Ice222

I don't really agree that AR380 is a great first time planted tank. I certainly did not enjoy it! First and upmost, it's a tall tank, not a wide one this is not idea for a number of reasons. Yes plants like ambulia, some crypts, Java moss, anubias, and Java Fern grow nicely in it. But the AR380 is quite a tall tank, and out of those plants ambulia seems to be the only one that grows relatively quick and tall for me. So you end up with a huge chunk of empty space at the top or you will have to wait quite a while before the scape will look decent. The width of the tank leaves little room for planting. Plus that flap in front of the lights is infuriatingly small. If you want to prune or rearrange anything, you have to remove the filter cover and the whole lighthood, which make it hard to see in the tank (at least for me since that room is fairly dark even with the lights on). Plus if you use the standard filter cartridges that come with the tank, I think the carbon will remove the ferts you dose. As soon as I had the money I ended up getting two 30L tanks ($40 each), 450x280x300hmm. I run them without lids, sharing a 3ft light ($115), with sponge filters ($10 each) and eheim heaters (around $60 each). I'm just using inert gravel with jbl balls, excel and comprehensive so nothing fancy in terms of ferts either but can grow a much larger variety of plants much more easily. Now I know you're not trying to start up 2 tanks, but just to give you idea of what you could get for not that much more than a AR380 (around $200 for a kit last I looked?). As everything I got was purchased new, you could get something decent for even less off trademe or some such, especially if you're setting up for just one tank and not splurging on eheim heaters like me . If you already have a AR380 by all means, plant it if you like, but if you're hoping to start out a planted tank, it would not be the first one I'd recommend. If you have about $200 you would get a pretty nice kit new, like this or less than $100 for a full setup 2nd hand off trademe. For a planted tank I'd say a 2ft/600mm+ wide is best, simply because they usually either come with pretty decent lights in a kit or it's simply easier to buy/upgrade lights if you choose to do so in the future.

To be honest I find a lot of Non-Asians in the country at least partially agree with some of the points he's raised, just not his extremist ways.While I agree if very hard to find someone who's not racist at all, one redeeming quality is that most people can be swayed. I've talked with some people who have been considered quite racist before, to the point where his extended family warned me about him. But after talking with him, he seemed to agree not all Asians are bad, and ended up talking to me for a good half of the night about other things too :lol:. BTW melrick1 as nice as "Freedom of Speech" sounds on paper, I'm saying that complete freedom of speech doesn't exist, and I'm quite certain it never has. We, and every country in the world with freedom of speech all have limitations including USA. While I do think there is such a thing as going too far (eg. China's Censorship), you can't assume that it'll mean more and more limitations, just as I can't assume Kyle Chapman will become the New Zealand Hitler :facepalm:. Sometimes what people can and can't say SHOULD be controlled, such as false advertising or fraud. I'm sure even you will agree that those should remain illegal.

I know what it means, but there isn't actually a complete freedom of speech now anyway. There are many things that can be said that can get you arrested or prosecuted. Eg. issues regarding confidentiality, harrasment, threats, fraud, things that are simply illegal "eg. saying that you murdered someone", or heck even offending a cop. Now I'm not exactly well versed in law, so there are probably many other things that are punishable when said. Just because there is freedom of speech doesn't mean all things SHOULD go completely without punishment. Just as Terms and Conditions or contracts do not override existing laws, eg. a contract is not legally binding when it involves allowing one side to do something illegal. In the same way. I don't think Freedom of Speech for one person should override the rights of others. In many countries, there a limitations to Freedom of Speech too. This isn't a research paper so I'm just going to wiki it : - Harm Principle - Offense Principle - Hate Speech Hate Speech is the most relevant here in regards to Kyle Chapman and here is what wiki says of New Zealand's law on hate speech. Laws are mostly a bit open to interpretation, and Kyle's posters could certainly be interpreted as insulting. In terms of his interview, I'd say he has managed fairly well in keeping out of trouble as he was apparently targeting "communists" rather than Asians, but his posters certainly go a bit beyond that, which is why I said I think it's coming a bit close to what I think the limit should be. He is entitled to opinions, eg. to say he does not like the increasing number of Asian immigrants, or that immigrants are not assimilating, but to start calling it an 'Asian Invasion' and distributing in the more Asian districts qualifies as inciting racial disharmony to me. He says he was targeting wealthy areas, but this is really doubtful when one of the areas targeted was certainly not wealthy, and there are many wealthy areas in Auckland that were not targeted. I'm basically saying that in my personal opinion, he should be entitled to opinion, but not to intentionally stir offence for the sake of racial disharmony.

What I find irritating is the Asian 'protest the Right Wing Resistance' groups that have formed in response to it. Although not everyone that joined had the same sentiments, a lot of the people there are almost as bad. Most comments were either threats or people 'liking' the kind of threats people were making about that group. One thing I did discover from there though is the RWR website, which is worse than the interview really. One thing that really irked me is how the Kyle Chapman guy said that the Asian Studies lecturer that was interviewed with him on the new could "barely speak English", that's the attitude then no wonder people don't try to assimilate! Learning another language is not easy, especially for adults. They usually lose the ability to register foreign syllables, like my father, he cannot actually hear the difference in "nine" and "line". Also one thing that some of you have mentioned here that I don't completely agree with is that Kyle Chapman should be entitled to freedom of speech no matter what he says. While what he says in the interview was somewhat tolerable in my point of view - not everyone has to like the idea of allowing so many Asians to immigrate into the Country - but I do think there should be a limit, and the flyers are really nearing it imo.

Found 5 eggs yesterday on a tiger lotus leaf that had disconnected from the stem. 3 went white while 2 hatched into fry today . Decided to float a plastic leaf in the tank, hoping they'll lay eggs on that too, as it'll be easier to move eggs from that than trying to reach leaves on the bottom of the tank.

The L140 I got was taking awhile to settle it, it still 'scuttles' off to hide whenever it sees movement outside the tank, but I have caught it sitting right next to the tablet a few times so I'm quite sure it's been eating when I haven't been looking. I'm feeding hikari at the moment.

From what I could find on google, most seem to suggest breeding groups of 2 males to every female. At the moment I've got 4 females to 1 male, which is why I'd like to get at least 2 more males to balance the numbers out a bit. I'm not seriously breeding them, but would still like to give the fish a proper chance since I really like watching fry grow and I do have some room for more fish at the moment.

My 2 Fry are now free-swimmers :happy2:. Haven't managed to get more eggs as the fish have now got a habit of eating them straight away. Mostly because I have 1 male and all the females follow him around so when they do spawn the others rush in and eat the eggs. May go try buy a few more males soon, hopefully that'll help.

Odd thought I saw a roll at Roskill HFF not that long ago. Too bad my dad is overseas, he was a sign maker for a few years and would know where to source it. I might give him a call tonight and find out where he got it, and I'll check the prices with him too, since they tend to only sell it in large rolls. If you're not after huge amount, I still have a few rolls at home and might be able to sell you some if Epsom isn't too out of the way for you. I'll just have to check with my dad (since the vinyl belongs to him really) and pm you if I manage to get him on the phone for the details/price.

I thought cories prefer sand over gravel as long as the sand isn't sharp? By the way, how do you test if sand is sharp or not? just run your hand through some and see if it feels scratchy?

A good way to apply vinyl is to use a spray bottle of water and spray it all over the sticky side of the vinyl. Stick the vinyl on the tank wet so you can reposition it till it's right then just use a flat plastic scraper-type objects (even a old eftpos card would work) and push the water out the sides.

Sorry for any offence, if the palmy store actually cares about small animals that's a good thing really. It's kinda hard NOT to lump different stores together though. Since it's kinda what the 'chain' part of chain stores implies.

Adpotion papers?! That's crazy, since when have they cared about mice? I'm guessing she needs them to breed for food for another pet? Actually, with the :sick: smiley it makes me think it must be something worse . Sorry I can't help, but it would've been easy to sauce one if you were in Aucks.

Well I don't think all petstore rats are bad, my first girl was from a pet store. She was kept in a tiny plastic cage by herself with no interaction with people but still turned out extremely sweet. Just that I recently saw the way they treat rats at animates. The rats almost behave like wilds, kept tying to squirm and run. Also a lady next to me was trying to return a rat she bought because it had biting problems, and they could give no advice on what to do so just let her swap her rat. No wonder their rats are bitey, they picked them up by their tails, and told people to hold them over the cage so if they try and run away and fall, they fall back into the cage :facepalm:. How about holding a rat properly, against your body, in the first place so they don't run?

Does your mother in law want a male mouse as a pet or for breeding purposes or both? As pets, they're really not that great. Male mice definitely smell even if the cage is cleaned often. Also if they are pets I do not recommend breeding them. It's seriously a bad idea. I once had 2 male mice, mum then bought a female, and we ended up with 28 in 8 weeks... If your mum's just after a pet, I agree with waterlogged, rats are FANTASTIC pets. They're extremely affectionate, don't smell bad, and requires minimal care. The only thing is to make sure to buy a rat from a breeders or rescue, since pet-shop ones tend to have terrible temperament. Females rats tend to be playful, while males lazier, but males make very nice 'lap-rats'. If your she does not like the look of the male rats man-bits, they can be neutered by a vet :lol:. There even a pretty neat NZ rat keeper forum for heaps of information (ratclub.org), and it's even quite a good place to find a pet rat, as there are often rat adoption options available on that site. Oh and waterlogged, I'd say that girl and boy rats both smell the same to me. I've had both and I've noticed no difference in smell. I'd describe the rat smell as a mild musky scent that I actually found quite nice . Rats are very clean, they only ever smell bad if their cage isn't clean and is forced to walk in their own mess.

I have fry . I count 2, but several eggs I had in the baggie are missing so I think more may have hatched. They don't look much like fry though. Yellow head, like their eggs, with a tail and no eyes that I can see. Looks hugely different to cpds, the eggs looked similar - yellowish and small - but the CPD fry were mostly clear with a black spots as eyes. The rasboras only took about 24 hours to hatch while the cpds took 3-4 days in the same temp (25 degrees C). Several eggs got fungused, and I try to remove them quickly.

No luck with the 2 eggs I recovered. Not sure why, but when I found them, they were being nibbled on by what I assume were daphinia?! I've never heard anything about daphinia eating eggs, hopefully I'll get a chance to try again ,this time without any daphina and hopefully that'll work.

It does, so if you happen to be having a ammonia problem, you can use it to keep the fish comfortable for awhile while you try fix it, plus it doesn't mess up ammonia test readings from what I've heard.

Found 3 eggs this morning on the green lotus (for some reason they lay them on the top and not the underside :roll:). They ate one when I tried to suck it out with the turkey baster and dislodged it instead, but I got the other 2 safely. Fingers crossed to see if they'll hatch. I'm pretty sure I see a few other eggs down in the Java Fern, but they're hard to reach so I'll just leave them. I do small water changes into the plastic baggie with the eggs every time i walk by, that will hopefully keep them viable .

How many would you be after? There are a few of them I definitely want to keep but since I haven't had the time to setup my big display tank, I might sell a few and just spawn the adults again if I want more numbers :lol:

Not breeding the CPDs atm as the breeding tank is full. The first batch are pretty much adult size now though, but I need to set up my big tank before I have the room to breed them again.

I agree with what's been said, but another factor I have problems with is Kevin rating. From what I know Kevin rating is simply the colour temperature of lights, but it does not really represent where the peaks of the spectrum are. I've seen some tubes, usually the expensive ones branded for aquarium use, with pictorial representations of their colour peaks on them, but most lights don't have these. So correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds as though it's possible to have two lights with the same wattage, same type of lighting(eg T8,T5, etc.), same kevin rating, but still differ on performance for plants based on their colour peaks.

Epsom tap water must be fairly nice for breeding fish! I did a bit of reading on harlequins when I bought these the other day and they're supposed to be quite hard to breed. I've had them for all of THREE DAYS and this morning I found them doing the upside down under the leaf dance, so I sat and watched, sure enough after a few times they spawned for real. I wasn't able to harvest the eggs, since the usual method of sucking them up with a turkey baster does not work with these sticky eggs, but next time I should have a few eggs to boast about :happy1:. I have water softness at about 2.3dGH if I remember correctly, that's just all from water out the tap though, no peat, and only year old pieces of driftwood in there. The PH is at neutral, and their food is just NLS small fish formula so I'm not doing anything special. One thing I would change if I was seriously trying to breed them though is to have a higher male to female ration. I think I have 1 male to 4 females. He'd chase and get one under the leaf, but as soon as he sees another female out of the corner of his eye, he'd go chase her instead leaving the first gal dancing under the leaf by herself. At one point he had 3 girls all under the leaf and still went off to chase the last one :roll:. Also thank you Dreams for the green tiger lotus! They love it and that's what they were spawning under .

Depends on the lumen/watt of the LED, and also the colour/wavelength peaks of the LED, even the lighting angle of the LED matters too really. I wanted to do LED lighting and my dad was thinking of starting a small business importing them, so I did some reading, but ended up ditching the idea when my dad ended up moving overseas instead :roll:. High output LEDs should have a equal or higher lumen per watt than incandescent lights aside from that, the light is more focused so you don't need a reflectors, and you can pick specific coloured LEDs and choose only the plant beneficial wavelengths (or mix in a few whites to get a more natural colour). Normal LEDs, like the ones used for xmas lights are fairly dismal for plants though.

I've seen one or two for sale at Hff Roskill over the last year, think they were $45 or $50 each time, but it's rare to find them being sold. I know Mt Roskill has a good number of red pups in a tank there, but they aren't actually for sale as it's a staff member's project. Although, the large ones that they did sell came from that tank if I remember correctly, so maybe they sell them once they get to a certain size? They go pretty quick, so unless if you are able to check in often, Trademe might be your best bet. I've definitely seen some on TM before, but due to their rarity here, they're still pretty hard to find.