fishy_t

I'm pretty excited cause I'll be getting my Marine Bio Degree next year - might be very good timing

Yep at 7.30 and you're welcome to come along!

Oh! Are yours from Chch too??!

Awesome, congrats! Could you post a pic of the parents?!

Yeah I'd go for a Sev, they are awesome fish with great personalities!

100% with you sharn

I read in a uk mag years ago that you can kill the hydra but not the fish with a 9 volt battery (the square ones) just put wires from each terminal into the tank water and the hydra get fried but the fish are fine (even fry) I've never tried it my self cause I've never had to - but I trust the mag (Practical Fish Keeping) so I'd give it a go if I were you!

Translation:! In NZ Chips = Crisps in UK

And Subway!!

Well done with the eggs but like you said it does sound like they will need a few trys to get it right! How are the festives btw?!

you can if you want to but you don't need to and epoxy isn't cheap!!

Yeah don't worry about the lime then - I used it for my Tanganyikan's and the pH is stable at 8.2 (and thats with 40kg's of concrete!)

Yeah I've done that sort of thing - I know you can add colour to the concrete but I found the algae does it pretty fast and it looks natural too!

Sharn - 100% with you too - it's one thing to 'create' these hybrid fish for our entertainment, but when it is detrimental to the natural parent species it is even sadder. Sirkus - I agree that some of these fish seem to have found a niche to live in within the trade, but I still don't think that you could class this 'progression of evolution' as being natural as it is entirely manipulate by man and as in Parrot's the offspring are often not even fertile! Even so going back to my point is that supporting the sale of these hybrid fish is supporting and I think even encouraging the same people in the industry who are mutilating fish with knives and injections of dye. Either way this sort of issue is bad for the industry who many people already think is cruel.

Hi there! I'd be very happy to take some off your hands for my puffer - I've seen him eat things up to about 4 inches so he could polish yours off easily! Let me know if you've got any left, thanks!

If you ask me anyone who buys a Parrot Cichlid is supporting the kinds of people who do this to fish. ‘Parrots’ are just one step in breeding a fish which is mutilated just to give humans something new and 'interesting' to look at (as well as a profit for the developers). Doing that is bad enough let alone cutting of their tails and dieing them which just makes me totally sick.

Seeing as this thread seems to be attracting lots of African Cichlid people - I thought you might want to see this, its a case study we looked at in Genetics recently when were we talking about diversity reduction in founding populations - the moral of the story is that Tanganyikan's are more diverse, genetically, than Malawi's and Victorian's as the Tang's are the ones that founded those populations... quite interesting!! Anyway - take a look!!:

Thanks for the posts guys! I've just been playing with it and putting a small diameter silicone pipe (25mm) down inside the existing pipe to create a siphon works a treat! The pump is 3000lph and the pipe can now easily remove the water in the overflow box - it’s pretty loud but works so that’s all that matters at the moment! Thanks Ira

Does that help??! Do you think expanding the diameter of the pipe as soon as its trough the whole in the glass would help?!

Sorry its not very clear I know! I'll put up a pic when I get home which should make it easier to understand - but I'm stuck with the size of hole in the glass and have no way of increasing the head/pressure to the pipe as the outflow is from a box at the top of the tank... I'll post a pic later!

I was just wondering if anyone has a trick to increase the volume of an outflow pipe?! I can't give the pipe any more head but can I add a whole in the top or something to let the air and or water flow more efficiently?!?! The pipe is a standard drainage pipe (40mm I think) and has a few 90 deg. bends in it but I can't streamline it anymore... I'll put a pic up later tonight but ANY ideas would be great! Thanks

Well it sounds like you are well on your way to deciding on what size you want but just to warn you - if you like to have nicely planted tanks make sure you don't have your tanks any higher (depth of water I mean) than about 60cm. If you do it becomes allot more expensive to light it enough for the plants on the bottom for the tank - I made this mistake and won't again!! See you in Wellington soon!

BTW - I work at the garden centre in Crofton Downs and we get them in about mid-October, but I'd give wrights a call!

Wrights Water Gardens (Look them up on the online white pages) are GREAT! They have the biggest range in the country and are more than happy to post - I would really recomend them

I'd say try to just use real rock and silicone it together but thought you might want to see this: It's what I made as my tank is very high and I didn't want unstable piles of heavy rocks on my tank! I would say though that I would only bother doing this if you REALLY have to - it took me HOURS!! (made from polystyrene covered in concrete) If you are thinking about doing it feel free to ask me any questions!