Faran

the old saying "don't count your chickens before they've hatched" comes to mind. BNs can be fairly difficult to breed sometimes and easy-as at others. Egg spawners are not as easy to get to reproduce as livebearers! 27-28 would be fine but don't move the young BNs unless you have to. Good luck!

Nah, cory cats are only worth so much. Normally LFSes around here charge more for BNs than corys but it'd never hurt to find out before you go back demanding an exchange for a cheaper fish!

Wow, another LFS that has staff that don't know what's going on. Sorry about that happening but you really should have known what a BN looked like before going to buy one. Here's a pic (though I'm sure you know by now!). A baby will look like a miniature version of this without the bristles on the nose. Take a second and check the tank to see if there's any that have unusual patterns, spots or colouration. Sometimes this can indicate stress but other times it can make the difference between a regular everyday BN and a BN that's worth over $100!

Then I'm at a loss for what is getting the fish in that tank. Bu the way, the barbs under Yo-Yo laches eyes... can they scrape/slash otehr fish with them? I often see the yoyos "playing" with other fish which I was led to believe was actually checking for parasites, but upon inspection of some WCMMs I pulled from that tank to give to a new owner I found that the largest male had some odd "gashes" on one side of his body....

Bermuda triangle.... yeah, I think one of my tanks has that. Put in 4 fish and the next day there's only 3... put in 8 fish and a month later there's only 7 (even though I counted them just a few days ago). Do syno cats eat fish? Most fish in that tankare bottom feeders so any carcasses would last only a matter of minutes.... question is, why would they die in the first place? Sorry for your loss, Paul!

Yep Shiuh, you'll be crammed in the back seat with a chilly bin of fish, plants and stuff BTW, I tried getting in touch with that local guppy breeder (not advertising for her anymore as they don't seem to want to join the local clubs or forums) for those colour strains I was still after and it seems another local guppy enthusiast already cleaned her out of all the adults. Luckily I have a couple hundred over here!

Some people say that people appreciate things more that they pay more for. Lucky find, I really have to stop myself and look at eyes to see if they're albino and I still miss it half the time (Kim usually catches it). So is she seriously for sale?

Dude, you should auction her on TradeMe. I bet you make some mad crazy cash and have a heck of a bidding war. That's like the holy grail of guppies around here. By the way, where did she come from?

How much do those oil-filled glass cutters go for? Keen on getting one to try it out (have seen pros doing it and make it look easy enough to do it yourself - may just be experience though). Seen them on TradeMe but I figure there must be a few second hand ones floating around (if they don't wear out, that is). Suppose I should ask our local tank maker....

Hi Kevin, Blue Rams don't necessarily spawn in caves. I got a pair a month ago and following this article I put a river stone in a secluded spot and they spawned on Saturday night and layed eggs all over the flat stone, as advised. Either they moved them and I haven't spotted the wrigglers yet or something bad happened as the rock is almost egg-free this morning. I'm thinking that perhaps one of the large bristlenoses came along and "cleaned" the rock :evil: What's your experience with the after spawning and fry care?

Yeah, take me there at night. K, that sounded just plain WRONG

leave a slice of raw courgette in the tank over night. Make sure and weigh it down so it stays at the bottom and see what happens. VERY rare that BNs don't go crazy on courgette.

By the way, fishy. You can't sex them by colouration. The submissive male in the tank will have lighter colours and lay down his fins compared to the colourful, cocky dominant male. It's really about the size and the round tummy. Feed them lots of protein (mine eat Discus Tucker) and spawning should happen pretty soon. Do some reading online (Google "breeding blue rams cichlid") and you'll find all you need to know. They like warmer water and low pH and are well suited to discus tanks.

When they pair up they'll seriously act like a couple. They'll work together to fight off competition, etc. The females look much like the males but MUCH smaller with a fat red tummy. Feed them lots of protein and give them a spot with a flat stone. If they're really a couple, they'll "reside" in a certain area together and will guard it against other fish. Move the flat stone to them, not vice versa. When they'r ready to spawn, they'll start cleaning the stone or possibly dig a pit for them. The spawning behaviour is unmistakeable - they first take turns cleaning the stone then touching it with the bottom of their bellies. The female will have a new appendage coming out from the anus area (her ovipositor) and will often touch the rock (that they are cleaning) with it to see if it's suitable. The male will have a similar growth which he'll use to milt the eggs and fertilize them. I videotaped te cleaning behavior and laying/fertiization of the eggs today. Will see about grabbing some pics and putting them up for future reference.

LOVE dwarf cichlids. Our Blue Rams that we got approx a month ago were just videotaped starting to clean up for spawning. Good luck with breeding them, how many do you have?

"conditioning" is a fish keeping term for "fattening up"

Hi Monaro, Keen to know how they're getting along as well - As for inserting a picture, you need to upload it to a website like PhotoBucket and copy the images URL and put it between the and it should work just fine. You can test this by clicking on "preview" next to the "submit" button.... just be sure and submit it after you preview it Good luck and let us know how it goes.

Just slowly fill the tank up with more and more fry until you have the equivalent of the amount of waste of the cichlids (174 sword fry should do the trick, easily). Then all at once, move the fry out and the cichlids in once the tank is cycled and ready to go. Fry really don't care where they grow up as long as they're safe (and any straglers wil undoubtedly become fish food). Now... why didn't you at least seed the filter with media from the old filters? That would speed up the process, but at the least use Cycle or the rest of the commercial additives to speed it along. Anyways, the tank looks great! Will be doing something similar when I get my darn Congos out and the 3ft tank set up as a cichlid tank

LOL Caper, that guy looks just like a snakeneck when they're looking straight at you!

Hi Paul, Great pic, as usual! I still need to find the jelly mix that you put in the tanks to slow your fishies down so you can take such purfect pix He's definitely a beaut (as I told ya last week) and the colouration looks even better in the pic than he did in person! With the broad body shape going into his tail fin, it almost looks like a double-tail (like dear old dad, Big Red) but not quite, eh? I keep looking at Bettas when I visit the LFSes, but still can't compete! (specially since he's home-grown and note brought)

Red Spot variant, most likely called a "Gold Spot" depending on where bought.

Truly amazing escape artists. I had a "dojo" in my tank that just disappeared one day. Never did find it until years later when we were moving and found the mummified carcass all the way on the other side of the room from where the tank once stood. What I still don't understand is why the cats never touched it...

Must be nice having people at rhe LFS that know what you're on about. There's only three guys at Hutt Pets that I can say that about - the girls at the other stores are just like "I have no idea??" anytime I ask them anything that doesn't involve shelved products.... and then they usually know about the same as what's written on the box. Ah well, at least we have these forums, right? For brown algae I usually give the tank a little direct sun and green algae comes and takes it over. I personally think brown is easier to clean than green, though....

That's a lot of turtles.... are you Kim from the Turtle & Reptile Farm up in P. North area? Probably not, but still worth asking. Is that bubba snakeneck for sale?

I actually sat and counted these and got 174 like everyone else. Then I scrolled down and saw that they'd already been tallied up :oops: Ah well, nice drop!