splendidbetta

268 signatures in 8 days...

:dance: Happy Birthday Lisa!!! :dance:

Happy Birthday! :D

I had posted the link at Bettas4all forum, my website superbbettas.com, twitter and my facebook. A lot of people who see it from those places are from other countries. I guess it couldn't hurt, and the government could just count Aussie signatures if that's the policy...

We have 201 signatures so far. Keep them coming guys

Does anyone know who all the major importers and suppliers are? Maybe we can get them to distribute the petition among their clients?

Do all the signatures need to be from Australians? Does our government accept international signatures?

183 signatures so far. That's not bad after only 3 or 4 days. How many do you think we'll need?

This is what I have used on Facebook for those who don't feel like writing their own:

In the status: "Please sign this petition to stop the Biosecurity Australia Iridovirus report from being accepted. Help save the Australian aquarium industry!"

After adding the link, in the text box where it automatically adds the sample "We the undersigned are concerned citizens who urge our elected members of Parliament to act now to delay the introduction of recommendations laid out in the Biosecurity Report to allow: 1. An additional round of consultative process be undertaken, which...",

I have replaced that with "Sign the petition with your real name, and a meaningful comment about how regulations based on this report will affect you, or about how scientifically and ethically wrong the report is."

Cheers :)

I have signed the petition, and will share it on my website, Facebook and Twitter.

Beautiful fish as always Joep :D

More ray branching is not necessarly a good thing, as it increases the probability of rosetails. 4 - 8 -ray females and 4 - 16 -ray males are ideal IMO.

Ray branching should be consistent across all the caudal rays, but this is not usually the case.

Superdelta or HM or OHM caudal spread is what you should look for in females, as well as short anal fins and broad dorsals.

Females should basically resemble males with female-length finnage and female-shaped bodies.

HTH :)

Glad I could help :)

To move messages to custom folders:

1. Make your custom folder in your messenger section.

2. Refresh the page.

3. Select 1 or more messages with the check boxes.

4. Scroll to the bottom of the page.

5. Click the drop-down menu that says "Delete"... Do not press "Go"!

6. Choose the drop-down menu "Or Move To..." > "[Name of Custom Folder]".

7. Click "Go"!

;)

I just noticed there is no longer a board error for clicking "View New Content" again too soon! Excellent ;)

:o (

The menu glitch is present in Opera too .

Thanks for keeping AAQ running guys :(

Thanks for that information Rod. If that clay is what is in the Easy Life product, then I can understand why it would work.

:P Happy Birthday Michael! Have an awesome day! :P

Do the bounced email notifications contain any key terms such as the name or email address of the intended recipient? If so, maybe you could apply a spam filter that deletes or blocks them automatically.

You can leave cling wrap on permanently. You would only need to replace it when it starts to lose its ability to stick to the glass. Make sure the tank is aerated though, and that the air pump is away from fumes. If you can't move the pump outside, perhaps have it near a door.

By the way, substances don't need to dissolve in water to be harmful to fish. They can float on the surface and be ingested as the fish takes a breath of air, or they can sink and remain as particles that float in the water or cover the substrate, where they may also be ingested. They don't even need to touch the water, because bettas and other air-breathing fish will inhale the contaminated air directly.

Note: Cigarette smoke is another thing that no animal should be exposed to.

If I can help it, I never allow anything to be sprayed around my fish.

Lots of things that are safe for humans are not safe for fish. Especially when they accumulate in the water due to being used multiple times. Don't risk it.

If you must spray, make sure you seal the tank and external filtration unit/sump with at least one layer of cling film, taking care to close the gap created by cords and tubes as well as you can. If possible, place the airpump outside and use a longer airline tube.

:P

If you've been taking any medications, they could end up in the tank via your urine, and unless they degrade rapidly to safe compounds before you add fish, they could be affected by them. It is also conceivable for your own naturally produced hormones and other chemicals produced by your own body and diet to be excreted in your urine. In high enough concentrations this could cause things like Demasculinizing of male fish due to exposure to estrogen.

From my reading and studying, detergent surfactants are just surfactants that are used in cleaning. Detergents and other surfactants all have the same property of being attracted to water on one end, and repelled by water on the other end, of the surfactant molecule. This property means that surfactants can be incorporated into cell membranes and can disrupt them, bursting the cell. So whether a surfactant is a detergent or not does not really matter in this case unless comparing two molecules with significantly different cell damaging activity.

I do not know for certain what type of surfactant is used in cloudy ammonia, because unfortunately no manufacturer seems to think it's necessary to name that ingredient. However, it seems likely that chemicals such as Sodium lauryl sulfate or Ammonium lauryl sulfate are used, as these are commonly used in cleaning products. Notably, the first one is also used in biotechnology for degrading cell membranes to extract DNA.

These two chemicals are apparently easily biodegraded (by microbes) http://www.heraproject.com/files/3-E-04-HE...%20web%20wd.pdf . It's possible that within the amount of time it takes to cycle a tank, with such small concentrations of surfactant added to the tank anyway, hardly any remaining surfactant is left to harm fish.

If actual soaps are used in cloudy ammonia, and they are added to hard water, then they drop out of solution and may not be able to affect fish that way, unless ingested.

That's interesting to know Lisa.

Everything I can find says modern cloudy ammonia contains soap. I also found a Material Safety Data Sheet to confirm the contents of cloudy ammonia:

http://www.huntersproducts.com.au/docs/Clo...monia_061CF.PDF

There are a couple possibilities: the concentration of soap in the ammonia solution plus tank water is too low to have noticeable health effects in fish, OR the concentration of soap in the water degrades over time due to physical/chemical factors (e.g. light and heat), or from being metabolised by microbes, so is safe for fish when cycling is completed.

Did you only try this on brichardi Lisa? Could it affect other species?

You could try rinsing everything very well, allowing it to stay in the sun for a few days and turning opaque objects onto their other side halfway through, and re-rinsing. Porous objects like sponge or rocks may need to be discarded, or rinsed repeatedly, but I am not sure how well this would work. Boiling heatproof objects in the oven/microwave might be effective to degrade the detergent too, but I am not sure.