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blueether

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Posts posted by blueether

  1. I decided to take the boy and his tube out and place it in with the shrimp, and add a small heater. The poor guy was on his fourth or fifth lot of eggs with no fry seen in the community tank. Yesterday the last lot started to hatch and by this morning they all had. I can count 10 but as it is a rocky little nano there are bound to be more.

    First one out, dad still looking after the rest:

    1794603_10152888304594369_1128249006973439688_n.jpg?oh=5a0b5f41d26ecdf0ee2d398a402c18b1&oe=54EA17A9&__gda__=1425374750_ea8565761820dae587f8011c50fc0f16

    10341697_10152890196379369_9091988338408331081_n.jpg?oh=28b3d5492ad3e7b37e3360e98216a010&oe=54BF8960

    10629880_10152890196369369_4901370460428732114_n.jpg?oh=9f6852d6ce5bc70207a1873e0364338b&oe=54EC112F

    10404482_10152890196374369_3506292045686151173_n.jpg?oh=3ed1bd3e40a9c7186a201e03f1644b9c&oe=54AD3F23

    10671439_10152890196364369_3907922152119762734_n.jpg?oh=229f1b17f92959b7b448e7de1f735c4f&oe=54B138F3&__gda__=1421819621_c59ea469f97723256390844a226814b6

  2. For food yes they can eat commercial foods but high protein and high quality is best. A better diet is bugs, heart from the supermarket or butcher and raw shrimp/prawns.

    Sexing for redfins is easy the males are red, the others are harder, females are usually pale and mature males have a coloured band on the first dorsal.

    Bluegills like high flow and are easily outcompeted so best to be kept in a species tank.

    As with all natives cold water is the key.

    Breeding with bluegills giants and redfins has not been acheived (to my knowledge)

    EDIT: actually blueether might have succeeded?

    I believe that common are the only ones the are likely to breed in an aquarium. I had both common and Cran's fry hatch, and one common fry survive in the ~400L. I've raised redfin fry that I caught very small (~4 or 5mm). I doubt that they were big enough to be returning fry in the stream as it was very fast flowing across a beach.

  3. I would think 5 or 6 ft x 2 or 3 ft x 2 ft deep...

    Some options:

    1800 x 900 x 600 = 970L

    1500 x 900 x 600 = 810L

    1800 x 600 x 600 = 650L

    1500 x 600 x 600 = 540L

    900 deep (wide) would look fantastic, I find the 600 of mine a little compact depth wise. I don't think you will have to ant deeper than 600.

    I heard banded kokopu can be a bit agro to each other :dunno:

    I've found that both the giants I've had were very laid back, the redfin bullies are much grumpier and will chase anyone away from their spot. At a guess I would say that each redfin male needs close 600x600. One of mine will chase anyone from about 200mm from his cave and the other redfin male from an area of about 300mm from is cave. I think he even killed one of the small redfin males in there. If he is not at his cave then he is less grumpy.

    The torrent fish don't seem to mind each other most of the time, just every so often there is a little chase around the tank at very high speeds.

    I would get hold of a few Cran's too, the two big males in my tank are always front and centre, often 1/2 way up the water column. The commons seem less show-off-ish.

    For the chiller you will want at least a 1/2 hp for the 500L and maybe close to 2/3 or 1 hp for the top end :dunno: all depends on the temp diff, insulation, lights and pumps/powerheads. If I turn off the 3200 l/h that is doing mechanical filtration the temp of my tank drops by 2 deg easy.

  4. I think its 2 teaspoons (someone else can confirm) add it gradually though to minimise stress to the fish.

    Btw it doesnt matter which one you use.

    I hate teaspoons as a measure for medication, but that sounds about right. If I remember correctly 2 teaspoons is about 5g of salt - less if you are using corse rock salt

    When you do a water change measure how much water is removed and make sure to add back in the right amount of salt

    Your bully should surive just fine

  5. I use one of two special salts,. Either bulk rock salt from Bin Inn or 2kg bags of table salt from any supermarket. As Ira said the anti caking agent is usually Silicon dioxide - the only issue I can see with this is it may cause diatomes.

    As for the rate anything upto 8g per L (ppt) will be ok unless there is a koura in there. If there is one then I found mine didn't like salt above about 4 ppt. Dissolve it in hot water and then add it in thirds over the next 24 hours. Adding salt is hard on the osmotic pressure of the fish so take it slowly when adding it. You will need to keep the salt above 2 or 3 ppt for at least 3 weeks, this is atleast 1 week after the last spots.

  6. blackout should help, along with a 1/3 waterchange every few days

    make sure no direct sunlight hits the tank, cut back any lights to only a few hours, watch nitrates and phosphates...

  7. Depends on gender, if you got a mating pair then you could probably keep them anywhere higher than a 40-60L tank while they're smaller (5-6cm), once they're bigger probably anywhere upwards of 120L.

    I'm possibly being a bit generous in tank sizes (but there's never any harm in giving them that extra space)

    40 - 60 should do for a pair or four (one male and two or three females) if there is good caves/rocks etc

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