Chikan

Will be interesting to see if the cray moults. Ours are moulting at the moment and generally with the full or new moon. If it does moult post it I would be interested to know if it does in a closed system like yours. Hows your ammonia and nitrites?

Just a note on the copper issue it will affect all cephalpods including octopus and squid. Have had expeirience using copper pipes for chilling system on a octo tank which killed it. Look after a couple of octopuses suggest that you use a overflow or weir that has holes no bigger than 20mm and dont have any hoses, filter returns or powerheads in the tank they will be moved or penetrated. Octopuses are extremely curious animals. Lock that lid down as they can lift up to 15 to 20 times their weight. If you have any queiries post them I have reasonable amount of expeirience keeping them.

The only way I have ever successfully got rid of hydroids in my cold water tanks is too alter the salinity. If you have inverts in the tank this will be too risky. I removed the inverts I had like anemonies and sponges and dropped the salinity right down to about .015 for a couple of days. Fish will tolerate this change because they will be able to adjust to maintain homeostatis and osmosregulation. It worked a treat and then put back the inverts, this might not be practical to remove the inverts especially if you dont have anywhere to put them. Unfortunely the other option is a lot of hard work in cleaning and maintainence. Might be a help or not.

I have a pretty good source that Kellys will have a reef tank shortly. When you apply for funding there you have to justify in a number of ways, including a education learning program and a purpose. The current tanks there a poor design, still use big biofilters and are overfeed. Unfortunely when aquarists look at the tanks they see faults due to maintanence, but the kids and 80% of the public enjoys them and the nemos. Unfortunely there is only so many hours in a day to maintain so many tanks.

Ps I would think that the crays are messing which the seaweed for play when diving it is know that you never find crays in holes that have old or broken seaweed outside them. They don't use it in there diet. I 'm creating a page on myspace at the moment with profiles and pics of my tanks including my newest tank which is housing a baby octopus. Will post link soon as just been busy at the mo.

I use a 5 mircon pool filter with a bulkhead for flow adjustment. I'm lucky and use sw that has been filtered through a sand pre filter at work as well. My advice is pick a good natural source for collecting sw like a channel and get it at slack of high tide. Also a reverse osmosis and uv filter could be a bonus but not always necessary. I wouldn't use a undergravel filter too many maintanance issues like nitrate problems and organic build up. Trickle filters are the best or a good large canister filter. Deevus cold marine tanks are awesome and quite rewarding. I have found that anemonies, crab, starfish, cucumbers, sea squirts are fasinating communities to watch, keep and feed. I get just as much enjoyment when watchin them as my trop reef tank and they don't cost anything. A 20 to 25% water weekly should be cool but you should have any problems doing them for temp reasons down there so just monitor your nitrite levels and adjust your water changes depending on these.

I work in a aquarium where we keep a large number of red, albino and packhorse crayfish. In my expeirience in keeping crayfish you need a few things Large volume of water Monitor temperature closely Monitor salinity closely Regular water changes up to twice a week with preferably a constant top up source providing change over of the water ( keeps the temp down). You need to watch crayfish as they are canniballistic and will fight and kill each other. Would recommend that you keep only one. They need hiding places to be happy. As for keeping cod probably a bit ambitious without a good and reliable sw source for constant water changes. The problem with both of these species is that they both produce a lot of ammonia and will be reasonably sensitve to water quality. Another thing that i would wonder about buying aquacultured crays is the quality of them. Aquacultured species that i have deal with in the past are usually not as good as wild catch and usually develop problem down the line due to there rearing and environment they come from. Not always but is worth considering alternatives. Good luck with the tank though i have two cold water marine tanks and both go good. The secret is water quality and frequent water changes with filtered sw.

I was wondering if anyone out there has encountered a reddened colouration on any yellow tangs that they have kept. My tang has a reddened area over the front of its nose and in front of its gill flaps. The fish is in quarantine at the moment and it seems to get better and worse. I researched a diagnosis of something beleivevd to be called red itch or red rash. It doesn't say if it is a protozoan or not. It did say to cure or combat it to introduce garlic into the diet to boost the immune system. It is just someting that bothers me and I want to fix it ideas anyone!.

It helps also if you can feed the rotifers phytoplankton and hufas to give them a good nutritional value. You have to be careful when feeding rotifers for rearing purposes if the rotifers are not of good quality you will definately see the consequences in the quality of the young and rate of growth.

I know that the Bay Of Plenty Polytech In Tauranga has rotifer culture and also parent and sister algal cultures. Cawthorn Institue also has them as well, with niwa possibly might be able to help you out from one of their aquaculture facilties.

This is just the place that I collect them from and get good numbers. Its the estuary that you see on the right off Tamaki dr after the marina if you heading towards mission bay. You access the estuary by walking down behind the plant barn by the railway tracks. Can't describe the place any better sorry.

Why don't you try collecting mysid shrimps from the estuarys and keeping them in a tank with airflow and a bit of food. The best place I have got mysid shrimps is from the estuary on the right hand side by the bridge after the marina, before you head around to okawa or mission bay. You just use a normal tank net and walk up the estuary on the sides of the channels created at low tide and sift them out of the water. Very easy and after a while you get to know the spots. P.s don't bother if its raining it doesn't seem to that profitable if raining.

Thanks Pies sounds like a good idea I will try it out. As seaweed and other marcoalgae make good substrate for all sorts of macro and micro organisms. Octopus babies also are benthic for there first stage of their lifecycle then turn into pelagic and surface feeding from the surface on small rotifers feeding in the plankton. If they are benthic then maybe they do source food from the substrate like plants and seaweed.

At this size the babies need tiny marine crusteans such as rotifers. I have been collecting plankton and siphoning that into the tank this seems to be holding them but unfortunrly this is very labour intensive. Trying to source a easier way, in regards to artemia there has been success with this but unfortunely the babies need to capture the free swimming crusteans and artemia seem s to be too big. I am going to try a live algal culture next but would be grateful to anyone who has seen, hear or tried any feeding methods on young octopuses wish me luck.

Octopuses generally are fully grown in about 6 months, and can live for probably no longer than two years. Once a male mates it dies, and once a females is pregant it lays its eggs then stops feeding and dies after hatching the young. Octopuses are cephlapods and they are the fastest growning invertebrate, with the sqiud been the quickest. A good website if interesting in keeping octopuses is www.tonmo.com. If you are interested in keeping a octupus a might be about to help you out but I am fantically busy at the moment keeeping mine alive. Give me a email if you want to discuss personally.

Hi to all, I have successfully mated two octupus in a aquarium and i'm trying to feed the babies. They are about 7 days old and about 6mm in length. In the wild the babies would eat copepods derived from plankton. So far I have collected plankton and there has been no real success and a high mortality. Wondering if anyone out there has also tried rearing baby octopuses, and if so any suggestions to their feed. They are a local species of octopus found in the Hauraki gulf (spp unsure).

Hi to all, I have successfully mated two octupus in a aquarium and i'm trying to feed the babies. They are about 7 days old and about 6mm in length. In the wild the babies would eat copepods derived from plankton. So far I have collected plankton and there has been no real success and a high mortality. Wondering if anyone out there has also tried rearing baby octopuses, and if so any suggestions to their feed. They are a local species of octopus found in the Hauraki gulf (spp unsure).