Caryl

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.

I think any book which specialises in breeding bettas will have the genetic information. Try the library. The 2 books I looked up are very old. One was Siamese Fighting Fish by Dr Myron Gordon (a geneticist at New York Zoological Society)and produced by TFH Pblications. The other book had the same title and was by the same author plus Dr Herbert Axelrod (also a TFH publication). I haven't looked at them in detail but suspect the genetics information is probably the same in both books.

I wrote a long reply on how to build heatpads but was disconnected at the time. When I connected again to submit it, it said I could not connect to the Forums and I lost the whole thing! Email me with your address and I will post instructions to you.

It is at this stage that the fry are most prone to disease etc. Keep the top of the tank well covered and free from draughts as the fry start to use their labyrinth organs at 12 weeks. An additional sponge filter (or corner filter with a gap for the fry to escape from)will help keep the tank clean too. Boys are blue and girls are pink Actually, males are more colourful and their fins grow faster. They are also more aggressive as it is only the males who fight. Once you remove the ones you are sure are males, the other lesser males should become 'top dog' and colour up more and start being more aggressive so be easier to sex. Unless you have a pure line (highly unlikely unless you have bred it yourself over several generations), your colours will be mixed. Get a book on the subject of breeding bettas and it will tell you about the genetics. [ This Message was edited by: Caryl on 2001-07-09 17:14 ]

Hi Derek, The tank is 1.2m wide x 53cm deep and 45cm high from the top of the gravel (around 10cm deep) to the top of the tank. Lighting is a double 4ft fluorescent running ordinary bright white tubes, 12 hours daily. The tubes were new at the time the plants died off. The lights are in a reflector and sit on top of a glass lid 5cm above the water level. The plants, apart from the Java and a Japanese rush, started dying a month or two after set-up. They slowly turned pale and started to rot at the base of the leaves. I did not notice any deformities or crinkles in the leaves. The other plants (if I remember correctly) were Hygrophilia polysperma, Cabomba, Anubias nana, a Japanese rush and a lot of crypts which had previously overtaken the tank and were the main reason it had been stripped down and replanted as you could not see the fish for the plants! The Java was not in the previous tank. Lack of light could certainly have been the problem with the Cabomba as they like strong light. The Java had been in one section at one end of the tank and the other plants were arranged in bunches everywhere else. The tank used the old filtration as I kept the bacteria going, the same gravel, and the plants were given fertiliser tabs. Plant growth was vigorous in the tank before it was re set-up with the Java added. [ This Message was edited by: Caryl on 2001-07-06 03:33 ]

I have permission to reproduce the FNZAS Plant Survey Booklet on the web and have been working away to do this. Hopefully it will be ready to go by the time Cees comes back from his holiday in August. The pictures have been done and I am now working my way through the text.

Whenever I plant Java fern in a tank it seems to take over and all the other plants die. I have been told this is because the Java takes all the nutrients before the other plants can use them. Is it possible to have a well planted tank with lots of different plant genus (genuses? geni?)as well as Java? PS. Anyone want some Java fern?

I had a call from Paula, in Texas, who has a Betta which was well until she fed it (Tetra flakes, as she usually does). The next morning it was very bloated and floating on its side at the surface. Do Bettas get swim bladder problems or could it be constipation? I hear there is a cure using Epsom Salts. Can anyone tell me the dosage, or have any other suggestions?

We do have photos from conference and will put them on the web as soon as possible. We got home after a 2 week break to find our computer's hard drive had died of loneliness. Grant is slowly installing everything again but, as usual, everyone else's computer problems get fixed before our own :sad: As soon as the appropriate programmes are re-loaded, I will make sure the photos are available.

Thanks for that Warren I will give it a go. I am not so impressed with this Fluval either. The first couple of times I cleaned it, it was easy but as time has gone on the blue bit you lift up to stop the water flow appears to have worn. It is not so easy to get the inlet and outlet pipes off the base unit without a lot of pulling and wriggling of the part to be removed. Mind you, it is a big improvement on the previous model [ This message was edited by: Caryl on 2001-06-17 06:30 ]

Conference was fun and interesting as usual Cees. Held in Hamilton (so we were told but it was hard to tell in the thick fog )the local club did an excellent job. They held a limited class Fish Show at the same time which doubled their workload but was well supported with entries. Nice to see a good number of entries in the photo competition too. I am trying to remember the order of things as we continued on for a 2 week holiday (our first in 6 years) and I am now so relaxed and laid back I just fell over :cool: Friday night was registration and the usual get-together. Saturday had guest speaker Franz van Oorschot give an interesting talk on plants and their requirements followed by a lot of questions and answers. After a nice morning tea the AGM started. I am sure full details will be given in the next NZ Aquarium World magazine. This magazine now has a new editor, Roy Jessett. The video competition was judged by those present and what beautiful tanks were filmed!Warren's winning tank was stunning. Late afternoon saw John Sutton run a Judging School for those interested then we had a buffet dinner with raffles and spot prizes.I think this was also where I heard John Eastwood's hilarious joke about the choir in the lunatic asylum.Those of you who missed it will never know the significance of the pencils, or the apples. Sunday morning saw those who had entered the poster competition give a run-down on their posters and gave viewers an opportunity to ask questions. We then headed off into the fog to "see" the sights of Hamilton. We were given an interesting guided tour of the Hamilton Gardens and a delicious lunch at their pavilion. The afternoon saw us headed for the Ruakura Research Centre's noxious plant unit where members were warned to keep their hands in their pockets and out of the water We got to see a number of noxious plants and were told why they were banned and the damage they did to our waterways. Didn't see any GE cows anywhere either. There was some spare time late in the afternoon and a number of members took the opportunity to visit a few local tanks and pet shops while others sneaked off to the Cat Show. That evening we had dinner at the local Cosmopolitan Club and the Fish Show winners were presented with their trophies and certificates. Sunday was auction time and there was plenty on offer going for good prices. We had to leave at this stage so I can't tell you about the rest of the morning.I thoroughly recommend conference to everyone as you always learn so much and go home with new ideas or renewed enthusiasm.Thanks Dave and the Waikato Club for a great weekend. Next year's conference will be held in the new aquarium at Napier.

I don't see why you could not get a bad batch. Although I am sure they are usually produced to a high standard, the company has no control over what happens to them once they leave the production line. I would wonder if poor storage may be the culprit. Who knows what happens to them in transit! Did you buy a well known brand? Does it have a use by date on it? Has this expired? If you buy regularly from the same shop and have not had problems before, I would tell them what has happened and ask them for their views. Ask (politely) what they would be willing to do for you, if anything.

Keep your fingers crossed all you brine shrimp users. Some locals are conducting experiments at the Grassmere Saltworks in Marlborough to see if brine shrimp egg production is economically viable.

Siamese fighters start to colour up at around 12 weeks. This is also the stage they need to be sexed and moved to larger tanks to grow on. Good luck with your fry.

I have a Fluval 404 which keeps blocking every couple of days with the roots from Java fern. I have tried covering the end of the uplift with fine netting but nothing seems to work. I guess I will have to put up with it as long as I have either Java fern, or a tank of large barbs but any suggestions would be welcome - apart from getting rid of them