[Upgrading tank soon, advice appreciated!]

1. Move all the fish to a new home (i.e., bucket)

2. Empty the water of the 35L tank to as little as possible

3. Move the substrate & plants, and attach filter

4. Move the old tank from its current perch, and move the new tank there

5. Fill new tank with a bit of the old water

6. add dechlorinator

7. Top off with new water

8. And then reintroduce fish

The changes I'd make, but more or less the same.

"I was also thinking of adding a piece of driftwood into the tank - how do you guys prepare this?"

Pick it off the beach/river and throw it in tank, maybe wash the sand/dirt off

[Trade Me Spying]

Nope, none for sale in my area and I only search in my area.

Probably cookies, can they be blocked?

Had you searched on TM for fighters then? If so then that would be their source.

Cookies shouldn't be readable by another site, but if you had searched on TM they may well store that in cookies or even on their DB attached to your account - the latter is most likely

[Insect identification anyone? / insect photos]

nzs largest cicada on the left

diversifying the freeze dried range?

[bully breeding experiences]

The redfin don't seem to be eating dried food yet, although I seen them pick and spit it out, so there is some hope.

at a guess from reading papers I would say the redfin that I caught would have been 2 or maybe 3 week old about 5 mm for the smallest and maybe 7 mm for the biggest - so they would have been past the hardest stage.

They were caught in water that was between 10mm and 50mm on a blacksand beach about 1 to 1.5m above the high water mark where a small stream flowed along the back of the beach before wandering to the sea. The areas would have been very rich in small food.

I have found young, sub-adult, redfin to be very picky eaters anyway.

[bully breeding experiences]

Would be awesome if you could manage to raise a diadromous species in captivity. I am planning on having a go with my redfins if they spawn again this year.

Am I right in thinking you can get a permit to sell natives? (just wondering how Koura farms would work otherwise. That, and the pet centres around Wellington have been selling shrimp for over a year, so must have a permit/supplier)

A species like redfins could potentially have a place in the market if you managed to breed them...

the 4 redfin I have are doing well, not eating dry food yet though. I'm not positive that they had gone to sea either, although they may have

[bully hybrids]

I sure I had a common female spawn with a Cran's male last year. Definitely a Cran's male and one of the large female commons was that cream colour of spawning and the eggs were much smaller than the the other Cran's spawning I've had. The eggs didn't last more than two days with the no. of fish in the tank so couldn't tell if they were fertilised

[Insect identification anyone? / insect photos]

Talking of pseudoscorpions, I saw one today, too quick to find the camera on the phone

[Aquarium Thermometer are these digital ones any good plz]

I have one of those, and it seems to be within .5 to 1 deg of the more expensive ones that I have. It does seen to wander a little bit in its difference, where all 4 of the other ones I have are all with in .2 of each other

This is subjective as none of them have been tested against a calibrated thermometer

[Fresh water Shellfish]

at a guess, the average sized one that were in the petshops could beas old as 20-50 years old... yes they can be that slow growing.

have a search in the forum for some of the other threads to learn why we wont recommend keeping them.

[bully breeding experiences]

Very good write up.

This is something that I have done accidentally and had one fry survive in my community tank of natives - how it managed to survive all the mouths I'll never know.

I have tried twice from eggs but I think the containers I used were too small and had large numbers die off very quickly and had none survive the second week.

I'll have to give this another try at some time with my Cran's, and if that works with common and redfin.

This year I caught 4 bully fry, redfin by the looks, at a stream mouth as it flowed across the beach. The fry were only about 4 to 6mm. These were placed in a shallow setup that I was playing with that was full of fry sized food - greenwater, daphnia etc. They have all survived and are now about 25mm. So it is possible to raise redfin fry in an aquarium, the first week or two might be interesting...

[Chillers]

Many chillers come with a power plug on them for a heater. So it will either cool or heat depending on desired temperature.

and if not a competent sparky could install a controller that has both functions

I would think that in this day and age there should be chillers that could both heat and cool like modern house inverters???

[New tank preparation]

It's been creeping up and up and up. There's a fairly big piece of driftwood with java moss in the tank but still slowly creeping up. It got to 8(!) before I finally went to see the guys at the Bird Barn up the road (who are 100% FANTASTIC btw....I highly recommend them!!) and Alan sold me some peat moss for the filter.

It's around 7.2 now.

is that a lump of coral in the back? that will push up the pH

[Stone Moroko Pseudorasbora parva]

Not on the allowed list from mpi.

[how to take a glass tank apart ?]

to separate the glass I used thin braided fishing line

[New tank preparation]

what was the pH. Ph is not normally an issue as long as it is not changing too fast.

[DIY pleco food]

You want me to boil up fish food with ginger and make a jam? :sick:

Add a little sugar of couse

[What up with all the no buy now auctions these days?]

Just use the auto bid. If you think the stuff is worth say $50.00 to you then put a $50 auto bid on it.

just make sure to tick the box, I had one that somehow the tick got unticked - no one else even bidded

[Taupo: Sword Tail (X. helleri) and Molly (P. velifera)?]

Any information about leopard fish? Do they still exist in the waterways?

I don't believe that any were found in waterways, only in some fram troughs

[DIY pleco food]

Boil it up with ginger and make a nice ginger jam, don't waste it on the fish :facepalm:

[help needed with Aqua One CF -2200]

That first pdf is the one you want

The hose bit just sits in place then press the leaver down to lock into place

[New tank preparation]

Bleh, really depends on your water supply.

I've lived in quite a few cities in NZ (though never Auckland, so may be different there) and never had sufficient chlorine levels in the water to actually do any harm. Certainly not to the degree where they either damage the fish or damage the beneficial bacteria in the tank.

I personally don't dose dechlorinator and haven't for years to no detrimental effect, and have kept some really sensitive fish in the past.

I have lost fish to chlorine once, and nearly did a second time with about 60-70% water change.

[concrete caves]

Once you get over the floating issue?

Also algae absolutely LOVE pumice rock for a growing surface.

Boil it, it will then sink - most of the time

Moss/Fissidens also loves pumice

[Setting up a fish tank in a very sunny room]

I have a 160L ish tank the is against a window, ie the sun shines right through it from when it rises till it gets quite high maybe 10 or 11 oclock. No algae problems.

Just one adult BN to eat the stuff, there was a small goldspot but it is in another tank now

[New tank preparation]

if you haven't used a dechlorinator already (be fore the bio media and Nutrafin "Cycle") then you have probably killed any bacteria that you have added

If you had of treated the water before adding the media and bacteria then I would say start adding plants and fish straight away otherwise the bacteria will have nothing to live on

[New tank......cleaning]

You can use bleach but it needs to be rinsed out really well and then preferably dried in the sun. Make sure no bleach smell remains.

Do not use any type of soap. White vinegar also works well.

+1 for the vinegar