alexyay

Polystyrene is usually used - it's also used to protect the bottom of the tank from any imperfections in the stand (when you put the pressure of the water on the tank, any small bumps on the surface can become dangerous without a material like polystyrene in between). Hollywood Fish Farm Mt Roskill I believe sells polystyrene. We tried to get some from Bunnings, but they won't cut to size so you'd be getting a pretty big sheet.

So, today I found the culprits that have been eating away at the mint and pepper plants growing out of the top of my tank. I'm assuming they're something along the lines of "green looper caterpillars". My questions are: - Should I be worrying if they fall into the tank, toxicity-wise? One suggestion is to use flour on the plants to cause the caterpillars to fall off, but I'm not so keen if it's not safe for them to fall into the tank (manual removal of them looks to be my best option at the moment). - It's been suggested I feed them to a fish. Again, toxicity-wise, is this a good idea? :facepalm: I have a feeling they've been there a while, based on how long I've had bite-sized holes on the plants. Only noticed them today, and picked off 7 of the little buggers.

Haha, AqAdvisor really hates BNs in my experience - though they are terrible poop machines. I tend to recommend going for one large shoal rather than multiple smaller ones, as the fish show stunning behaviours when shoaling in large groups. Others however do prefer the different species. I would probably recommend adding 1-3 more cories, however. With good planting you should be alright - if worst comes to worst you could remove the smaller shoal of fish and/or the BN. I find AqAdvisor is pretty conservative with stocking levels, so typically if they're saying your stocking level is low, you're doing pretty good ime My current 120L is supposed to have: 11x Glowlight danios (hope to eventually increase that shoal to 30) 2x Thicklipped gourami pair (+ a female who's currently in another tank) 1x Indian banded gourami female (possible temporary resident) 7x Pangio anguillaris kuhlis (plus however many I find in store again eventually) However... at the moment it also has 7x Common (?) whiptails 1x "Black" whiptail 3x Red whiptails 1x Royal whiptail 1x Female American flagfish All of which are /supposed/ to be temporary in my SE-A biotope. + It used to have a female Rio BN My aquarium stocking level is 147% according to AqAdvisor (with a lot of angry red text) - excluding the red whiptails as they're not on the list (also P oblonga instead of P anguillaris, which they have 3 entires for). Anyway, with heavy planting + emersed plants, the Nitrates tend to climb to about 15ppm weekly (with 50-60% weekly WCs). With lower planting levels, I'd be greatly reducing that whiptail population. It really does depend on the individual tank, WC schedules and planting levels.

:thup: I am loving these lists. It's really showing me how much colour we have locally - hope to use them myself for ID'ing one day.

So there isn't a link to this wonderful list of identified species? !drool: @ OP, NIWA has some excellent resources also. But the FNZAS list is likely to be one of the most (if not the most) comprehensive lists available for native aquatics. Why would you leave out Nitella? I love those, they're super cute for an algae

:thup: Sounds reasonable to me - personally I am for the use of vets, however only if they are trained in aquatic diseases - it's pointless if they aren't.

Ah sorry - I thought your upset about Quarantine was because it had been proposed to change (which was why I was confused as I was surprised it wasn't already that long). So off topic entirely, then?

Freshwater callamanus isn't necessarily going to affect worms in the ocean anyway freshwater, unlike the ocean, is more compact. All I'm saying is that I personally do not have issues with the proposed extended quarantine. What I was asking was whether MPI plan on having vets with expertise in fish (or whether we don't know). Vet doesn't necessarily mean no expertise in aquatic organisms, so was wondering whether it was based on assumption/experience/etc. A vet could be very beneficial if they have some kind of knowledge on fish, but I agree they are of no use if they don't. My question is whether we know if they have expertise or not.

A ballast may only carry whatever its invertebrates can carry. It also depends on whether they make contact with certain other fish. Oceans are large and all connected bodies of water, in an aquarium it's a lot of pathogens in a concentrated space and a fish is more likely to contract a disease there (or in a small body of water) compared to an ocean. Humans do not carry columnaris or callamanus worms (for example). When issues such as ebola come to light, humans may be quarantined. You deal with the vets currently employed to check fish? I assume that means MPI does not propose to hire those with any kind of expertise in aquatic organisms in the future?

I now have Gisemanns on 3 tanks. Since switching from some cruddy ~18 month old Aqua Zonic stock tubes, the growth has been pretty cool. Actually struggling to stop my plants from growing so low (RTL is growing bushy, rather than to the top like I want - R rotundifolia and L repens both grow along the ground, then up - the L repens is growing over my crypts, driving me nuts!) On Dad's 450L I'd go for a quad unit rather than the twin that we're using, but his tank also has pretty dense floating vegetation which blocks a lot of the light. We'd probably be able to grow carpet plants but with the clowns, hoplo, SAEs and fire eel they don't stand a chance They're relatively cheap here (for in NZ lol) if you want to test a couple of smaller units out - http://www.barkingbuddies.co.nz/index.p ... ath=20_114 Well regarded overseas I believe, only complaint is that they're too expensive - here in NZ they're a pretty similar price to other brands so well worth it IMO over other brands available here. Only problem is I can't find any PAR data for them :nilly: Wanted to try Catalina for example to compare them to, but they wouldn't ship here. Aquaticlife (also kinda popular) won't ship here either. Compared to other NZ brands though I imagine they shine in quality.

I imagine they've been contacted but it's worth noting that they are not importers and may not be able to provide much about the current importer processes. In defense of the FNZAS, I certainly have not found them anti-commercial. Those from the FNZAS frequently speak up for business when eg encountering slander and are always the first to remind hobbyists of the importance of businesses in the country. They also have the discount agreements for businesses with customers that are paid members of the FNZAS, which benefits both businesses and the FNZAS greatly. The relationship between MPI and FNZAS is important as both rely on each other and it's important to maintain the relationship with MPI for all of us. I imagine they will respond with good intentions towards the hobby and will do their best to help and prevent issues from developing due to price increases. FNZAS isn't going to do something that disadvantages hobbyists - we also both rely on each other. Out of curiosity, what evidence is there that vets will not be qualified to understand fish disease (sorry if I've missed it in the thread)? Is it based on past experience with vets? In regards to QT period - I'm surprised it's not longer. There are several diseases which may take ~1 month to show up. Personally I'm for an extended quarantine for both our wildlife and the fish currently in the hobby.

I'm a big fan of the Giesemann T5HOs. I heard the Sat + Pro is pretty good, too. BuildMyLEDs are also very impressive from what I've seen. Finnex are around the same price as the Sat+ but with slightly higher PAR - our Ray II does really well lighting our 60cm high tank - if you felt like running multiple units, that is. Edit: BML for example allows you do select the beam angles for deeper tanks, making running 2 units easier on a deeper tank.

I'm afraid that's not how it works with puffers. You will also quickly find a puffer in a floating trap will become stressed and sick. This is for two important reasons: - it is open and they require hiding places. Floating cages are stressful for most fish, especially puffers. - puffers are highly intelligent and easily bored. It will struggle to live in a small empty space for even a short amount of time. I have had extremely sick (on their death beds) puffers in traps before (mostly for feeding when lethargic) - they regularly just jumped back out of the trap, even when eg having not eaten for weeks and being "skin and bone". Putting a puffer in a floating trap for any extended period of time is probably the most stressful thing you could expose it to.

If the tetras pick on it, it's actually quite possible it's sick. It's very unusual for a puffer to be the one being picked on. If you haven't already, it may be worth putting a picture up so that we can make sure it's healthy. A lot of puffers come in with worms (due to being wild-caught) and need de-worming - I personally recommend Praziquantel for this. My rule is Convex, not Concave - if its abdomen is facing inwards at all it's quite possibly a sign of internal parasites. They are also highly sensitive to water quality, so any issues with the water can quickly cause sickness. I assume you are feeding him live/frozen foods daily rather than prepared foods? It is also IMO well worth keeping snails as a part of their staple diet.

As Adrienne said, it can and will start killing the rest of your fish, I'm afraid. There's a very good reason why they are recommended for species-only tanks.

Would say snail eggs also Are you aware that if that puffer remains in the tank, it'll likely kill almost all of the other inhabitants?

I was under the impression that they did this already?

Unfortunately I was unable to make the meetings - does anyone have a general overview on whether there are any significant effects on importation of Food/Medications (via AVCM registration) and other goods that require registration? It appears the proposed Vet fees have a big impact on importation of livestock but I couldn't find any major issues when skimming for other goods (but may have missed something).

Quite likely a bullhead or similar - if you ever see something like that in the future which doesn't belong it's important to photograph it and report it to DOC. It's unlikely to be cories simply because of how cold it gets here unless they were just recently dumped during a summer or something.

Tetraodontidae, hands down. Osphronemidae is second, and Loricariidae is obviously up there.

Bad quality lights :lol: Excess of blues, 10/12+ hours. High phosphates and perhaps even dosing trace elements/micro nutrients for plants. I find when I overdose Iron I get an excess of string algae (tangles in a mess, doesn't connect to anything) but being grazers I don't know whether the cichlids would eat that.

The order I usually go in is Mechanical media first, Biological media second, Chemical media third. The first will be where the water enters - it depends on the filter as some go from top-bottom and others bottom-top. Mechanical media is your coarse and then fine sponges/filter wool. Biological is your ceramic noodles/bio-balls/sintered glass etc. Chemical is -zorbs/carbon/etc. Though carbon sponge will be mechanical and can go at the beginning. So it would go Coarse sponge > Fine sponge > Filter beads > Ceramic beads > Charcoal. The placement of the Charcoal isn't so important, I just tend to put chemical media such as Purigen/Ammonia or Nitrite "eaters" at the back.

Do you mean in a pond or in a waterway? I don't know of any coldwater cories but there are subtropical cories. The bronze cory will go to relatively low temps (~20 degrees) - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... neus_2.jpg

If they're new then it's likely they're either melting crypts (as this often happens with new crypts) or plants converting from emersed to submerged growth Usually as mentioned they will bounce back just fine.

Oh my gosh that is insane o_o