fishy_t

haha! yeah thats true!

There are loads of good natives you can use - I'd have a look at your local garden centre if I were you (in the pond plant section) - just be carefull to clean off ALL of the soil in thier pots...

Its looking great, nice work I have to agree with you about Peter, he does a great job and you'd be mad to buy one from a pet shop if you live anywhere near Welly!

This is pretty interesting if you want a new way be be nasty to telemarketers!! Not sure how well it will work if you have dail up but its worth a try so have a listen!! http://howtoprankatelemarketer.ytmnd.com/

I've found sand is almost as easy as gravel, it helps to slope it slightly towards the front as the then most of the solids waists fall down to the front. You can use a large gravel vac as normal and all but the smallest particles drop back down like the gravel does. I use river sand which I collect myself but you can buy lots of types from garden centres (don't pay more than $10 for a 20l bag!). Aragonite is great if you can get some (and I should really get onto it :oops: !) but using Limestone as rockwork does pretty much the same thing - keep in mind one or both of these is a must for Rift Lake Cichlids (AKA Africans) as Rollergirl said, to naturally buffer the pH.

Keep in mind that mbuma are from Lake Malawi in Africa - Cichlids from Lake Tanganyika are FAR more diverse (genetically) and there fore much more interesting... IMO!

Go Africans! I'm a fan of African's (from Lake Tanganyika to be more precise)!! Awesome fish with loads of great aspects. Can be found with adult sizes ranging from small 15cm rock dwelling species to larger species like Frontosa's which get to about 40cm. I've got 5 Species of Tang's and absolutely love them. One example of how cool they are is that some of the species such as Neolamprologus pulcher not only care for their young as in most cichlids, but each generation cares for the next with means you end up with a whole family group living together with all different sizes - this is pretty rare for the smaller cichlids... Either way Cichlids rock! Check out http://www.cichlid-forum.com/profiles/ for unbiased profiles on all cichlid species from anywhere in the world - just keep in mind we can only get a fraction of them in NZ (BTW - my avatar pic is one of my baby Frontosas - really stunning fish with personalities that easly match Oscars - not that I'm saying I don't like Oscars!)

Mine are doing great too! has anyone else started naming their's yet?! So far I've only named my biggest who I'm sure will be the alpha male, he's a good 20% larger than all of the other fish. He's called Apollo (thats him last month as my avartar)

Awesome looking oscars you've got there!

I've just seen all of my Fronts cropping the Aufwuchs together for the first time! I think it's cause I didn't feed them as early as I usually do and I guess they got sick of waiting

http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/fake-rockface-vt12998.html you can see what I did here, I'm happy with the results but if you can I would use real rocks cause its MUCH easier!

I'll have to give it a try then

Cool! do you have any pics?!

20cm sounds pretty impressive! do you have any pics of your ones? I'd love to see!!

Which African's do you mean? I always though you shouldn't let them gulp at the surface which I'm guessing they would have to for duckweed?!

Nice I've got Marleri and I do really like them. They seem allot calmer than I was always told Julies can be, which is good! I'm defiantly fonder of my fron's than I am of them - but they are great!

Do Transcriptus and Marleri behave differently?!

I agree that having a season is great and obviously keeps the practice allot more sustainable than it would be otherwise - but there is no way you can say that these fish, which evolved without our interference or anything like the predation pressures they now face, are not affected in a bad way by being caught by the million every year just to make a pattie. That is why I cannot justify eating them. Not that I'm saying anyone is a bad person for doing it - it's just my personal choice.

Sounds pretty cool! did you get yours as whitebait - if so how long did they take to get to that size?!

Hey there, I got him from a private owner - which makes me his second owner in NZ and I have no idea how to get anymore! He is a completely freshwater species and has his own 150l tank. Puffers are awesome and always have great personalities but remember that getting a brackish one means you are going to have to set up a marine tank at some point (I think??!) so you are making a big commitment...

Yeah I always leave the algea/aufwuchs on the rocks in my tanks for my tanganyikans and their babies. I know the babies eat lots of it cause you can see it in their wee tummies!

I've read lots about "Aufwuchs" - but does anyone know how you actually say it??!! (I'm guessing it's German and you just pronounce it like any other german word)

Very interesting, thanks for that - I'm not going to use bloodworms anymore!

I've got some that are getting ready to breed - they've been digging out tunnels under the rocks for the last few weeks (to lay their eggs in). Really cool little fish!

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