuring not-quite-stable water conditions were better than no water at all Only one fish died. They were all big fish 15cm or over, a mixture of silver dollars, a silver shark and some acaras from memory. They all had severe scale damage on the side lying on the gravel but recovered well (except the dead one ) I feel guilty every time I see the current Earthquake Commission adverts telling us to Fix Fasten and Forget. I know the bookcases should be bolted to the wall but my newest one is not (and it has all my fish books in it!!). I have been in a big earthquake and they are no fun!! The one I remember moved our house 10cm (4") off its foundations and I can still hear the sound of the chimneys crashing down around us and the pictures and ornaments smashing at my feet. We didn't have a fish tank in those days

Thanks for that Rob. I remember seeing those huge yellow snails some years ago. We bought a couple but they did not last long as we did not realise they needed alkaline water. Our tank at the time was quite acid and not suitable for them at all. We are better at researching inhabitant's requirements before purchasing now

Are the brown apple snails a different species to the big yellow ones (Golden Delicious ?) sometimes seen in shops Rob?

Let me know how you get on with the Canterbury club Arly. Even if none of them keep marines they should still be able to point you in the direction of someone (or somewhere) who does, or tell you where to go to get the help you need. We have our national conference Queen's birthday weekend so if you have not been given assistance by then, let me know and I will speak to their conference delegates. Clubs should be encouraging members by giving good advice or help so I am keen to hear of any in our federation that do not do so. By the same token, I would be equally pleased to hear you got a LOT of help and advice! Redwood Aquatics, The Fishtank and Pet World (and Kritter Kingdom I think) all have marine tanks.

I would expect a heater to last at least 10 years. The heaterstats we have used have lasted quite a few years. If they are going to die they seem to do so within 1 to 2 years or keep going and going and going... We have an undertank home-built heat pad with a thermostat which has been going about 10 years now with no problem. The only other tank I have running has a heaterstat which must be at least 10 years old. I doubt dearer ones last longer than cheaper versions. Indeed, the dearer ones can sometimes be so full of fancy circuitry there is more in them to go wrong! Our heaterstats have all been run in a well insulated house so perhaps that makes a difference to their lifespan as they don't have to work so hard.

Breeding snails is not difficult, it is stopping them from breeding which is hard! :lol: Make sure the water is alkaline and hard or their shells will not develop properly.

Goldfish love the juicy roots and new bits at the bottom so nibble there, or do their darndest to pull the roots up so they can get at them! I had great success with mass plantings of Java fern in my goldfish tank. These are too tough for most fish to eat and goldfish are no exception. They certainly munch on it, but not as much as softer plants, and the Java usually grows faster than the goldfish can eat. You have to put up with nibbled leaves when you have goldfish but you will have less nibbled bits with Java fern. Java is a very hardy plant and tolerant of most conditions so easy to grow. Cold water does not bother it (well, not in a indoor cold water tank anyway). Good luck

Nice fish Benny. I love the archer. Is it hard to feed? Most books I've read said they only take live food.

I was interested in your second to last sentence Pegasus when you said you had problems until they added fungicide. I thought you had to make sure your paint or sealant did not contain fungicide as it was toxic to fish? Obviously not or are there different sorts of fungicides?

Hi Arly, welcome to The Fishroom. There is a club in Christchurch. Click on the "FNZAS.org is here" logo at the top of this page and look under 'clubs'. A contact name and phone number is given. I don't think any of the members have marines though. They are a very small club.

Just watching an article on TV3 about 12 arowanas at Jansens. Priced at $5000 they have already sold one. They come with CITES certificates and other information and it took a long time to get them here through the red tape.

You can only catch them during whitebait season, otherwise it is illegal. You also have to know which rivers to look in.

The trouble with keeping them in ponds is their colouring. Very hard to see when looking down. If you have a pond with a glass side so you could see them side-on underwater it would be good.