hovmoller

If you do go to Wanganui this is what happens

Maybe a "company" line in the delivery address? I think many people get deliveries to their work

Yeah I'm with P44.. build a desktop unless you absolutely have a need to drag your computer around with you.. You get double the bang for your bucks! (or the same bang for half the bucks)

It's a mix of all sorts.. from new stuff that just came out of the river to really old washed out stuff.. You could probably find a whole intact tree there if you wanted I got most of my driftwood from there are some very nice branchy pieces.. you just have to wander down the beach and take your time looking for the right ones.. a lot of them are half burried as well but a lot of it is quite waterlogged so don't have to soak long before sinking. When I went there I forgot to bring a saw.. could have gotten some really nice pieces if I could have cut them off the tree they were attached to.

You could go to the Wanganui river mouth if thats not too far... Go out to the beach on the northern side of the river out to Castecliff the closer you get to the pier the better.. there's more driftwood than sand out there!!! Check it out: (I know this picture was taken years ago but it gives you an idea of where driftwood tends to gather)

Since i am quite new around here I have just discovered the fishkeepers forum site and when I looked through some of the posts it seemed that all the usual suspects that post on this site are also over there. So what's the story? why are there two forums and does everyone just follow both? (+ MFK for many I guess)

Hahaha.. awesome! If that guy got stuck he could just flex a muscle and the pot would crack.. how big is he/she?

So they should have a little sign outside the entrance saying "Sorry Red Spot Pleco this cave has not been designed for you, please stay out or you could get stuck"? Just kidding.. I know what you mean. I was just giving an example of the biggest pleco I could think of that could possibly get stuck in the caves shown. My question really was are plecos generally happy to back out of the hole they came in or prefer to swim through like a tunnel.. but it has been answered already.. thanks!

Where is a good place to get natural slate? do they sell it at Bunnings/Mitre 10 type stores? I'm in auckland if anyone knows of a good place there?

Good point! At least it's nice to have some of their prices online instead of calling them all the time.

I see you have closed off the ends to make a cave. So do plecos generally prefer closed off spaces or a tunnel that would allow a bit of flow through? If a large red spot jammed itself in there would it be able to back out of there?

Is slate limestone? (containing calcium?) ie. will it harden the water? Looks very nice by the way, would love to make one as well.

I don't think the question is regarding wild caught discus.. which we can all agree would be hugely expensive and a big risk for any importer.. but more about a wild strain of discus.. Bred in the hobby than would closely resemble a wild discus. As is the case for many fish in the trade.

Nah.. it'll take more than that, hehe I would love to breed some of my sterbai though (for a male to sneak one past the goalie! how's that?). I have Bandits as well but I keep them with Discus in a community tank so the water is probably too warm for them for breeding. On another note.. My cardinals were crazy this morning.. boys were chasing the girls like mad! I've observed this behavior with my penguins and silver tips.. and yes... a little group of them sort of "exploded" in a jerky motion and a small cloud of tiny tiny eggs fell through the water (to become Cory food I guess). Very excited to see this.. Hope I can clear some space and set up a small breeder tank for the cardinals (have read the very extensive article on this site so I am aware of the do's and dont's.)

Ok so I may have used this expression wrongly.. Please forgive me, I am a foreigner.. But thanks for the reproduction lesson 101

I can foresee this will have catastrophic consequences for my bank account... And I'm sure there are plenty around the country with the same problem as me

Hehe yeah guess this term is usually for males.. After I have collected the few eggs I found I did see her going up behind the heater by herself and deposit one little egg without any males in sight... so if that was how she laid all of them then... blanks! (I didn't see the first eggs being laid).

Hmm.. the eggs all went mouldy.. I think she was shooting blanks!

I agree but my question was more a repeat of the original.. Are there really no "Wild looking" commercially or privately bred discus avaliable in NZ? Is it always all about getting the most crazy variety possibly? Isn't this a slippery slope towards ending up with something that looks like a goldfish? (bred to that extent of sillyness I mean) Sorry goldfish keepers but I will not shed a tear if I woke up tomorrow and all the goldfish had left this planet and gone home to whereever they came from oops didn't mean to make this into an anti goldfish thread..

So to go back to the original question.. Does no one bother with the more "plain" looking Discus around here? I mean the ones that would resemble a wild discus the most or is all that is avaliable here in NZ strains that were bred for their crazy colours? I'm fairly new to discus have always steered around them for some reason but now have 5 in our South American community "living room tank" They are a mix of different colours (the ones my wife liked the most ) Where as I have always prefered fish that are as close to what you would be able to find in real nature as possible.

You should know these things at your age Henward

Hey P44. I am curious about the green algae on the sides of your tank. Did it get like that just by never cleaning it? I've never tried that!... interresting. Did it go through a stage of first brown algae then green spot and so on?

Yes it seems quite harmless but looks a bit extreme in my case.. I've even seem some of my cardinals entwined in it struggeling to swim around with a chunk of cobweb hanging from it's fins.. I guess it was his own fault for trying to eat it! haha.

The wood is quite smooth with not many cracks and I am quite sure there is no slime hanging about getting washed off... I can actually see the "smoke" forming on the surface of the wood and then being carried away by the current where it then "coagulates" The best theory yet is from livingart who suggested a fungus that grows on/in the wood and the water change triggers a release of spores.... sounds a bit coral reef full moon kinda thing to me but it is seriously the best guess I've heard so far. Alas if Carol and her wealth of experience says she has never seen or heard of this thing then it must be truly unusual! Will do another water change in a week and see if I can catch it in action in a video clip..

Not sure of the species of wood. I found it just north of Wanganui rivermouth. I think there is enough driftwood there to start a million pleco tanks! haha.. but that's another story. The wood is very dark and comes from up the river somewhere so maybe a NZ native.. There is no bark on it.. The weird thing is that it only starts to ooze out of it when I add the new water... definitely comes from the wood, as mentioned earlier it's like the wood starts smoking!