Caryl

I'm from Blenheim which is an hour and a half from Nelson. Nelson itself does not have a fish club as it went into recess a number of years ago. They have 2 pet shops that I know of and quite a few fish keepers. It is a beautiful region and is officially the sunniest city in NZ (Blenheim is the sunniest town). It has a beautiful beach.

Pardon my sense of humour. I assumed you meant cycling a tank (after I thought about it a bit) but already had a mental picture of people riding bikes with tanks tied to the carrier We cycle a tank as Rob suggests but tell people to set up at least a week before adding fish to allow for any problems setting the temperature on the heaterstat. We then slowly add fish (say 3 or 4 a week depending on species and size)to let the filter media grow the required bacteria, until we have the required stocking level. I know a lot of people use Cycle or other products but I don't like to add anything to my tank if I can help it. I can't remember the last time I had any disease in my tanks, in fact I don't own any medications at all. I gather Cycle is supposed to speed the process up a little.

Assuming you mean cycling as a sport where you ride bicycles, what ways do you mean? I thought you would buy a bike (and a helmet, they are compulsory in NZ) hop on it and cycle in a forward direction. What other ways do you have in mind?

We are aware it is not a big difference and a lot of other factors are involved. We just got curious about whether the media did actually absorb anything in that way. As you say, it is not a big difference, nor a problem. Thanks for the reply. It obviously got you, and those you asked, thinking and discussing the subject

Is this a trick question?

Can anyone tell me if the sintered (I think that is the correct name)glass used in the Eheim filters absorbs lime? A tank has been set up with plenty of plants but no fish. The water is 7.0 pH out of the tap but moves up to 7.2 in the tank. The owner previously used the filter on an African set-up and was wondering if it had absorbed the lime used to raise the pH.

Try http://www.aquahobby.com/gallery/gmoonlight.html There are people there who have bred this fish so perhaps you could contact them directly. It is a pity the font colour used is yellow as I found it hard to read but I think some of the information there will be useful to you.

I just had a visit from Warren who confirmed it is the same stuff he has in his tank but we still don't know what it is and I still don't think it is bladderwort. By continually hauling it out by hand it is being kept under control and now I only have a few strands to pick out here and there. Warren says his always floats on the surface but mine wraps itself around the plants - especially the fine leafed ones. If you pull it too hard, it tightens around the plant and snaps it in half.

I agree with Rob Goldie. Note he recommends Siamese algae eaters, not Chinese algae eaters. They are two different fish. The Chinese ones are the ones that sucked your angel to death.

Substantial grants have recently been approved for the brine shrimp project being conducted at Grassmere. I think NIWA are also helping. They say it will be a slow process but keep your fingers crossed that one day we will have our own supply of brine shrimp eggs at a much cheaper cost that the current imports!

Can you be a bit more descriptive? Is it hair-like or fluffy? Short or long? Grow on everything or just plants and logs? Clumps or spread out? If it is what I think it is, you may have to strip the tank and start again.

I thought of bladderwort too but the photos and description don't seem to match my plant. All of them talk about fine bits off a main stem but this plant does not have any main stems for anything to branch off. The little brown bits look more like seeds than bladders capable of catching small prey.

Check out photos of Dunedin's Tank Parade at http://uk.photos.yahoo.com/carylnz

Thanks for the correct killi name Andrew. I thought that was what it was but didn't use it in case I got it wrong and someone complained. Some of the photos are not the best but trying to photograph tanks during a parade is difficult due to poor lighting and people walking in front of the camera all the time!

I have a photo album on the Internet. There are various albums anyone is welcome to view (although the Family one is just my brother's wedding). You will find albums of Fish, FNZAS Conference 2001 and the Dunedin Tank Parade which was held recently. Find it http://uk.photos.yahoo.com/carylnz Look at the thumbnail views and double click on any photo to see a bigger view.

Doesn't grow fast???? I can pull out a handful per day! Luckily it is easy to pull out. Nice to know someone else has it too

I have a plant in my tank which I did not put there. It looks like it is coming off the cabomba but that may be just where the water current is leading it. It is long fine green strands with little brown nodules along it. It breaks off and gets stuck on the other plants or forms a clump together at the surface. Can anyone tell me what it could be? The only thing I could find in the plant survey book was Nitella flexilis (stonewort). Could it have come in on another plant? I fear it is going to take over and all my plants are growing so well at the moment.

I was asking on behalf of a new club member who lives in Texas - we have club members from all over She has signed up to this site so will be able to read the answers herself. Thanks for the suggestions.

If I had a tank around 380 litres with a pH of 7.6, how much peat would be needed to bring the pH down to 7.0 or 6.8?

Members from Marlborough, Canterbury and Timaru headed south to participate in Dunedin's annual Tank Parade. We all had a great time, saw a large variety of set-ups, met some interesting people and were well fed! Does your club hold Tank Parades? Thanks Dunedin, you were excellent hosts and we came home enthused and with new ideas to try (not to mention the extra fish, plants and axolotyls too). There's a lot of discus down south and some beautiful rainbows. Tanks ranged from small tabletop sized plastic aquariums to a huge (8ft?) set-up with large severums, plecs, Jack Dempsey and pacu. We had a local in our car to help us find our way around - only to find he didn't know where he was going either! Others had similar problems and when it came to finding the last entrant of the day - we Marlburians led the way! It pays to carry a Year Book and cell phone Marlborough has their Parade in 3rd weekend of Feb. All welcome! Come a week or 2 before and enjoy our beer and wine festivals too.

Yes we did try the pipes through a fridge trick. It didn't work as it could not cool the water down enough. I found a number of articles on the net which said the same thing too. Shows they were right! Living in sunny Marlborough, keeping tanks cool in summer can be difficult. When the room temperature gets up to 34 and never drops below 28, even at night, expecting a fridge to drop the water temp to 15 or lower is a bit much to ask.

I would not recommend basalt as it has very sharp edges and will damage the fish. A good alternative would be quartz which you will find in the Ashburton rivers and places like Mt Somers. Agate is also plentiful down your way. Greywacke will be fine. It does not leech anything and does not have the sharp edges like basalt. That information came from one of our members who is a member of the Rock & Mineral Club. There is not much about NZ rocks June doesn't know!

No I did not have a lot of algae, just a faint green sheen on the glass. The tank has been re-set up and now only has 3 bristlenoses in it (mainly because I could not get them out of their niches in the log - hanging them upside down out of the water for 2 hours didn't make them let go either!). I bought new plants - hairgrass, cardamine, cabomba, hygrophila polysperma, cherry leaf, green and black mondo grasses and another which looks like mondo, is just as stiff, but a lot finer. There is also some pine tree I think (the top has a red tint on new growth) and a plant which is green, grows straight up with sawtoothed edges on the rounded leaves which grow in pairs. Each new pair grows at right angles to the previous pair. It sends out fine roots at each set of joints. The 2 fluorescents have new tubes and are certainly brighter than before. Temp - 25C pH - 6.8 CO2 - 20 mg/l GH - 4 KH - 3 Nitrite - 0.025 Nitrate - either 0 or 40 depending on the test kit used Iron - 0 Phosphate - 5 Can you tell Grant won a fancy test kit at conference? I have no idea why the phosphate is so high as the bristle noses have only been fed once since the tank was set up a month ago. It reads 0 from the tap. All the plants have been growing well so far and I have been trimming them and planting the offcuts. The polysperma is the only one not growing as rapidly as the rest - and the finer mondo-like plant.

I like to have a coldwater tank set up with inhabitants from local rockpools but the room gets too hot in summer. Does anyone know of a cheap way to keep a tank cool? With the tank needing to be below at least 15 degs C. and the room staying above 28 degs C. it is difficult. We tried floating 3 litre bottles of ice but it was time consuming replacing them and the freezer was running non-stop trying to keep up!

I have been looking this subject up for my club newsletter Kelly. I found lots of articles on the Net re using copper etc but all gave differing volts and I would not trust any of them. It would appear attracting them to lettuce, meat or food pellets is the safest and haul them out in bulk. You can also squish the little buggers so the fish can eat them. Children usually get enthusiastic when it comes to squishing things as many adults seem to be squeamish.