blueether

Thanks. You cant see any of the cords behind the tank now as it has a mostly black background. just the top looks a mess atm

with only a 50% saving, not knowing what other additives are in it, having to dilute it back, minimum order of $240 plus haz-chem freight... I don't think I'll be getting any.

I have had to rehouse a Gold Chinese Algae Eater form my mothers 60L tank. Annoyingly a petshop had sold her 2 of these and told her that the would stay small. So I have rehoused the bigger of the two into my 160L but it has started to chase the BNs and the glass cats have taken to hiding so I want to either get rid of it or drop it in with my natives that are sitting at 18 deg. Will it survive at 18 (my thoughts are that it might not) or does anyone want one?

I'm not sure on the legal status of that that species of fissidens as it is one of the rare species - ps not collected by me There is another smaller fissidens that is quite common in our rivers but it is very slow growing. I have both fissidens growing in 24-25 deg and at 18 deg in the native tank. It is slightly faster growing at 24 than 18 but not much. all my tanks would be low light ie 18w CFL on a 50L, 24w on 160L and 24w on 430L. As our fissidens are coldwater I doubt that they would do well at real hot trop. temps, but there as people in Aus that have the same species as in the pic growing in tropical temp (not sure how warm).

My profile pic is a giant kokopu, I'm lucky enough to have a good population of giant and shortjaw kokopu within about 10km of my olds place. One creek I looked in had some 12 of more giants within about 100m. For good driftwood take a walk along the Mount/papamoa after a food storm, should throw something or two up. Bullies do like rocks and caves and males will clam rocks for nests when they want to spawn (most of the spring/summer), so a good anount of rock caves or ones from wood. I have used black west cost sand, river sand and at the moment I'm using coarse gravel/small stones as a substrate - so I guess anything bigger than fine sand :dunno: Shrimp will need something to hide in and java moss would be ideal, but one you have it in a tank it can be hard to get rid of. HTH

two first time doses of excel (2 x 5ml doses in a 50L tank) over the last two days has helped to clear most of the algae off many of the plants - did have lots of greenspot and hair algae.

My current native tank is using small stones and I has to thin them out to only about 15-20mm thick as too much food was getting lost in them. At that depth the torrentfish can turn them over and clean up anything the bullies miss. All the koaro in Taupo (and many other lakes) are landlocked and a few lakes (Taupo) were stocked by Māori.

no problems Yes chlorine will kill off some of them, but hopefully not all. I have tested the day after 30-50% water changes and not seen a spike in ammonia. I would think that that would be a good sized tank for bullies and inanga, it is quite tall though. If you have a tall bit of driftwood up say 2/3 of the tank the bullies will use that to perch on and will draw them off the bottom of the tank. Yes it would be the best time to get them as M@. said, and you might even end up with a suprise kokopu at 160L it might be getting to the large end of what you can cool with ice, but give it a try. I struggled to my~50L native setup below 20 deg C with ice, and I could maintain about 21 for most of the time on the 430L using a 18" desk fan directly above one end of the tank pointing at the water. With the chiller I have it sitting at 17-18 all summer As wonka said it can be hard to get some fish to eat commercial foods. Good water management is a must if you feed beef (ox) heart.

But it must be so much better than an FX5 that you only need to run it for 1/2 the time ... so will therefore pay for it's self in, what..., about 10 years?

The first listed is 2% so is not that much stronger than excel, I think i remember seeing that it was 1.7%?

umm... no that wasn't the one I meant to post... viewtopic.php?f=41&t=30815

Random thoughts in no real order: Have you had a look at my 430L tank in my sig, many of Stella's threads, and twinkles native tank? There is a bit, but not much, of info on some of our native plants here: viewtopic.php?f=41&t=63546 As disgustipated has said the hardest thing about native temperate aquariums is keeping them cool over summer. The more lights, pumps, filters etc the hotter the the tank will get. You can get some good cooling via adding bottles of ice and or a desk fan pointing at the water surface, the next step is an expensive chiller. I'll tackle stock first. In the bay you have a good selection to choose from. Banded kokopu and inanga make for good mid/top water swimmers. Smelt are another choice but can be problematic in the first 24h and can startle easily there whole life - in saying that the ones I have at the moment are good. Bottom dwellers are bullies and torrentfish. In the bay you have common and redfin bullies, both make good tank mates and adapt well. Torrentfish, as the name implies, like fast flowing water but make great tank fish after they learn to feed on non-live foods. Koaro can make good tank fish from what I've heard although they like more flow. Size of the tank will depend on what you want to keep. If you only want bullies and inanga you could just get away with a 2ft tank, but 3ft would be better. If you wanted to have any of the large Galaxiids (giant kokopu, banded kokopu and koaro) I would say a 4ft x 2ft would be needed to allow them room to grow. Bullies will grow to to about 100mm or more and live for 3 or more years Smelt will get to about 90+mm and may live for 2 or 3 years but 1 is normal Inanga will grow to over 100mm and may live for 2 or 3 years but 1 is normal Banded kokopu and koaro will grow to 200-250mm and may live for 5+ years? Giant kokopu will get to 300-400mm or more and may live for over 10 years? For food I use good granules, NLS and Nutrafin, beef heart and live food. Lighting, well I just have have a 24w compact fluro, some times two on a 4ft x2 ft. I don't try and grow plants, just moss so I don't need strong lighting. For water changes I just use tap water and only use dechlorinator if there has been heavy rain as more chlorine is added. Smelt are sensitive to chlorine, but koura might be sensitive to dechlorinators. For flow in the tank it all depends on what you will stock it with. The 1200 l/h filter and the 3500 l/h in my 430L point from the surface towards the bottom of the tank along the back wall with the intakes in the middle. I also have a 5000-15000 l/h wavemaker pointed across the bottom for the bullies and torrent fish to play in, and another 5000 l/h wavemaker at the other end of the tank to keep the other front corner free of crud. This means I have a lot of flow but I don't feel that it is too much in the top 1/3 for the kokopu in there. I hope that this all helps.

Yes, indeed I do :oops:

one of the black and gold ones? I have had them and a smaller brown one attach them selves to my legs before, but can't remember if the little brown ones feed or were just hitching a ride... If you are worried about leaches then salt dip the plants and the leaches will fall off

Most of the leeches in NZ aren't bloodsuckers, they feed on insects etc. I have a few native leeches in several of my tanks and have never seen them on a fish, but have seen the guppies trying to eat them.

will probably be common bullies - The NZFFD (NZ freshwater fish database) only list common bullies from the lake

Not kept them myself but they are fantastic fish in the wild. I have seen them in the same stream, even pools as banded kokopu but would probably like more current. Seen this thread?: viewtopic.php?f=41&t=3081

welcome along

Hi and welcome from another Charles, and another native keeper. Any reason why you want to go tropical, we have some nice natives. add some redfin bullies and maybe some banded kokopu or koaro?

if they do breed they should be 100% split? sibling X sibling: 25% albino, 50% split, 25% blackeye? albino X split offspring: 50% split, 50% albino? going by BB and aa, but could be more complex?

Last week I called into the LFS and managed to walk out with what were meant to be 2 small gold BNs, that ended up being a adult female albino (pink/red eye) and a just maturing male gold BN (black eye) and both for the price of the small BNs :happy1: Just had a quick look on planetcatfish and and it lists them as Ancistrus sp. (4) and Ancistrus cf. cirrhosus, but does say of A. sp (4) "This fish appears to be a form of Ancistrus cf. cirrhosus." My questions are, do you think that they are the same species? will they breed (and produce viable offspring)? and if they do breed will the offspring be all blackeyed and the next cross be a mix of both (double recessive albino gene (or is it more complex than that?))?

today I got myself 2 of the Pangio sp. (probably P. anguillaris) and they had definite barbels, fins and tails. no idea what species is in the OP.

There a lots of landlocked common bullies around. Some of mine have come from a landlocked population, and one fry might have survived as I have a small common that I can't remember capturing and placing in the tank. Both the common and Cran's bullies are always spawning in my large aquarium. I don't have a redfin male for my (small) females although they have never looked gravid.

I mist say that I only have moss and fissidens in my native tank, the kokopu and koura seem to pull out or blunder through anything I plant in there. there is also Lemna minor and Azolla sp. that are endemic, and nitella sp. that is an algae.

Hi and welcome to the forum. Have a dig around in the native section for some good info on keeping our native fish, my main tank is native. As for the plants have a dig around in here http://www.fnzas.org.nz/?page_id=2379, and there is a good read on NIWAs site about native plants, and this http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/Plants/NZ/ which is more or less what is on the NIWA site. one very common native is Glossostigma elatinoides - needs very good lighting I have Lilaeopsis ruthiana growing - seems to be very slow growing under my lighting another common one is Lilaeopsis novae-zeelandiae, but i'm not convinced that what is sold in the pet stores is L. novae-zeelandiae, probably L. brasiliensis. I also have a Hydrocotyle sp. that i'm trying to get to grow emersed another native I have that is doing ok is Elatine gratioloides I also have 3 native mosses and 2 native fissidens in my tanks I'll let the plant people talk about what is needed to grow plants, but what I will say is that the lake margin plants need lots of light and there are very few native plants from rivers/streams. so all in all it is doable.