Ice222

I've found that hairgrass doesn't work to well in my setup. Tried it for a year and it's not exactly dying but it's not growing at all and is constantly algaed. Thought I might like to try out some other plants for the foreground, something grassy, low growing and not too demanding. I've heard liaeopsis is a good option, but there seems to be several varieties around, and I know next to nothing about their differences, So does anyone have recommendations for which liaeopsis varieties stay smallest and spreads well? I'm also open to other ground cover plants if you have any other suggestions .

From what I know, white clouds are also stream/river fish so there shouldn't be a prob?

Waterlogged maybe you had girl rats? Generally female rats tend to be playful and active, the males tend to be lazier. Of the rats I had was 1 female, and the 3 I got later were male, and the boy rats sure were lazy and cuddly. 3 rats was a great number too; When it was winter and cold, I'd have one sleep in each pocket of my fleece jumper and the last on the collar. Their body temps are higher than humans so they were amazingly warm, I'd just put my hands in my pockets when they got cold and the last guy would keep my neck warm. Only problem is once I forgot one was sleeping near my neck and started eating chips, it smelt the food and stole one from my hand as I held it up to my mouth :sml1:.

I didn't read all the posts, but back when I was doing NCEA, bookstores sold some card like pamphlets for subjects like calc, physics, chem etc that were actually really helpful. They basically summarize and condense all the main formulas. I haven't checked but they might still be around, and they're cheaper than a textbook.

I don't understand the hate of pet rats, they are very very different to their wild counterparts. I've seen both, I've even seen half wilds, so I know the differences are more than superficial. Pet rats are actually fantastic pets, you have not seen what a pet rat is like until you've seen ones with proper upbringing/owners. They are pets that are as affectionate and playful as dogs, but also great to cuddle and laze with like a cat. They even do the rat version of purring when happy or comfortable, by grinding their teeth. They also require very little room and only require about the same amount of cleaning as fishkeeping. Pet rats even have a pretty good community, similar to here for rat owners in NZ at ratclub.org. Most of my friends who didn't like rats to begin with (even dissected them in science class) came to agree that they're actually pretty cute except the tails. For me the tails are just like a cord of rope so it doesn't bother me. I kept 1 rat originally that I got from a petshop back when I didn't know anything about rats, and 3 rats later from a rescue. The petstore one does not like people except me and my father, since it was neglected in the store when I bought it, but the other 3 that were raised with daily human contact were affectionate with everyone. The only reason I started keeping fish was because rats only live about 3 years, and I get very heart broken whenever one dies. Now that I have fish, I certainly don't like it when they die, but there's no heartbreak involved. By the way I don't think that photo's Photoshoped. I've seen tiny keychain size teddies styled like that, and as I said, rats are pretty playful, if the owner handed the toy to it, the may hold and investigate it by giving it a sniff.

Aww poor mr skinny loach . Hope he gets all better soon.

Ah that's a shame! I'm a lazy person, that's why the chairs and stools I need to wc my tanks end up sitting right next to the tanks where I need them. I even bought rounded pegs to clip the hoses in place while I siphon to leave a hand free to trim some plants while I'm at it.

One trick to not suck up fry is to have a thumb over the end of the siphon where the water comes out into a bucket. By closing your thumb over the opening, you can control the flow of water and even completely stop it. Usually when I do suck up any fry, I manage to stop the flow quiuckly enough that they're able to swim back out of the tube themselves. I don't actually use a normal gravel siphon though, I find them annoying since you need water past a certain depth to start it. I just use a piece of hose and use something similar to a baster with a bigger pump to start the siphoning action. It's very useful since I have a lot of overly curious fish that don't seem to be afraid of the siphon :roll:.

What a little cutie . I find it pretty cool how the early days they just sit on the glass all day, then suddenly one day they're free-swimming, and never go back to sitting on glass again.

Awesome ! Those naughty gouramis, both types of gourami I have are real food hogs. I find that CPDs can also eat their own fry/ eggs, but CPDs aren't very vicious at hunting them down like a gourami might be, and the fry can actually be pretty darn quick. Good luck with raising your fry

Definitely Google Chrome, great balance between functionality and speed. I haven't used explorer in many years so don't know what it's like now, but I've used Opera, Firefox, and Safari before as well and none of those compare. Firefox isn't bad. It's the most customisable out of all of those I've used, but it's slow, bulky, and I don't actually like it the way it is out-of-the-box, so it takes time to set it up nicely. Opera's like firefox, almost as bulky with a lot less customisablilty so stopped using it as soon as I heard of Firefox. Safari I just don't like, I find it a bit too basic. Chrome has on the other hand while not actually that customisable, comes with a lot of the functionality I wanted in Firefox anyway and is much speedier. I especially lover the address bar, you can google search by typing directly in that bar.

I'm with sofia, I never liked Doctor Seuss found it too nonsense, and the very hungry caterpillar that so many people liked was only okay to me since I liked the holes in the book. I do remember a book called the rainbowfish, which I liked because it was pretty, I also though hairy Maclary books were neat. There were also some Disney picture books that used to come from Mcdonalds, which were awesome as well. Aside from those, my favorites were, 'Who Killed Cock Robin", "Barber the elephant", "Once Upon a Time Storybook" (ie fairy-tales), and "the Highway Man". Honestly I must have been a weird kid, since if you notice any trend with those books is that there's often some kinda of death in them, heck, "the Highway Man" is a poem that ends with a lady shooting herself even! Even the version of fairy-tales which I used to read were the original ones, which get quite twisted (eg. Cinderella's sisters actually cut off their toes or something in order to fit the shoe). I've always been a big mystery/supernatural/crime books fan though, grew up reading pretty much nothing except those genres and mythology books. There was a point where I had basically read ALL the children and young adult books of those genres, used to use my card, dad's card, and my sister's card to take out 75 books a week and actually read most of them. I guess most kids don't have as weird a taste as me though, but still Barber the Elephant is really excellent!

I've only got 5 that I can sell at $10 each, and one of them you probably don't want, since it's a bit runty and doesn't look quite perfect. I've only bread them once so far, and have ended up keeping about half of them for future breeding

I'm not too sure since my breeding tank's all moss :lol:! I think they do try to lay more in the moss, and if they're laid in an open area they tend to just get eaten. That reminds me, a few weeks ago I found a fry in the tank, there's about 10 adults in there at the moment though, and I haven't seen it since. They're really darn good at hiding so it might actually still be there.Variety of food and lots of slightly colder WC seem to have worked to make mine breed.

Yea I think so too, I'd much prefer it if the BG was more natural looking. I like tanks with rocky bg, with some root-like wood and well planted enough to look planted, but not so densely planted that it's a mass of leaves and covers all of the hardscape. I also tend to like paludariums, but ones with large water area.

Mine I probably something like this http://kuvablogi.com/nayta/iso/img2810329.jpg but with a darker background not the grey rocks.

Guess it depends how long he'll stay in CHCH for though, if just for the next year or two, then it won't be a big deal?

Yea, but at 24 you have a few years before any kids come into the equation? Better to work hard now so you'll hopefully have a easier time later when there are actually any kids to worry about. One thing I missed when reading this thread is that Dreams mentioned that even in Aucks he'll prob end up doing some work for CHCH. If that's the case, then depending on what each job is offering etc. it might be worth staying in Aucks :lol: .

For your first proper job though, a slave-driver job's not such a bad idea . Would make you appreciate non-slavery jobs all the more. Plus I still think it'd be great to get in on Rebuilding CHCH while you have the chance, 1-2 years working like crazy isn't so bad, long hours usually seems to mean, good money and less time for spending :lol:.

Being an Aucklander who likes Auckland, and we're at a fairly similar age I think I have a good idea of what a huge change it would be for you. Even so, I still think you should go. So much of CHCH is a-shambles at the moment, esp the CBD I hear. This means there huge opportunity to build and rebuild, a lot more freedom with what you can design since a lot may be done from scratch. You just graduated, actually putting yourself out there and getting established early will probably be great for future prospects, and CHCH is one of NZ's biggest Cities, I think it'll be unlikely to come across a opportunity like this again. I completely understand not wanting to leave family, friends and GF, but you'll have to leave your family one day. I've also known several couples who have spent a year or so long distance and they ended up closer after that time (1 couple's married, another's engaged to marry next year). Considering that Auckland seems to have way more architects than jobs, relocation is probably immanent anyway . I'll say that the distance is a necessary trial, besides, CHCH is not so far that she could not visit every break, and you can get pretty nicely priced tickets from time to time.

You said it's different to other algae and it's green. While it's not exactly powdery, perhaps you mean cynobacter? It's usually a bluish green and my tanks get a small amount of it whenever lights are left on too long. It's more like a slime though, and smells rather nasty when removed from the tank.

Not my cat. I swear if she had her way, she'd eat as much as me on a day.

Since most things have been mentioned, I'll just focus on the things that haven't been said. knowledgeable staff, variety and availablility of plants are all pretty important to me. One thing I'd really like too is being able to pick specific genders of fish, but that could be a pretty big ask since fish are often hard to sex especially when trying to catch them :roll:! It might help to have some kind of niche items for sale too: making 3d backgrounds, sells rare plants (eg. red tiger lotus), sells pressurized CO2 systems/canisters, makes optiwhite /low-iron tanks or some other way to stand out from the rest. Of course, niche things can also backfire if there's no market for it, but unless if you have a fantastic location, people usually aren't too willing to travel unless if you have something unusual to attract them there for.

Looks fantastic! I love 3D backgrounds and DIY write-ups of them.

Haha I like your description of the receipt. I've had that same problem with receipts for other things in the past too :nilly:.