Alan

Prolly got washed away in the T floods. Alan 104

Have the bomb squad been warned yet Stu?? Alan 104

As you have found out yes, they will mate until she is empty or refuses his advances. Take the female out now OR you could move the nest, eggs AND male to the small tank. No filter is required before or after the babies arrival. He has still got a lota work to do. He keeps blowing bubbles into the nest to force the eggs up to or higher than the water surface, The eggs do hatch quickly, but the babies are not properly formed or ready for the big aquarium world. More work for the male coming up. The first you will see of the babies will be little black tails hanging from the bubble-nest. Some of them try swimming or just plain fall outa the nest and the male will catch them and spit them back. As soon as you see the babies swimmming freely, properly, remove the male and make sure you have green water, or the tank loaded with java moss. Lower the water as soon as you put in the nest, and male, to about 2 or 3 inches and keep a well covering lid on to keep the humidity high in the tank After a week in the moss, green-water, and you can also use hardboiled egg yolk squeezed thru a hankie, they will be ready to take BBS. Have several snails in the tank with the babies, they will be the refuse removal officers and keep pollution to a minimum. Aid them by syphoning off the bottom and replacing that water with water of similar standards. Syphon thru a fine mesh net to catch any babies that may want to go visiting. Goodluck Alan 104

T If you remove water from the tank, replace with salted water. If replacing evaporated water, replace with fresh water. If you do not replace as in the first instance, your salinity is gradually watered down. Alan 104

PM Cees Steve Alan 104

Does "IT" develope the line pattens that go vertically or horizontally depending on "IT's" mood?? If so, I'd go with a female. At the moment, I'd go fellaress though. Alan 104

As I said, you get what you paid for. Try a brewers therm., they are a bit better, but to get a bit more higher tech., go for a dairy thermometr, does cheese temps etc. Depends what ya wanna pay Alan 104

You can also use a/i, but you'd needto read up on it. The sperm is collected from the male and the female is impregnated using a blunt very small bore syringe. Alan 104 PS and circumcision is also on the cards. Al

Do some research, and you'll find that you get the different types by counting the rays in their dorsal fins. With the cams we have these days it is a sintch to do. Alan 104

To stop breakages, put in a 1 1/2" pvc pipe with lotsa holes drilled in it and put ya heater or thermometer in that. Kewl idea for a turtle tank too. Alan 104

I really dislike those digital thermometers. The sun can stuff them up, and if you have more than one tank (I definately do) it would cost an arm and a leg to put one on each tank. A hint for when you are buying a thermometer from your LFS. Grab a handful of them, and look for the ones that read too high, and the ones that are too low. They are only cheap and you get what you paid for. So the mid-range ones should be fairly close to the right temp. I also check mine with an expensive dairy thermometer. Alan 104

Good one Peter. Interesting and informative. Alan 104

Hot water cupboard. But you'll need a air pump there as well. Or if your fishroom is heated, that is enough. Have a look at EJ's room in the Fishroom Thread. You'll see his setup at the end of the room. Shelley, do you know the weight of that vial.?? Another thing with the B/S eggs bought in those small quantities is that you don't know how old it is, or even if it was kept in the right conditions. So don't judge the eggs you get like that with the ones you can get thru here. Cees also had some but he's sold all of his cans, and the ones I've sold, I've had no complaints, and I've just started a tin myself and the hatch rate is amazing. Especially compared to the old tin I had that I got from someone else ages ago. Alan 104

The air must be on all the time when hatching except when harvesting. To change the water, throw away the water you have syphoned thru the mesh and replace with fresh. The dearest way to buy B/S eggs is in those little bottles or tubes. Prolly about 600 to 800 $'s a pound. Maybe more. What did you pay and what was the quantity?? At the moment I have some for sale in the Private Trade Section. But 1lb tins only. Get a group together and share it if it is too dear for the first up buy. It keeps almost indefinately closed and in the frig. Alan 104

Down the far end you can see the BBS hatchery EJ made himself. Don't know if he'd make some for those wanting them. Get in touch and check out the cost if he does. But they are extremely well made, and of stainless steel too. I was the "fish-watcher", and I made the tanks for here. Most of the tanks have killies breeding or growing in them. Although he does have several hatches of blue rams in there as well. Alan 104

DO NOT THROW IN UNDISSOLVED SALT If the fish ingest it they could be in dire trouble I use a teaspoon to the gallon(figure that out), but I don't know if this is strong enuff to do leeches. Best thing is prevention. Salt, alum, or copper sulphate new plants, and boil any gravel got from the wild. I boil any new gravel any way. Alan 104

Why don't you BBS hatchers just use a coke or similar bottle. Drill two holes the size to be tight on an airline, in the lid, and use two pieces of airline. One to the botton; air in. The other 25mm or so into the bottle; air out. This can connect to another bottle, etc, until the required numbers of hatchers are available. I use three this way, and run the waste air to an airstone in a tank. Use a heated small tank to keep the bottles in and the the temp up around 26oC. At this temp they will be well and truly hatching in 24 hours or less. To feed out. Turn off air, let eggs settle, and syphom out the pink/orange mass thru a hankie, or about that mesh. Return water to the hatchery until the need to start another batch of eggs. Didn't need to pay that $35.oo did you. Alan 104

After the first week of life, they must move to a large container (plastic or glass—no metal) with a new water supply prepared using this formula: 4 liters of water 250 ml of rock salt 30 ml of Epsom salts 15 ml of baking soda Food: For food, a pinch of baker's or brewer's yeast once a week should be fine. Mark the water level on the container. As water evaporates, add more tap water—not salt water—to keep the salt concentration the same. Put the container near a window or under a light during the day and watch the brine shrimp grow. Adult brine shrimp can be purchased from a tropical fish store. Keep your light levels low as they are phototropic and attacted to light, and can use to much energy, (growth,) chasing the light. Syphon often, as they moult many times growing to maturity, and replace the waste water with the same salinity water. Alan 104

He is hoping to do the opposite wall in a mirror system Alan 104

Get in touch with Fishbait. He has just successfully raised some JF's Alan 104

The thermostat is not another "heater" It is only another heat-controller, that backs up the thermostat in with the heater. Hence the name heater-stat. The points on the stat alone, stay closed all the time, UNLESS the main H/S control fails. I could explain how it is wired, but as this could be a no -no for those that don't know how to handle eletricity I won't. Take your gear to a sparky and he'll have the job done in less than 5 minutes. Alan 104

I whole heartedly agree with you Bill There has been a very rapid decline into the Americanisation of our tank sizing. That is lts., instead of the L x B x H. Why oh why do we have to follow with this absolutely ridiculous method. Bring back the LxBxH method. Alan 104

Hope you have some brine shrimp eggs ready. The B eggs should go down about 12 to 18 hours before the Australe eggs go down. Check with Kyle when the hatch-date is. I presume you have got them on peat, so they should hatch within an hour or two of adding water to them. Feed BBS as first food. Micro worm in MHO is a second best first food Fresh aged water is fine for them. Keep the temp up to about 74 to 76. Feed often, have snails in with them to clean up uneaten food, pollution kills, and do heaps of water changes. I don't think there is such a thing as to many changes. Alan 104 ps. when are you joining the NZKA?? Al

You can wire in a thermostat on its own to the heater stat. This is set about 5 to 10 degrees above your normal. But when you see the light working you know your insurance has paid off, and you can get to and fix the faulty heater/stat. Alan 104

Once you get a good root system on the plants, then you'll get the growth out of them. Well, up to Shae's standard anyway. Alan 104