gligor

Been a busy few weeks away and having family looking after tank 😬 come back to a bit of an algae bloom. Almost back to normal. Glosso growing like crazy.... needed second trim. Finally added fish 13 neons and 10 Otto’s. 
Need to spend a bit of time at home to re adjust ferts😅...... maybe next month
Trimed the tops out of the AR as well, they had grown out of the water. Glosso pearling really well. 
Good to have fish finally
Now to sort the water clarity 🙂

Good call! I'm sure it will love the swimming space

One more addition...
This is the species that first got me interested in aquaria when as a kid of around six a friends parents got one for their tank at home. I haven't kept one for probably close to twenty years and I'm really not sure why. Too common? Not interesting enough? Don't fit the biotope? Bah who cares, they look awesome and I want one, so...

Don't want to hijack your post but my pair have finished their first spawn. Hundreds of eggs were laid on a vertical piece of wood but with 20+ bristlenoses in the tank needless to say the eggs didn't last the night. Now the pair are in their own tank ready for next round. Have already begun cleaning a rock.

Updates, the camera doesn't do them justice 

Monarch butterfly in my garden
 
 

AQUATIC ORGANISMS WELFARE.

To many of us the appeal of keeping a living environment in our home is very appealing and most times this comes in the form of an aquarium, but it is important to ensure the needs of the animals are met to ensure the picture continues to look the same in the future. There is an animal welfare act in New Zealand that covers the welfare of aquatic organisms and also covers the needs of an animal that are vital to be taken into consideration when housing or breeding them. The Act covers many issues but the main one to be taken into consideration is; - “The owner or person in charge of an animal has overall responsibility for the welfare of the animal(s) in his or her care and must ensure that the physical, health, and behavioural needs of each animal are met in a manner that is in accordance with both good practice and scientific knowledge”.

http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1999/0142/latest/DLM49664.html

When it comes to Aquatic organisms the diverse range of species and habitats means there is no one rule that fits every species but the basics are the same as to water quality for each species. The water should be pollutant free and meet correct minimum levels for, pH, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate, salinity, temperature and an oxygen level that is appropriate to the species being kept.

Aquatic organisms that are well looked after will usually, depending on  age, sex, maturity and species exhibit normal behaviour, colouration, fin/scale condition, no obvious signs of disease and feed normally. Exceptions might occur during a disease outbreak or after transport, power failures etc. but then it is expected that appropriate actions e.g. treatment, acclimatisation or isolation would be undertaken immediately by the owner when a problem is noticed.

 

Housing for the animals should be of a size to allow a full range of natural movements, there are many small aquariums on the market nowadays but most are restricted to only being able to house smaller species and the small volume of water can be very hard to maintain a stable quality environment in them. The “old Goldfish bowl” without proper filtration and aeration can quickly become a death trap owing to the small water surface area in contact with the air resulting in lack of oxygen for the fish to breathe. Your fish are living in a box of water where they feed and produce waste, overstocking, lack of regular water changes or good filtration can create a “toilet” that they are living in.

You as a fish, amphibian, reptile, or invertebrate keeper have not only a moral but a legal obligation to look after them as best you can, there are many sources nowadays with the internet available to research the proper care of the animals you happen to choose to keep.

 
Some further reading on cold water and tropical set ups can be found here. Happy Fish Keeping.

Cold Fresh water

Tropical Fresh water

Filtration


Cycling your tank
Stocking the Tank.

Feeding your Fish.


Why do my fish die?
Disposing of sick fish.

Environmentally friendly water changes.

Aquarium Hygiene.

Pic below taken a week after video above.  Managed to save about half a dozen fry and put into a 60L tank, with sponge filter.

 
Pic below taken today.  After several weeks, the initial few fry I've managed to save have now grown to slightly more than a centimeter.

 
Also, their parents have managed to spawn and successfully hatched another batch.  But as I've not been able to separate them out into another tank, sadly those fry just became food.

Sorry for old bump of the thread, but looking at getting some Geophagus Surinamensis which these look like if i am correct? 
They look really healthy , may I ask where did you purchase these from and what is your water/feeding/tank size etc like? 

Thanks for your replies, I think this will answer both questions, @livingart that URL takes me to https://aquariumworld.nz/forums/discover/ and @Adrienne the page looks like this:

Thanks Alan, yes we're doing it the 'old school' way, a few fish, lots of plants, and water changes.  We'll be taking it very slow - we had to wait a month before we could even put fish in the tank (since we were going away on holiday) so the kids are learning a lot about patience :-)  Does them good.

Thanks Caryl.  Having read so many horror stories about overstocked uncycled tanks, I wanted to play it safe!  The tank is fairly well planted so I suspect it may never show ammonia at all with just three fish.  But I'll give it a couple more weeks to be sure before I add a few more.

Welcome to the site and hobby. My guess is that you are doing a natural cycle with the tank just as grandfather used to do before someone decided it was cruel to cycle naturally. If you continue to add fish slowly everything should go well. I used to have a fish house with 60 tanks and bred 50000 tropical fish a year and I have always cycled tanks naturally by adding fish slowly and allowing the system to adjust.

I noticed the drop off as well, one problem I find is the new forum format, I really liked it when we could go and see all the new topics that were unread and just go through those, I am not a big fan of the Activity -> Unread Content page.
Lovely marine tanks livingart and Adrienne

I've gone, like a number of others, to the dark side

Yeah I believe Hovmoller had a small group of these guys too, but his were not mature and did not display such vibrant colours.
I think it would definitely be worth establishing these guys in NZ, I think they are the nicest looking eartheater. You have some excellent looking stock FishyNZ! Jealous.

2 weeks of planting and it's now full.
Was going for a loose Asian biotope but ruined it with some Ludwigia..
Plants are all low care easy growing: polyaperma, Ludwigia repens, Indian fern, tiger lotus, Wendtii crypts and windelov.
Wood is sinking but only just. Give it half a chance and it pops up. Hence after WC today the polyaperma looks a bit sad after being collected by a piece of wood uprooting.
Removed the purigen and ready to start adding fish.

After several days of the eggs "disappearing", I noticed the male with his mouth always closed even when food's near.  Took a video, continued observing and about 15 minutes later, out comes a clutch of fry from his mouth.  Totally surprised!
 
 

Thanks. As there are other fish (a lot) in the tank, the fun part is to extract the fry from the father so they don't get eaten when spat out.
Have never bred a mouthbrooding species before.

Hiya all, 
after 2-3 years away I have finally found the time and motivation ( Hubby threatening to sell the empty tank that was just sitting there!) to get back to my fish. 
I enjoyed the yellow Labs and Dems when I had tanks previously and am leaning towards going back to them but on a much smaller scale (Aqua 620 as opposed to the 2m tank I did have). 
Any other ideas feel free to let me know 😀
Cheers
B

It's a bit painful to do that for 30 sub-forums to be honest...