henward

spoon they are nice fish, i use a regime of massivore delite, beef heart and fish fillets. they get pretty fat on that. high protein and some fat is good for them. they eat untill they cant fit anymore. my large TT eel in the big tank also hides with the bichirs. i think they think they are all same species? lol

second 1200 litre 18 inch 1.5 red arowana 7 silver dollars (David R: that silver dollar with the swollen eye is back to normal!!) 4 spotted metynis 2 red hook metynis (biggest one is about 10 inch maybe bigger actualy) 1 very large black shark 1 medium sized albino plec 1 12 inch flagtail prochilodus 1 electric yellow african ( no one bought or took it for free) so far the elec yellow has survived, its friend on the other hand was eaten one warm summers day:P

in my big tanks 2x 1200litres 1 18 inch or more red tail gold arowana i have i think 17 large clown loaches 4 dels 1 very large ornate 1 large tt eel - i think 19 to 10 inch, its got a few on the aro. 2 palmas polli bichirs 1 albino sen (looking for a normal sen!!!) a large 13 inch clown knife 6 inch american tiger 10 inch indo dat (approx lengths by the way) medium sized albino oscar 2large tinfoil barbs 1 ALBINO tinfoil barb royal plec 2 large bgks (1 is about 13 to 14 inches i think) 1x surinemensis 2x heckli chichlids 2x jurapari 7 to 8 inch 6bar distichodus by far my most populated tank. the fast mid swimming fish are there to distract arowana, to stop focusing on other fish. works well. the arowana focuses on oscar and tinfoils - too fast to catch or oscar is too brave to be attacked to badly. so arowana has his h ands full and doesnt harass eel or stuff like that. tinfoil , oscar, geophagus etc are there also as a distraction for the arowana, the arowana needs

i acutally did go cheap but got woken up one morning, 3am with a gush of water under the house...... it was outside so no big deal but still a risk of breaking. i dont think your description of HIGH TECH is correct lol, i dotn think its really that high tech:D i would agree with high capacity. but i got a system that was high tech and created my own frankenstein version for less than third the price lol the powerhead just moves the water around so when i put salt, it dissolves with in minutes. also just cos the garage is warm, the more movement i have in the water the warmer it gets in that short time the water is there, may be overkill but the pump is only 3 watts i think. i keep in my grow out tank south american banded knife high spotted clown knife 4 pink tail chalceus 5 oddball clown loaches ( with an extra stripe, spot or no stripe) brown ghost knife fish (keeping frasers fish for growing for him) 1 clown knife 3 dels

well, i thought id add my few hundred cents:D it will taper off ims ure

since i have been gone - i have perfected my Auto water change. Came across hiccups whcih i will FULLY outline in this post. i am such an advocate on this idea that its my duty to share it to the world. keep in mind, this idea only works in certain circumstances, but dedicated fish rooms, garages and tanks close to doors and windows, laundry or places where wanted can be expelled. this system enables me to change water to ANY specification of % per week ratio. It also enables me to instantly increase water change levels if i feed heavily the day before, then ic an increase it in the next few days. the system is rudementary. simple and cheap. No fancy electronics - though you can do that, but why if its not needed. THis is the power house Here is a 200l Drum, (an old olive drum by barrys barrels) installed in it is a toilet ball cock system. This system is reliable - very reliable. water from the outside feeds into this drum. IN the drum is a small power head, via aqua to constantly stir the water, also a air stone dedicated to constantly aerate the water to evaporate ANY small tiny traces of chlorine (i dont use ager) in that drum, is responsible for changing a total of 300l of water a day to 5 tanks. i dont use a heater for the tank – because the trickle is so minute at a time, it does not have the chance to drop the temperature. The eheim jager heaters have a self check system which effectively reduces my power bill by 20 to 35% (This is measured on an average 2 week period). Self check system turns the heater on for a few mins and in that time, the heater pumps full power heat to the water, when it detects temp is ok, then it shuts off. Jagers have a very accurate t-stat and the self check will heat the water fine. Water pumped into the system is done in 15 minute blocks at approx 20 to 25 litres at a time. The Flow is regulated by this tap, Fluval, youc an use any tap but I found fluval to be accurate and very tight so you can increase it by very small amounts if need be. It might look like a Frankenstein, probably cos it is, but these are normal hose fittings attacked to eheim or non toxic tubing to feed water to the tanks (low pressure) An overflow was drilled to all my tanks, ON my 2x 1200 litre tanks, it shares a sump. That sump has a hole drilled on it too to drain water. As you can see, drain pipes on sump and the tank enables water to be pumped in the opposing side as the drain to fully mix with the water and out the other side. On the sump, ihave a secondary filter that effectively doubles my bio filtration. The bio media in the picture below used to just be in the sump, but warren, who sold me the gravity draining sump – I modified and simply fed back into the main sump. The picture above and the below is one unit, filtering 2500 litres of water in 2 tanks. As you can see, the green tube on the left hand side of this secondary trickle filter, is where the auto changer feeds water in. The water is fed into the drum by a timer outside by the garden tap. Gardena timers I find reliable but I have had one fail. Watcht eh battery life also, I check this every 3 days to ensure battery is functioning. The pumps in the drum is set on a timer – 6 dollars from any hardware store. I find that they are cheap, but even if you drop them very slightly – they stop working, so I always have 2 spare, and when you buy, to save you the trip, buy 3 more than you need, almost always, I found that there is a 10% failure rate off the shelf:D The garden timer is timed to coincide with the wall timers pumping water in. Example: Wall timer turns on 1pm to 1:15pm, garden timer turns on 1:20pm for 10 minutes. Tap is only turned quarter the way up to reduce pressure when the garden timer turns off. I always have 2 to 3 minutes margin to make sure drum is always full after a cycle. PROBLEMS: all ironed out, messy but lesson learnt Always check the battery on the garden timers. Spot check the wall timers that they are the right time with your garden timer (I synchornised this as close as possible) Manually switch on the wall timers to see if water pumps every few days to ensure timers don’t fail. Apparently sometimes they do. The hose feeding water from the garden main to the drum MUST BE a nylon woven reinforced food grade food safe hose. I use Nylex food grade hose from mitre 10 mega. (No I don’t work for Nylex) I found their fittings and hoses are exceptional quality with exceptional price:D (I swear I don’t work for them) DO NOT USE non toxic clear hose even eheim hose for the mains pressure feed from tap to drum – I did this and the hose enlarged 3 times it's size during off cycles and whent he barrel is full, and eventually it raptured and sprayed hundreds of litres over night in my garage:D Non toxic low pressure hosing is ok to use for drum to tank lines. That's low pressure internal pump only. Do not let drum run dry, I do a 5 min cycle 4am, 2 hours after the last cycle and 3 hours before the first cycle to ensure it's full. Air bubbles trapped in the feed lines may stop pumps from feeding water. The pumps are not powerful enough I found. And this will sneak up nitrate creep. Always measure nitrate levels, once a fortnight perhaps? There is plenty of margin anyways, but it's good to be safe, maybe once a week is good. Note: In my 2x 1200litre tanks plus sump, I change the water about 80 to 100% if not more if I decide to feed extremely heavy that week. On my grow out tank, I change the water 120 to 150% a week – it's a 260 litre tank. On my axolotle tank probably 100% water change a week, I don’t run a goof ilter on it only internals. 3 months now, no problems since the air bubbles incident, I don’t forsee any problems from this point. I find this keeps my nitrate below 10ppm, always about 5ppm, sometimes so minute that the colour is not even on the chart. I feed heavily and my tanks are heavily stocked. I will post tank pics up when my friend finishes exams with his SLR:D and will post pics so you can get an idea of my stocking. This changer system saves me 4 hours a week – plus stress on fish. Clown loaches seems to have grown faster with this system. I don’t use ager. But I do put 3 average coffee mug of tonic salt 3x a week to ensure that the drum has minerals etc. It's something I do that I find helps stop disease and keeps fish happy, hungry and active. Also due to large bio loads, the minerals are sure depleted witht eh filtration and so this just replenishes them back. I buy the salt at 1.15 dollars per kilo delivered to my door. Any questions, critique, please don’t hesitate:D Anyone wants to discuss this further, please do! I am such an advocate of this sytem, hassle free, gravel vac occasionally but the silica sand substrate in the tank actually needs no vac. All my bottom dwellers stir it up completely! Remember, don’t do massive amounts at one time, that will not help reduce power bills. Needs to be gradual through out the 24/7 period. If you wanna view tanks, let me know! Keen to show peole my set up.

yes...yes i did........... the sound of whisper sucks man! its really quiet 8)

wow, you musta consulted a lawyer for that disclaimer:D haha most houses trip when power points are wet dont it?

whisper: though i maintain my position back then 8) lets not go there. and i didnt really visit tibet

just glad to be back. i visited tibet in my exile and gained some more knowledge in this hobby and hoping to add more value than i ever did before. as for 'colour' to that value, perhaps i shall demonstrate a little more restraint :lol:

shouldnt be in there. it will die it will get spinal curve. asian arowanas are different to silvers. silvers are large, and long. asians are thick than length. so, i suggest dont do it, it will get spooked, and kill itself. seriously, get rid of the fish first before you buy a green! or, what you can do, is take it into your lfs, and give it to them for free. then instead of a green, buy a jardinii, its only 250 ish!

" i have got alot of money" i feel jealouse, how old are you trav? and what do you do??!! i like that quote, lol anyways, save yoru money, seriously, as i keep telling fraser:D which is no longer a problem for him. save your money and get a bigger tank! then look into stocking more. no point of stocking then reacing a wall and saying OOPS, fish are killing each other or swimming in their own waste. Would you like to swim in your own poo? i certainly wouldnt:D

not trying to be lecture-ish. but when you start out with fish, first of all, its an expensive hobby more likely than not:D wether you keep small or monsters. monsters need less decorations, more volume. small ones need more stuff than water volume, but it all comes down to waste. first here are my questions, if i missed it im sorry 1) what is the diet 2) what temp 3) what WC regime do you have? 4) when will you get a bigger tank? reason for the questions. you really need tp prioritise bigger tank. if you are feeding little to keep them small, then you will screw them up and stunt them. these fish get to massive sizes, i mean...MASSIVE. the biggest i have seen, ronnie how has - and they get so big. if you keep them in that tank, thats fine, untill they are all about 15 cms, maybe pu shing on 20, but really... adding more to the tank isnt a good idea. temps you should keep them 28c IMO. Diet, get them onto pellets now. floating cichlid gold. if you have been feeding them prawns already then tis hard to get them onto pellets after that. they can starve themselves for months i have heard and wont get onto pellets. pellets is good because, its almost 50% protein, and it has vits. But, as a cheaper alternative, BEEF HEART and PRAWNS...peels or shelled dont matter is good. Fish fillets, calamari are also good and very cheap. but remember, you ahve to feed 3 times more calamari to get the same protein as a particular weight of pellets such as massivore or sinking. but hey, just feed them heaps, you have an fx5:D thats a good filter. water change is important, they will produce more and more waste, with your tank size, your NITRATE MARGINS are very small for such meat eating fish. you gotta really change your water heaps.

Bichirs all eat too much:D

as big as possible, small tanks tend to stunt them after they are 10 cms plus. IMO

yes at mine! a nice one at that!! i just had to get a second CK after seeing frujus one! they are both high spotted, 12 to 14 spots each side. feed it sinking carnivore OR prawns, RAW PRAWNS. cooked ones can block them up. bloodworms are really n ot a sustainable food for them and WILL eventually stunt growth. Reason is that you really gotta be feeding so much of them. most of bloodworms is water and for monster fish, really isnt a good food. its an intermediate food - somthing lfs feed to keep them alive but not grow big. floating pellets is fine, but they forage on the floor more. also, if its 5 cm, its still tiny tiny, you might hae to break up the sinking pellet into two. check water param, at that size, they are known to be abit more sensitive. when they get bigger, then they are hardy as. hope that helps:D

matt man i do research because i had to jump through flaming hoops to get my native lizard license!! when exotic lizards are harder to rear than the nz native ones to begin with. i ask the guy he said, well, he believes that its good to keep them in captivity cos it guarantees they never go extinct but he said that the general attitude of DOC is that they dont like people keeping and breeding native lizards!! that is what was said, and tha tis what im saying if a doc person comes in and then they can correct me. If you are a doc person, then you can correct me in writing and explain to ALL OF US, why its so hard to keep nz natives? i guarantee that alot of the breeders of reptiles here can breed the Edit Billaney - Come on guys all you do is make it hard for the mods Not to ban you out of tuataras etc perhaps. but you know govt red tape that stops it.

we all know that this si done regularly by those names we do not speak of... ok we do but its cooler to say we dont speak of it so its more mysterious. but its not really..................anyways it is sad, they have been here for awhile i hear. and not a threat to our birds! they dont have a liking to eggs benedict do they? 8) noreason is needed DOC is trying to stop captive breeding and rearing of native lizards... beacuse they dont like it being bred in private. wonder why, if its endagered, and we can breed moreo f it... isnt that better? i would like to hear of a DOC representative actually say why in fact someone here or the president should arrange a seminar, and invote DOC and MAF people to come and talk to us with REAL reasons why things are happening and said and their stance on certain things

I agree 100% Its one thing and its nice to have reptiles that is a revenue generator, but its another to have it ridiculously priced like that where theft is viable for them. I reckon this study will also be good, if its legit. this will make sure that maf will not confiscate for no reason at all. but then again , they can do it anyways even with no valid reason

i agree i think confdentiality is a must ithink that this must be guaranteed but how? maybe these guys are moles? to get into peoples privte collections perhaps but would benefit the hobby if it is legit! i mean we could start importing all sorts maybe even komodo dragons:D

i think this is good for us hobbyist

no really, im not a csi but because its only for swaps right lol

no, im assuming so because it wasnt advertised for sale only for swap 8) i was a CSI 8)

mark, to my disappointment, hikari does not do a lizard line! yes but u know, its more meat on the king and super worms but if its a maf no no, then its ok