melbournebetta

Coral and Chris, Welcome to the forum, so funny to have a member refer to themselves in plural - but we're excited to have you both! There's a thriving QLD community on here, so you'll be in good hands & I'm sure you can share some local knowledge of what's best at which Local Fish Store. Grab your camera and a photobucket account - share the love! - Ness

I just love that feeling of going home with a showbag full of greens after a fish meet, or auction, and knowing the only thing PEARLING in my bloody tanks is the Green Algae. Should get into breeding algae eaters eh? (;

Hmmm... I have a really weak dettol solution my nets go in that gets updated weekly... is that most likely like (b) ? or more like betadine... hmmz Used to disinfect new tanks and nets...

WHAT? ....you mean the [technical term] nemofish i just bought and left in the cold bowl next to my phone in the kitchen full of tap water... wants.. what... ......something ELSE? what a crap fish.

Hey Brendan, I'm a Gippy girl (originally from Leongatha) but now in Melbourne- welcome to the forum! I've said it once, i've said it a million times - we're gluts for pics, so when and if you can, we'd love you to get a photobucket account and share your fish with us. Are there many Aquariums out your way? I can't remember seeing anything except petstock on my last drive out east. Anyhoo, there's plenty going on in Melbourne so far as the Betta are concerned we even have a website (www.victoriabetta.com) As far as buying breeding stock - sort of depends what you're after, Halfmoons are a little harder to come-by than Veil tails and Crowntails, which are often at Local Fish Stores. Subscape Aquarium have some Halfmoons in stock now (Aussie bred) and of course someone Lee has her Youtube Channel with fish for sale (QLD) Just don't get too carried away on Aquabid.com... I've lost many a moneys on that damn website (; The other thing you can do is keep an eye on the Gene Pool threads as people document the growth of their spawns, when they're big enough they often end up in the classifieds section. How to buy fish 101 Anywaaaaay - welcome, pictures, enjoy! - Ness

The growth is amazing - awesome job Bussy, I've enjoyed watching this thread. I can't keep bloody Java fern from going brown, you've done a great job!

i'm flashing back Need vid.

Hi Jaybee, He's very handsome, I suppose technically he's a multicolour - with blue iridescence (maybe royal blue) over red - those lovely red highlights make him pretty special - he looks like he's in great condition. The snails are probably one of two varieties that often hitch-hike on aquarium plants, either the mystery or apple snail - which has a yellow shell and looks pretty normal like garden variety snails, or a rams' horn snail Here's a link with more info Personally I don't mind Apple snails - but they do like to munch on live plants... I like to use them in the fry tank when there's lots of gunk building up that they can eat ...and no live plants. If he's a rams' horn, there's probably some helpful hints from people here that have had to deal with them - again, can be considered a pest. Bottom line - they won't really interact with your fish - infact he most likely won't notice it... I've only had one male that didn't like fish AT ALL and would spend the day harassing them. Your set up is really great, there's plenty of places for your fish to disappear, do you pop a mirror up next to him sometimes? He's probably all fired up and ready to do some exercise - which is why he flares at your finger, it's not always about anger - it's often about excitement (a better way of putting it) so when he sees you = food, he gets excited! Take it as a compliment (; -Ness

Hi Jaybee, Welcome to the party/forum/brains trust/interwebs. I just had what I thought was a zombie/columnaris issue, it's really not much fun - but turns out it was bacterial, so miss apricot is going to live to spawn another day (most likely) How are you treating it? (we should start a thread in the clinic) We're gluttons for images, so if you have a camera, and a photobucket account, and time - you know we want pics... Where did you get your little betta dude from? name/likes/dislikes/starsign/colour/type etc? They're such great company at work, I'm thinking of dragging one of my frilly display boys into the shop so I can fish-out at work and at home... boss won't mind. Anyways, HI. (: -Ness

Hi Swordsy, Nice to have you here - we're all pretty betta biased, well - I am. When I was keeping Petstore betta they were all veil tails, and I loved them to bits, but always wanted halfmoons, a few years back I realized I might as well try and find some and breed them up myself! (Now I'm known to my friends as the crazy fish lady) with around 100+ headcount at the moment. Butterflies take your fancy - someone might have something for you on her youtube channel (fishchick65) or if you want you can look at my Salamander F2 spawn thread , I need to update it... but lots of Butterfly kids in there! (The link is in my signature) Welcome to the forum none the less! x

This might sound a bit strange, and god knows how you'll achieve it, but as razzi said, you need directional flow. > > > > There's been plenty of DIY barrack designs out there on the interwebs, and the major criticism of this "flow through" design (with gaps at the bottom) is that there is progressively-less flow from cell to cell. I always wondered if some sort of tricky system might help, like installing an Aqua one sponge filter and hooking up a custom (DIY) spray bar and shoving the airline under each gap - say facing left to force flow through the cell equally. It'd look messy tho. my god barracks are wrought with design issues.... I'm sure you'll work it out - put your mad scientist cap on. x

Hi Tim, welcome! There's plenty of nerd-burger advice around these parts- this lot have gotten me out of plenty of trouble to-date. Glad to have you, and provided you have around 1mt x 1.5 foot floor space... You might get away with a breeding program stacked to the roof! (I love my industrial shelving) start small, think big- you'll be right! My advice if your looking to breed would be making a real investment in your original stock, it takes 3-6 months to raise crap fish and show quality fish- might's well start with something worthwhile. -ness

Looks pretty smart - I've got that same lock shelving and will be doing a little overhaul to make it more presentable - this is a great idea!

Looking good adam.. I'm on the fancy angel team, breed me some ink blacks and I'll loves you forever (more) x

This forum has been a godsend in more ways than just working out what the hell PH means, for myself and my fish.... we've got Lisa to thank wholeheartedly for the stamina and patience it takes. Razzi, you and your pearly whites, you also have what it takes.... can't think of a more clever, diplomatic & knowledgable human to put in charge. innit

n'awh..... sorry Sarah, it's never fun. I guess that's the up side of buying from the forum, you've seen them since they were dots & have an idea what they've been through :(

go nuts - they want feeding too, so pop some old crap plants in there, mine grow fast on MW feeds too. x

The Mystery is in the form of your randy snails. I never have more than one in the tank as they're intersex, and always manage to spend more time "together" than my breeders in the spawn tank. They lay in humidity above the water line - the eggs take a while to hatch, and when they do - all your plants will get EATEN... they grow fast. If you don't NEED anymore snails - I recommend giving them the scrape - and separating the horny snails. x

This is a massive project, was your fishy setup just a bit smaller than this before? My god.. I'd never get out of there to get to work in the mornings! It's really impressive... how is this going to change your style of fishkeeping? more breeding? supplying LFS etc? And how many species have you got? i think you should just start charging admission and open the doors on the weekends from 9-5 ....we could get work experience kids in to do WC's..

Quite welcome Lillipants, Happy New Year to you little lady. x

Hey Mon, Welcome to the party - MT is right - we love a photo, so get shooting and git yourself a photo bucket account so u can upload. Where abouts did you get your current betta from? Coburg? Nice to have ya on board! x Ness

Yeah Kudos on the thread, I wish I'd seen the shots in post #26... (bloody average net connection) x