Carriej

I always use darker substrate now. the fish seem happier. it also seems to bring out their colours more.

WARNING: OPINION FOLLOWS Antibiotics and antibacterials are useful, but they have a hazardous affect on the cycle of the tank. I will only use them in an established tank as an absolute last resort. This has only happened once. If a fish has been injured I will remove them with a net, place a spot of malkon carefully on the injury and return them to the water.This may need to be done several times. The alternative to this, if I am shifting tanks, eg siamese fighters after breeding, is to take a bag of tank water, medicate the water, put them and float them for awhile before netting them back into the tank. I prefer to use colloidal silver for the latter method because colloidal silver is less harsh, although I believe it is just as effective. Never put colloidal silver in your tank, as it is an antibacterial and will have a very detrimental effect on your cycle. I used colloidal silver with great effect on our rats last week. a new rat was given to us that got sick and died shortly after arriving. two days later three of her cellmates were dead, and most of my other rats were showing signs of becoming sick (they started to bite, which is out of character) I caught them all one by one, and force fed them colloidal silver with a syringe, the rats who had taken the colloidal silver are still alive, and the two that wouldn't let me handle them died.

I don't use anything to cycle my tanks, but when I am setting up a new tank I will add a handful of gravel and 2-3 litres of water from an established tank once it has reached temperature and then put the fish in straitaway. The medications I keep on hand are melafix and white spot cure. I also have furan II in case of an outbreak of fungus. I have only had one, but from the time I spotted it, to the time the store opened and I got it, the fish in question had to be put down, and I could possibly have saved him if I had had furan. another thing I have experimented with is colloidal silver, and have had reasonable success in several cases, but I am not willing to discus this in public. I rerely use medications, the only fish that seem to need it are my siamese fighters, who I have found are prone to white spot, and as such I am careful about their interaction with other fishes. PH, ammonia and nitrite test kits are also useful to have. although I generally only use mine to perform investigations if something goes wrong.

You will need a small pece of wood in there for the bristlenose, they need wood in their diet. The best tip that anyone could ever give regarding tropical fish and fishtanks, is always try to get a 2nd opinion. Anything beyond the very basics of fishkeeping is subject to opinion, and what workS for one tank, may not work for another. this especially applies to anyone who is trying to sell you something. Good luck with your tank. The community you have suggested should work well together, the biggest thing you will have to be careful about will be overfeeding.

Skunk loaches are more effective than clown loaches, I have found and will wipe out a tank ridden with snails within a couple of days. they are more likely to take on larger snails, and get into tighter spaces than clown loaches. I have a pair that I bought an keep specifically for snail control in my tanks. I have to warn you that smaller fish such as neons, are not safe with them, and I even had a honey gourami killed by them, when they ran out of snails.

MGilchrist wrote: If you know anyone who is on their way up here, give them our contact details. I am getting a bit off track here though. :oops: this is not a sales forum, so I better cool it before I get told. 8)

Thankyou caryl.

We will be keen to join the CHCH club. my wife will be attending the meetings, is there a membership fee, and how do we contact the president??

Thanks, I think we have been very lucky.... there seems to have been a space waiting to have been filled, and we kind of got drawn into it.... BTW how are things in timaru? are there many breeders down there, always looking for more fish, specifically corys, bristles, tetras will consider a meet and greet trip, and a bit of a spending spree through ashburton, timaru and possibly dunedin, if I can line up enough breeders and fish to justify the costs.

Cool, Our email is [email protected] I wish we had a tank to enter. over the past 3 months we have managed to get 1 x 3 foot, 1 x 3.5 foot and a four foot, all with the intention of making community tanks, and they all have all been converted into growout tanks......

Is the CHCH club still going? is there a way to contact them, are they are still meeting on 3rd wenesday? if they are I cannot attend their meetings as I work nights, but can you give me contact details?

Hi. Plecos are always a problem in planted tanks. whenever ours get too big we take them to our LFS to swap for smaller. it is a good deal for both parties, and it saves alot of mucking around. if we sold them on trademe we would probably make a $5 profit by the time we buy a new plec, but its probably not worth the effort......

Hi We are Carrie and Tristan. Have been members on here for a few months, but only made our first posts a few days ago. We are fish breeders in CHCH. our focus is on community fish with an emphasis on gouramies. We havent been going long, in fact we got our first fish tank in the beginning of april. We now have 25 tanks, and thousands of fish. still a little confused about how things happened, but we are now one of the biggest private suppliers in CHCH, with contracts to several fish shops. and informal but strong connections with several other fish breeders in CHCH. We spend all of our free time working on the tanks, seaching for new customers, and trying to fill in the knowledge gaps that are inevitable with moving so quickly. We are interested in meeting any fish breeders in CHCH, or in the south island. It is great that we have found this site, as our customers frequently come to us for advice, and although their questions are usually straitforward it will be great to have acess to more experienced fishkeepers.

Hi, we are breeding brown apple snails for organism (a shop here in CHCH) we have about 10 adults they gave us to try them with, and two months later we have about 100 babies. they have laid thousands of eggs, but not all of them hatch. although I have spent alot of time trying to puzzle out why some hatch and some dont. it seems completely random. splash zones, humid zones, dry zones all seem to hatch at random. Usually if eggs havent hatched after six weeks I break them off and throw them back into the tank to return the calcium to the apple snails, who eat them once they sink. the apple snails will live happily in any tank where they are not picked on by fish, and the only thing they particuarly need is calcium, so I try to ensure there is a turtle block in with them. (they will eat it) Apple snails are a handy warning indicator for tanks, if the water quality deteriorates (eg ammonia spike) they will leave the tank, as I found out when I had to move the adults out of my fish growout tank due to attacks, and put them temporarily in an uncycled twofoot and forgot them. two days later they were all hibernating on the top of the tank or on the table.

Hi Did you have any luck breeding the rosy's outside. we have bred alot of rosy's but we have always done it at tropical temperatures (25-26 C) we put the rosys in a tank with heaps of plants. and a plastic grid on the bottom to keep them away from the eggs. We remove the rosy's after a few days, and usually end up with so many fry that we have to thin them out by feeding 1/2 or 3/4 to our gourami fry.

Hi we have two adresses in the cashmere beckenham area, with a total of 26 tanks. (I think) we are breeding fish intensively, and use nothing but tapwater for virtually all of our tanks. when we set up a new tank we use filter squeezings from an established filter, but don't bother with any chemicals. water changes are done with the carden hose through the window. the only alterations we have ever made to water is to harden it for our CO2 injected tanks, or if breeding a fish which needs hardened water. with your permission I would like to take a copy of the concil information that you have posted.