Midas

These aren't orange chromides, they are green chromides E.suratensis. Green chromides I think are definitely brackish water, and need brackish water to live any length of time. Caryl made a comment earlier (in name that fish 19) saying they require brackish water as well. What does your reference say?

I have been out to WP and I talked to some more junior members of staff and after a brief discussion they said they would ask the boss. So they may get a brackish tank for them and they may not. I don't think they were 100% convinced with what I had to say as they seemed to think the fish were doing "really well". Even though one of the four only had a stump left for a tail (looked like fit rot had eaten it away, probably developed after being nipped from one of the other chromides, as he was still getting harrassed when I was there). The 1st staff member I asked about it said "what is brackish water?". Oh well fingers crossed, I'll keep an eye on what they do with them.

I am probably what you would call a regular there as they know me so I will ask as politely as I can next time I am there. I know they have set up temporary brackish tanks for other fish they have got in, like some puffers they had. So you never know I might be able to convince them. In regards to how big they get, they get to about 40cm I think?

The water in PN is quite good really (its not brown). Seems a lot better than what Caryl mentioned in some other areas. I have sample test information from the PN city council and the quality parameters for both the bore water and treated stuff are good. Nothing in there to cause concern at all for fish keeping, once its dechlorinated that is. Levels of heavy metals etc are low (<0.0005ppm), nitates are low (<0.1 ppm), phosphates are low (0.03ppm) and no chloramine. Wet Pets do not use RO for the bulk of their water. They just put it through an activated carbon filter (a larger version of the house hold water filters) and then use it. So it can't be that bad. The only problem I had is that some days it was too soft and other days it was ok. All I have to do is work out which days its soft if I'm doing a water change and add sodium bicarbonate. As an aside, what do other people use to increase the general hardness and alkalinity of their water if they need to? (e.g. for rain water or RO water users?). I have heard that Calicum hydroxide and even sodium hydroxide (!!!) can be used to increase pH, but these seem a bit harsh to me. Especially sodium hydroxide, which I have seen for sale as an aquarium water pH adjuster. I tend not to trust shop brought alkalinity reageants, especially when they don't say what is in them and charge the earth for what could be just a weak sodium bicarbonate solution. Has anyone tried mixing say Calcium chloride and sodium bicarbonate in low concentarions to increase both general and carbonate hardness of water?

Yeah!

All they are getting at with that sign is not to use it as it comes out of the tap, they recommend to filter it or something like that. They use Manawatu tap water themselves, they just filter it first. They are in an area of Palmy that always gets the harder water, so they didn't have the problem I had.

I just thought that I would post to mention something I have come across, not sure if will help anyone or not. Has anyone ever noticed large variations in the carbonate hardness (KH) in their local water supply? When I first started fish keeping here in Palmy using filtered tap water I discovered that this was occuring. I noticed that something was up when I was having problems keeping the pH stable in my tank. At the time I was carrying out bi-weekly 33% water changes and I noticed that some fornights the pH would be stable and other weeks it would drop significantly (from ~7.5 down as far as ~6). At this point in time I was new to the science and consulted the LFS for clues to what could be happening. They told me to change more water and clean my tank more throughly as it was because of fish waste etc building up. At this stage I was carrying out what I thought to be quite a thorough cleaning regime (including 33% water changes bi weekly on a fairly sparsely populated tank) and thought if I have to do more that this fish keeping thing is maybe a bit too much work. After some revision of water chemistry and the purchase of a water hardness test kit I found the main reason I was having problems. I found that on some days the tap water would have a KH of about 100 ppm (pH ~8) and some days it would only be about 30ppm (pH ~7.5). If I did any number of water changes in a row with the softer of the two water supplies, the pH would start to drop after few days, due to normal aquarium life. So to fix the pH problems I was having, I chose to increase the KH of the water by adding sodium bicarbonate. Problem solved. Still, it was a bit of a mystery why the water would be ok on some days and too soft for my needs on others. That was until I contacted the local council and asked about the water supply. As it turns out in Palmy there are two water supplies. One is from bore water (KH ~100ppm; pH ~8) and the other softer water comes from the water treatment plant which treats water from a catchment (KH ~30ppm; pH ~7.5). Depending where you are in the city you get either one or the other. However, in some locations you will get bore water one day and treated water the next, depending on the water demand at any particular time. We just happened to live in one of these locations that gets both.

Wet Pets in Palmerston North on Tremaine Ave.

I actually thought that the blood red parrots came from a severum and a midas cross. Yes, there are two fully grown Midas at Wet Pets in their big tank with the arowana and red tail catfish etc. They also have a 3ft tank full of 4 inch Midas that they are trying to get rid of for $5 each, but aren't having much like by the looks of it. Not much demand I guess. Our Midas actually came from that tank full over a year ago when they were all about 2-3 inches long. But ours has grown to be presently around 7-8 inches in that time. He is just starting to get what looks like the beginnings of a hump, quite cute really.

At present everything but the convicts are too young for me to tell if they are male or female so I don't know who I will have to watch out for pairing up. All the convicts in that tank are male so I guess it depends on whether the Jack D., Jaguar or Texas are female. The two closet related ones are the Jag and the Jack D. (Guapotes) so hopefully they are both the same sex otherwise they may want to pair. Have to keep an eye on them

I have a 3 inch Jack D. I got mine fom Wets Pets here in Palmy a couple of weeks ago. Last time I was there they still had about 10 juveniles for sale at $17 a pop from about 2-3 inches long.

Hello everyone out there. I am a PhD student at Massey University and I am currently in the middle of writing my thesis in food engineering. Like Benny I have also been keeping fish for about 3 yrs. Started off with goldfish and seemed to have grown from there. Currently my wife and I have four tanks in operation, a 2ft, 2.5ft, 3ft and a 4ft tanks, all fresh water. We used to have a fifth tank with 2 sea horses, but after having them for a year they died last month for some reason unkown to me. The fish in my other tanks are: 2ft: 2x 4" goldfish 2.5ft: 4x female convict cichlids (from 1" to 3") 3ft: 1x 7" snakeskin gourami 1x 5.5" moonlight gourami 1x 4.5" golden 3 spot gourami 1x 7" BGK 1x 3.5" green severum 2x 3" Keyhole cichlids 2x bristle nose (M 4", juv 2") 1x borneo sucker (gastromyzon spp.) 1x 3" Kuhli loach (visable for about 5mins every 2 weeks) 2x 2" golden pencil fish 1x 2" bronze cat 1x 2.5" upside down cat 1x 3.5" angel fish 4ft: 1x 7" Midas cichlid 4x male convict cichlids (2"-4") 1x 3" Jag cichlid 1x 3" Jack dempsey 1x 3" Texas Have plans to acquire (build/buy) an 8ft x3ft wide x 2ft high tank in the near future. Just have to make sure it doesn't go through the floor! Hope someone found all this interesting. Cheers

It probably is not a good thing, but my wife will not let me destroy her as she says that she is a cute fish. Do not worry, I do not intend to breed from her. All my convicts are separted into male only and female only tanks.

A question to those who culture earth worms for their fish. I am trying to start up a earth worm culture as a food source for my growing central americans (Midas, Texus, Jag, etc). I have read several books on home worm compsting etc and I think I have learnt all I can from them and the rest will have to come from experience. My question is what worm species do you use to feed your fish and where did you get them from? The most common compsting worm here in NZ seems to be the tiger worm (E.fetida). However, I have read that these worms can excrete a yellow substance that is repulsive to fish and requires the worms to be purged in damp cornflour before feeding them to remove the yellow stuff. Do you know if this is true ? Also, the rarer of the two composting worm species. the red worm (L.rubellus), is apparently the better fish food. The only problem is it seems hard to come by as it is the least efficient composter of the two worms, so is not kept in any large numbers by many worm farmers. I have managed to dig around in the garden and find around 50 red worms, but this number will take a long time to develop into a culture that I can feed from. Does anyone have any experience in this matter?

On the subject of ballon type fish I have come across something that people may find interesting, and I'd be interested to know if anyone has noticed it in other fish. When my pair of convict cichlids last bred a few months ago one of the about 50 offspring that I kept had this so called 'ballon' apperance. The fish doesn't seem to be disadvantaged in any way and is now one of the larger female offspring at around 3-4cm long. In this instance this trait has appeared quite naturally and unintentionally, but I guess that someone some time ago noticed a similar occurance in mollies and gouramis and bred from these stock in an effort to create more fish with this trait. I wonder how common this trait actually is and with what frequncy it occurs.

On the subject of ballon type fish I have come across something that people may find interesting, and I'd be interested to know if anyone has noticed it in other fish. When my pair of convict cichlids last bred a few months ago one of the about 50 offspring that I kept had this so called 'ballon' apperance. The fish doesn't seem to be disadvantaged in any way and is now one of the larger female offspring at around 3-4cm long. In this instance this trait has appeared quite naturally and unintentionally, but I guess that someone some time ago noticed a similar occurance in mollies and gouramis and bred from these stock in an effort to create more fish with this trait. I wonder how common this trait actually is and with what frequncy it occurs.