Aussie Betta's

[SarahandOscar]

Well hi Calling all Australians to respond!

Firstly my name's Sarah and i'm from Sydney and i have 4 boys, Waldorf, Statler, Cookie and Chef.

I thought i'd see if we can get a little Aussie group together (not to segregate ourselves but for that added support)

I know we don't have some meds available in Australia and our products differ slightly, i also know some plants are illegal over here. Well that and we don't have evil walmart lol

Sooooo i thought if we have an Aussie thread its be a little more specific for us and our boys!!

I'll start it off by asking what we can use instead of Maracyn II? not that i need it at the moment but i would like to have an emergency kit ready and stocked if anything ever happens to my boys and have read very mixed reviews.

For example i have Primafix, Bettafix and Melafix at home (all small bottles just in case and have never been used) and then i have read they damage the labyrinth organ??? I also have an API freshwater testing kit, AQ salt, Epsom salt, hospital 1 gal tanks and the boys all have their own cup for water changes, i will be buying separate siphons to keep all boys free from contamination and apart from that i think i'm pretty well set, all have their own 2.5 gal tanks, their own heaters, hammocks etc and have just learnt about the importance of climatising them (not just temperature) with water changes and FINALLY after 2 months i have 4 very very happy boys.

Any ways, i would love to hear from all my fellow Aussies and hear your stories of pet store's closer to home.

[aokashi]

I'm going back to sydney from New York soon, I can probably grab some meds before I leave. I certainly want to get a betta fish for my elderly grandmother

[SarahandOscar]

Oh i didn't think about having things sent over.... i thought maybe they were illegal in Aus for some reason otherwise why wouldn't we have it? or maybe there's an equivalent product we can get here and save you from bring it over?? i really have no idea, Thank you for the idea! I'm just unsure about customs but i'll definitely look into it. =)

[aokashi]

I thought it depended more on the demand for these things in Australia :S

[SarahandOscar]

I really don't know, i'm only 2 months into my Fish keeping life, more experienced members may have a better idea.

[aokashi]

Hehe Aus and Bomba(cant rememer full user name :S) are Aussie who I see around a lot. They can probably help you out a lot. Where abouts in Sydney are you? We have goldfish at our house. We kind of just leave them outside in a large ceramic pot all year round. We lose a couple of unfortunate ones to kookaburras every year :P.

[SarahandOscar]

Yes Bombalurina, batmantha, Littlebettafish, Aus and Pasqua are all i know so far. I'm about 45 mins west from the city of Sydney (give or take traffic) (seeing as this is a forum i'm not sure bout giving specific suburbs lol) My parents back onto bushland so they get rainbow lorikeets and Kookaburras all year round. So pretty.

[aokashi]

oooh, out in Paramatta somewhere? I lived i. Hornsby :D my parents and sister are there still

[SarahandOscar]

haha close.... but i know all those areas very very well haha

[LittleBettaFish]

Don't try and bring medications into Australia. A lot of what you can get overseas contains ingredients that are banned for over the counter sale and only available by a vet prescription.

I use Big L (pig and poultry) for internal parasites, and the Waterlife brand of medications (protozin, myxazin etc.) to treat other problems. Otherwise I think you need to go to your vet or possibly a larger LFS to get anything else.

I've used melafix and pimafix before and while they didn't kill or even adversely harm my bettas, they did nothing to slow infection or speed up healing either.

I'm down in Melbourne, so a bit far from everyone else. The betta scene seems to be better up in QLD and even NSW than it is here.