Yanagi

It may just happen, after all I'm back now. I'm in the process of starting my first walstad method tank. 😁

17 hours ago, Bettarazzi said:

Hey there Yanagi. Yes we’re still here. Kinda. It’s very quiet. 

What a shame, it was such a good group.

Hey all! I wanted to see if the forum was still alive!

To reintroduce myself, I used to keep Bettas and a variety of other things. I worked at Auburn Aquarium for a long time before I moved to fish wholesale at Petras and moved again to managing the aquarium section at City Farmers in north Parramatta. They quickly got bought out by Petbarn and I left to have my first kid anyway.  Three kids later I'm finally returning to the hobby. 😁

I've added a photo of my one and only Betta, a freebie from the LFS as he had a tumor protruding from his side. It's since dropped off and is now healing over.

Hi Ron, it's Krystal here. Glad to see you've finally jumped on the forum! :)

We have two pair of australe at work... I'm about to rearrange some furniture in the new house again to fit in a small killi fish set up. :rolleyes:/> Awesome little fish, can't wait to get my own.

My suggestions

Pico <5L (Betta tank only class?)

Nano 6-10L (Betta and/or shrimp only class?)

Standard 11-40L

Community 41-100L

Mega 100L +

Definitely a novelty class, for any size tank!

How about a biotope/natural environment recreation class?

Can we have marine/reef entries?

I would say 2 months is a fair time frame to set up (or fix up) tanks and let them establish.

There's my 2c worth. :D

My ghost knife:

Estimate 30cm+. I had 22 Tetra (2.5 - 4cm) when I added him, I still have 22 Tetra, a much, much smaller Elephant Nose and 6 small Clown Loaches. I hand feed him silverfish and whitebait 2-3x the size of the fish he's living with. Obviously, he is a model citizen and doesn't bother anyone.

That said, some Ghost Knife will attack other fish, but I'd be leaning more towards a nasty female fighter doing it. I have witnessed more than one take eyes out of other fish.

^ What he said. :)

Most types of Hygrophilia are very easy to grow, the green ones are definitely the easiest. I like most things from that family of plants. Most are low to mid light demanding, a bit of fertilizer every week or every few days is better and they're happy. I also enjoy all types of Crypts. Anything 'Fern' so Java fern, windolov fern, narrow leaf fern, etc. I like simple plants. The less work, the better.

Update? Is everyone still happy with these heaters? Any issues or reasons why you would / wouldn't recommend them?

We will accept some fish. There are fish we will not touch from people ie GUPPYS. Most other fish we will trade back for store credit at a third of retail value.

Anyway, it seems I've lost the cable to plug my phone into the computer and we just got a shipment of fish in so I'll try to take some proper photos for our facebook page later.

Today is my office work day so I haven't been out to see what came but I know we ordered black moscow guppy pairs, a few of the dwarf guppy species like tricolours, etc. Like our facebook page and I'll update it later with a brief list of what we got today.

ETA Just thought I should also mention it is courtesy to call in beforehand and make sure it's okay to bring in the fish (please know what species they are, approximate size and how many there are), and secondly do not bring them in at 10 minutes 'til closing time. Not saying you would, we are all just very unimpressed when it happens for reasons I'm sure you can all understand lol

I'll see if I can take some photos of our (Auburn Aquarium) guppy stock quickly with my phone. Pretty damn slow here (word must get out that it's disgustingly hot in this shop lol) at the moment so shouldn't be a problem. I'll have to wait until I get home to upload them though.

I will say that there have been some dodgy batches of guppies going around.

Asfur Angel I've never done a big marine tank, the biggest was 130L. So it's a big jump up to 330L. So excited! A lot of people find Asfurs pretty bland in terms of colour, but it's their personality I'm interested in. Every single one we've had through the shop I have gotten hand tamed.

So... then came the big move. The tank and I moved out of home! Upon relocation I decided to make things a lot easier on myself and get rid of the live plants... Welcome to Plastic City.

Nov. 11, 2012.

Add some livestock... Cherry barbs, Emperor Tetra, female fighters, a male fighter, my 1 remaining Discus and 3 survivors from a customer. No Angels. It was alright... but I still wasn't happy.

These photos were taken this morning....

My beloved Pearl Gouramis, new residents of Auburn Aquariums 5ft planted display.

And this morning... everything but the Discus is gone. They will soon be gone too.

And this little fellow is why.

Ever since I saw my first one at work, I have wanted one. My dream fish IS IN MY HAND!

The sad news is, my BF and I now have to move, so this little guy will be living at work until the BF and I find a new place. Hopefully it won't be too long before I can update this thread with pictures of my wee little Angel in his new home.

Thanks Daniel. To be honest, I dont think I would do it again. It was fine for a long time. Then the Angels started breeding and they would bully the Discus and other Angels down one end of the tank. Then I had a pair of Discus start breeding at the same time. Then a second pair of Discus all going at once. By the end of if, the Discus ended up having a few scales knocked loose and the low men on the totem pole were losing weight. Eventually I gave the Angels away. Maybe if I had a 6 or 8 ft tank that was at least 2ft wide as well as high I would but not in this little toy of a tank. That or get rid of breeding pairs as they pop up but when you get attached to the fish that can make things difficult. Ill tell some more story with more pictures in my lunch break. Ive got to go' fishing' right now.

For those who don't know me, here's the back story.

Since I got into fish 3-4 years ago, I've always loved Angelfish, and eventually came to fall for Discus as well, but I was only allowed one big tank... Here's the progression of my obsession! (Yay, rhymes!)

August 2, 2011. The Angels... This is around the time I saw my first Asfur Angel at work. Instant love.

October 8, 2011. Temporary upgrade to a standard 4ft, Discus added. 4 x 18 x 2" Tank on order.

November 2, 2011,The new tank is here! Size comparison shot (Yes the 4ft was outdoors while the room was rearranged to accommodate the larger tank).

April 19, 2012.

July 7, 2012. Rescaped due to getting bored with it, had set up a marine nano and was feeling the salty vibe...

Between then and September 30, my sister had asked me to be her bridesmaid at her wedding. As weddings go, we all got insanely busy.. By the start of October I had lost more than $500+ worth of my fish. I hadn't found the time to do a water change and lost all but one Discus. I was devastated and for a long time contemplated tearing the tank down and going salty and finally getting the Asfur Angel I've always wanted... Then we had someone bring in a bunch of sickly, skinny Discus into work wanting to give them away. You can see where this is going, can't you?

... Will continue later. Lunch break over.

New Life Spectrum 'Grow' for smaller fish. I also use their 1mm marine pellets and have previously used their 1mm cichlid pellets. I tried feeding NLS Discus pellets to mine and they lost a lot of colour so I went back to feeding Tetra Colour Granules and Tetra Colour Flake to my big community tank.

We have our own brand of Fighter food at my work and it's easily the best I've ever used, out of several brands. Tetra, Hikari, Ocean Nutrition, etc. I have tried majority of Betta foods on the market and I won't go back to using anything else.

We just recent got these little heaters in at Auburn Aquarium, Glad to hear they do a good job. I plan on running one in a nano tank when I get it set up.

How did it go?

Well this is awkward.

Hello there. :D

Just be very careful water changing them, they seem to be extremely sensitive to changes in water params. Have seen them doing death loops like they've been exposed to chlorine (they hadn't) just from not acclimating slowly enough. Best of luck. :)

Typically losing colour is a fear or submission response. If you're big and bright, you had better be the boss or else you'll be the next target.

That said, I've had loaches look like that after suddenly turning on the lights.

We have a pair of these guys at work, absolutely gorgeous. I'm almost tempted to take them for my community tank, but I fear I'd lose them through the auto feeder hole in the lid. But in 300+ litres, what reason would they have to jump? Hmmm... Tempting. Very tempting.

Crypt Balansae. Nice looking tank, just watch the shark doesn't start to pick off your small tetras of a night. It's a common occurrence.

We usually have a really good range of the common and less common species, can't say we've had Elephant Noses for months though, haha. None of OUR suppliers have them! Sorry I can't remember the price of the Boesmanis. We've only got a few Torpedo Barbs in at the moment, Probably five of them. From memory they're pricier than $80ea, but I can't remember if it's the bigger size or the smaller size we've got left. They are something we try to always keep in stock though. We have probably the biggest range of Aussie natives/rainbows in Sydney too. Bosses (Wayne) favourite freshwater fish. I've got 4 days off work (3 now, actually ) so remembering prices isn't my strong point right now, haha. :blush: