akaxo

oh yeah that's them for sure. thanks for that, i did a google image search for mountain minnow fry or something like that the other day but didn't find anything that good. they're not quite that big yet though. first time i've had fish breed guess that makes me a grandpa...

so most likely mountain minnows then, cheers. there were comets in the pond too which would be where any other eggs went. guess i should count myself lucky to have the four ha.

is there anyway of telling from looking at the fry to know what kind of fish they are? i have four that appeared in an outside pond i have that just has snails in it and is a breeding spot for mosquito larvae for feeding to fish. there is only two possible places they could have come from that i can think of: a few mountain minnow eggs on some water cress roots that i recently moved from the fish pond to the other pond or wild eggs attached to some duckweed i got from a local river and put in it. the fry are now in a small tank by themselves and are growing well and eating mashed up cooked egg yolk. they have a quite distinctive bright blue stripe down them. i'd have thought that if the mountain minnows bred i'd have more than four? actually kind of exciting not knowing for sure what they are and watching them grow. i guess i can relate to people who don't want to know the sex of their baby before giving birth ha. i'd post a photo but really all the ones i took are about as useful as looking at a tank with only oxygen weed and four little fuzzy blurs floating in it.

funnily enough i've been thinking along the same lines since losing the big turtle tank. thinking about just making a bigger pond for in the sunroom with an aquaponics grow bed in the sunniest window. a decent sized lined wooden one like i have outside (which is where gordon is now since i moved the fish into a tank to make room for him) but maybe with a glass front to it, still got a couple of 1.4m long pieces from the tank that broke. though sealing glass into a lined wooden pond is something i haven't done before. if you do something like that donna i'd be more than happy to help set it up etc if you want a hand.

don't know if it's really required or not but i put them in a big pot of water and boil them for a while to try and kill anything on them too.

here's a great source of info for you to check out: http://www.axolotl.org/faq.htm I use river sand in my axolotl tank and have it well planted, getting them small helps with the plants as it gives them time to get established before the axolotls are big enough to knock them around. The local council website is likely to have info on water chlorination. When small daily feeding is good, cut it back a bit once they are fully grown. They LOVE earthworms, chop the worms up into bite size pieces though when they're small. There's frozen and dried food option at pet shops. They like dark hiding spots for during the day and are more active when it's dark, they have no eyelids and don't like bright light. They can't be kept out of water, they have gills and need to be underwater all the time.

i got hold of her this arvo, lots of water all over the place but nothing broken. she had a couple of her neighbours helping her set up a fibreglass pond outside just in case. we had lots of water splash onto the floor which i cleaned up and foolishly refilled the tanks only to have a bigger one hit and it happen all over again. the second big one smashed the 1.4m turtle tank and had 400+ litres dump onto the lounge floor. good thing we already have a wooden floor after having to rip up the carpet in feb ha. most importantly though, no injuries and fatalities.

this is probably a better idea than heating a tank or whatever directly imo. compost does get pretty hot and the temperature fluctuates a fair bit over time, the slightly technical paper on heating water from compost linked to above somewhere shows that in some of the graphs. you're likely to end up with some slow cooked fish if you're not careful. i've thought a fair bit about doing something similar but to heat homebrew barrels during winter. i have four compost bins so seems a shame to waste the heat generated. but gave up on the idea as not worth the hassle in the end. as soon as you put something large into a compost heap you start messing with it's decomposition and it wont generate the heat properly so the idea of running coils of hose through it is way better. though with the temperatures involved it may be worth investing in something better than the standard black irrigation hose. but the fact that the heat generated isn't constant and drops over a matter of days makes it all very tricky. it could be set up like a wetback system on a fire place so that heat convection circulates the water. the bottom of the water tank just needs to be at least 30cm above the coils being heated. you could also set up something similar using solar. there's no real way to control the temperature though and keep it stable without spending a fair bit of money. i ended up deciding it would be more hassle than it's worth and too likely to kill the yeast in the homebrew. if it was me i'd just take over the garage or a room inside and set up heaps of tanks in there. not that trying wouldn't be a lot of fun or anything...

as long as you are getting enough study done and at the very least thinking about the material you are studying while doing your water changes etc you should be all good. i think everyone who has studied is familiar with the procrastination that can occur. i know my house is at it's cleanest around exam time...

in case anyone is wondering i have a nice looking full tank now and not a massive mess of broken glass and water on the lounge floor. thanks for all the input, info and links.

and on a slightly happier note: http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/cutestuff/5638330/Turtle-perky-despite-ordeal

awesome photos, i'm a bit of a fan of axolotls no ideas for names sorry. ours are called wilhelmina, baldrick and percy. not that we can tell them apart or know what sex they are or anything.

mine are well fed, and pretty fussy now that they have discovered how good earthworms are. no longer very interested in pellets or their frozen food. 60x30 might be a bit small, the rule of thumb i use is one for the first two square feet then one per square foot after that as a minimum. though i know some people do just use one per square foot with out the extra one at the start and with good filtering and water changes they might be fine but the more space the better really. haven't seen any gold ones around the size you are after here in chch sorry, just smaller ones on trademe. the guy that has them is great to deal with and really helpful too. you could always get a second bigger tank for a couple of gold ones to grow up to size in

i've got three about 12cm long in a tank 84cm x 60cm, they're growing fast and seem to get along fine. have the odd nip at each other when they get fed but that's about it. they also have heaps of places to hide in etc. what dimensions are the tank he's in? from what i understand it's the area of the bottom of tank that is more important than water volume for working out numbers etc as any water depth over about 30cm is extra to their needs.

Awesome thanks for all that. I think i know the tank you're talking about, it looks great and was the inspiration behind what I'm doing now. I think I'll go ahead and do all the bracing I can as I'd rather over engineer it than under ha. and will be very careful when filling it for the first time. I'd rather not alter it so as to make the water depth less as I figure the more swimming space he has the happier he'll be, and I want to get a decent sized pleco for the tank too. I'll do some research on the european bracing and go for that if you think it'll be best. and thanks for that link too, just had a good read of it and it helped explain a few things which was great. I'm glad for all the physics and maths I've studied at uni as all the equations just made it look like fun to me haha. Looks like I should be fine, put my mind to rest a bit, cheers.

yeah i wish i was making it out of 10mm glass but the guy i get my glass from didn't have any. should be OK with bracing though? I think I was wrong in describing it as european bracing around the basking area sorry but it's stuck to the tank sides along three edges and supported by two other pieces along the front and back sides of the tank. I haven't done the bracing for the tank yet, I have got some glass lined up for it now but won't be getting it till tomorrow so any recommendations on the best way to do it would be most appreciated I'm thinking two braces across the top between the front and back at the moment. I've also made a steel frame for it that goes right around all the 12 edges with L shaped pieces and is siliconed to the glass as well as riveted together. not sure if it'll help structurally but I like the look of it, will be painted and looks better than the silicone joins imo. there's 20cm of glass above the basking area and then another 15cm of wood on top around it and then a mesh lid over the basking area so there's no way he'll be able to get out. the rest of the tank is open. thanks again.

well what a friendly bunch! Hi Donna, it's been so good hearing Gordon has been improving. His tank is finished and all good to get filled up for the first time on sunday so fingers crossed it all goes well. Assuming it does it shouldn't be too long after that we can get him, I've got everything sorted that we need. Thanks again for everything!

oh cool thanks, I'm not on facebook but will check it out when my fiancée gets back from her holiday as she is.

thanks. I'm not sure what Totally Tanked is and when I looked it up online I just got errors for totallytanked.co.nz oh well. It usually takes a bit of effort for me to leave the house anyway haha.

Hi everyone, I've been using this site as a source of info for a few months at least now but only just signed by this week. I thought it would be rude to not say hello and thanks for all I've learnt so far just by reading other people's questions, so hello and thanks! I've got three tanks at home, one smallish one (about two foot) with some comets that looks like an oriental style bamboo house with large windows. A three foot by two foot tank with three juvenile axolotls in it that is just over a foot deep, it is well planted with a variety of plants with a sand substrate and is the first tank I made myself. The third is a 1.4 metre long turtle tank that i have just finished making and am waiting patiently for the silicone to cure so I can fill it up. There were no plans to get a turtle but my fiancée and I found an abandoned one and feel in love with him so it all started from there and now we have a third tank in our small lounge! The turtle was in bad shape but is currently in very good hands being cared for by Donna at turtle rescue while we sort his home out (someone should nominate her for New Zealander of the year imo :thup: ). I'd have more tanks and a large pond too if I could but things like that are a joint decision around here would love a large tropical tank set up to look as natural as possible. I've got a pretty strong DIY ethic, hence making the tanks myself and like to learn as much as possible so this site has been great and I can imagine it will be in the future. Being a poor uni student helps motivate the DIY ethic sometimes... As well as the fish and axolotls we also have 12 chickens, two rabbits (i never have to mow the backyard) and two cats. All in a suburban quarter acre, never feels lonely haha. Thanks again, Stephen

500mm. the 700mm in the tank dimensions is the height of the tank, i'm making a stand for the lights that sits about 50mm above the tank. the length from the end of the basking area is 1010mm.

Hi all, first post but been checking out this forum a while now for advice when i've needed it and it's been really helpful. but can't find an answer to this question any where and thought someone might be able to help. i'm currently building a large tank (1400mm x 620mm x 700mm) with 6mm glass so obviously am bracing it so as to be better safe than sorry. it's for a turtle so the first question, which i've been assuming the answer to is yes but best make sure is that the basking area counts as a brace? it's glass and siliconed to one end and to the two long lengths with other pieces of glass like eurpoean style bracing (i think i've got that name right, this is all a bit new to me) as it was about 8mm narrower than the tank. the next question is the one i registered on here for has any one any experience with, or know of anyone who has braced a tank with driftwood? i'm using the selleys silicone that says it bonds to wood. would a piece of driftwood cut to have two flat ends siliconed to one of the largest pieces of glass and then to the base or to the other large length work as effectively as a glass brace? why would i even want to try such a thing you may be wondering? well it's just that i'm a broke as uni student and have run out of glass before all the bracing is done :oops: and want to get the tank finished as soon as i can so yeah thanks in advance for any advice. feel free to tell me i'm dreaming and being ridiculous even thinking it, i can take it!