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My fish update (to support a thread in the main forum).

Foward note, sorry getting good fish pics is kinda hard.



That is our main tank. The one you would see as soon as you walk in our front door. It has the highest diversity of fish species and plants.

Ive kind of lost track of all the species in it, but heres a overview

Sword tails, Guppies, Tiger barbs, Pristella tetras, Red eye tetras, red shark, zodiac loach, zebra loach, clown loach, (name which I cant curently recall) loach, Bristle nose pleco, convict cichlid, kuhli loach, bublebee gobi, american flag, Albino cory, Spotted cory, regular? cory, (another forgotten name) cichlid. And I know Im probally forgetting some, XD as you can see even looking at them there is a couple species I cant recall right now. Also in this tank we have regular aquarium snails (the annoying kind), Mystery snails (mystery is actually thier species), and Apple snails.



Some of the fish closer up



The other direction.



Dad...Will talk about him in the main forum - bristle nosed pleco.



Or guppy breeder tank. (though you will notice a couple swords in there as well). But you can see there is lots of them at different sizes, possibly more than 100 babys? (also the kitchen tank, the first one you see coming in the back door). Dad when he starts getting serious about fish again will mainly use these guys as food...the babys, not the good breeding parents.



Used to house a few different fish that werent really what we wanted in our main tank (mostly angels). though all of a sudden all fish and snails died within a 48 hour period. We thought it might have been Ich, we got rid of the fish and plants, boiled the rocks and cleaned the other stuff. We rebuilt the tank with just the hardware and rocks and introduced 9 guppies (remembering sadly guppies are expendable.

within about 12 hours we noticed the fish acting a bit sluggish and within about 18 hours we noticed a couple fish had some pretty serious Ich (they would be dead within 24 hours). After researching a bit I figured the most natural and least dangerous treatment would be salt (about a teaspoon for every 10 litres of water) Salt may seem not dangourous...but balance is crucial since they are freshwater fish. within 24 hours it was almost all cleared up, and within a few days ther worst affected fish had babies, so we know the tank must be healthy again.



closeup of the previous tank *BONUS POINTS* how many fish do you see? I see at least 17.

This tank will be slowly upgraded to be more diverse, and potentially another breeding tank. This tank is in my old room, and out of sight.



This is just a small hobby tank in my parents room, only has a few fish, mainly of the tetra species.



Mums project. A marine (salt water) tank. Its a relativly new project, just sponges, anemones, plants, amphipods and worms in there atm, she is looking at getting some cleaner shrimp soon.

we have another tank out in the workshop of the garage, that is just goldfish, nothing really interesting about that. The Axolotls that used to be in that tank now live in the pond down the back of the yard.

Update complete

TLDR; Oh look fishies

Any questions?

Heard of? Yes
Seen one IRL? No, Im not sure we have them in trade here, but ive never really looked for them, maybe a specialist breeder may have some.

I can say I know too much about them specifically.

Do you have one? Also, may I ask how you found us? (more specifically since you said you found this before joining)

Argh, lost a long reply to this emo

Gutted on the loss.

Which kind of "algae eater" as you can see we have about 10 species of algae eater.

Also you reminded me of some I didnt name in that first post (that we have)

Golden algae eater
chinese algae eater (flying fox fish)

and

Chinese butterfly loach.

Do you have any other fish atm?

and yay popular guild ^_^

5 different tanks?
and I counted exactly seventeen fish

For those without 21/20 vision try this*

http://i52.tinypic.com/ofpxkl.jpg

In this one I get 20 (20 excluding a couple that are on angles which means they might not be but probally are, 20 definite fish)

Note this image is approx 60 times bigger than the original in file size.

Any chance you could get a pic of it? Its quite likly I could make a positive ID. Cool what kind of tetras? Like I said we have neon, red-eye and pristella tetras.

By glow fish do you mean the ones genetically engineered with jelly fish genome? If so, they are illegal in NZ, a batch of them did come into the country a year or so ago, and did get sold to a few different houses. MAF/DOC went to all "known" houses and disposed of any glowfish (Glofish)

There is no doubt that some people would still have them, but you would have to be completly off the radar well connected to know these people. And these people would be careful because if they are found they could lose thier entire fishstock (or at least other danio fish or minnows (glows are Zebra-Danios). Because the fish have been shown to pass on the "adapted gene").

In NZ "Dyed-fish" which look similar are still legal due to them not being able to genetically pass on thier dyeing.

I don't think I could get a pic. My aquarium is an sorry shape right now. The flourescent light broke, so its currently lit by strand lighting. All the cool fish are dead, leaving 2 neon tetras, 3 glofish(which I have never seen glow), the algae eater, and my step sister's guppy. Your tanks make me jelly. I can see why New Zealand is so picky about what animals get in. Its an island, so it has a more fragile ecosystem.

Yeah aquarium upkeep can be quite a commitment. We focus heavily on balance because a balanced aquarium is the easiest to look after. (so lots of "algae eaters" to keep algae down, "Snail munchers" to keep the snails in check, and recently we had a "hair algae" outbreak, so we have some fish who love that to keep that in check. the ultimate goal is to create a tank that needs next to no maintainace (including next to no feeding, as live bearers if you have enough provide top level food, and then wastes and such feed down to the algae eaters), of course thats not fully possible so it would be supplementallyfed still.

Do you know what killed the "cool" fish (if not age) there is a wide variety of possibilitys, usually there will be some sort of sign (rash, dots, mould etc). Tetras and danios are pretty hardy so may have survived stuff that kills other fish.

glo, dosent mean they shine or anything, it just means that thier colours are more radical than usual...(neon green/blue/pink colours are not normal), though under flourecent light this will become more emphasised.

NZ has two Main Islands (Rightfully know as "the north island" and "the south island" It also has another semi main island, and lots of little islands).

But yes like all countrys we are fragile and already have a lot of destructive pests, we do our best to limit it. Conservation efforts have already brought back many species from almost assured extinction.

Assuming you are from the states (AZ?) your ecosystem is also being ravished by invasive species. I have studied several of Americas invasives as case studys, I have also been involved in combating honey suckle in OH. Sadly conservation on the whole isnt really cared about in America, and Money talks...So if your rich enough you can get any animal/plant/biological culture you want. Also there are other numerous problems facing biological control in the States (like border crossings/smuggling). NZ has the benifit of good education on enviromental problems (including advertised on tv when not selling products) and is geographically placed in a way where we can manage the resources to check for incoming things (like various bugs we keep finding on fruits at the check points).

NZ has one of the most rigorous customs...So if you fancy getting your shoes washed for free, just tell them you have been on a farm in the past 30 days, and they will give your shoes a good wash for you.