Tanksman

Got some at the goldfish bowl - cheap as and easy Now to try and culture them.

Put some wire netting over the top and make sure it is weighted down so that they can't get out. They will certainly try. How many litres is the tub?

Can you find someone with a concrete trough for stock water? You could use the piece of pipe you catch them in to give them somewhere to hide. Chuck them a few worms and they'll be sweet.

Don't worry I won't charge you any extra for my snail infestation - The kribs shouldn't have any trouble spawning - I see mine picking them up and carting them off to a bit further away from the nest. If you squash them between your fingers the Kribs and others will eat them - but I havn't managed to train them to eat the live ones - I might have to borrow that loach

Keep an eye on Trademe - The San Fran Bay hatchery's come up for sale on there occasionally - It is the easiest way of harvesting them without syphoning salt water through a hanky - and that must be good - The collection vial is fresh water so they can be tipped straight in. As long as the salt doesn't have iodine in it it should be fine. You should be able to get rock salt or sea salt at the supermarket. Just don't use iodised salt and it should be fine.

Interesting - Be interested to know how you get on CM - The Cyrtocara moorii look like interesting fish with those cool "helmets". Might be looking your way for fry soon $7.50 each you say. Have they still got any?

:-? Oh its a hard road sometimes this experience curve, Don't worry PJ you won't spill it on the floor again. LOL but I know the feeling. And mine was in my room so at least yours was in the kitchen I use a hatcher to harvest the little beggars now - The hatcher is great for harvesting the shrimp with very few shells and eggs mixed in which helps keep the fry tank clean. However the hatcher is not good for hatching them so you need both I reckon. You need the conical container to keep the salty brine shrimp mix well airated / circulating during hatching. I use an inverted coke bottle floating in a tall tank and air tubing pegged to hold the air tube bubbling from the bottom of the coke bottle - no stone just hose -i use the tank lid to stop them being able to fall over. When this has been 18 hours or more I tip it out of the coke bottle into a San fransisco bay hatchery - your LFS should have them - about $25. The hatchery is a darkened cube with a fresh water collection bottle that sits on top. The shrimp come up to the light coming in through the collection vial and after 5 to ten minutes you have heaps in the vial ready to simply tip into the fry tank - or if you get heaps into the adult tank as well. Simple as - then the salt brine mix is tipped back from the hatchery into the coke bottle under airation for another 6 - 12 hours - after 40 hours or so I tip it and start over. You can easily use two coke bottles - 1 a day so you tip one out every day and make one fresh one. I can have too many now its great. The harvester looks like this. http://photobucket.com/albums/a31/Tanksman/Fish/?action=view&current=fish_food_sf_bay_brand_shrimpery.jpg

Spinedoc are they cheap wood cutting hole saw bits? Amazing

Three times the price but will it last three times as long? Hopefully

PS - wish someone would "give" me a fluval 204

Hi CB What size Jebo Tank is it? You might find this useful http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/viewtopic.php?t=7697 Maybe you might need to get out the drill or if your still working on it now youv'e probably got a sledgehammer on the job :evil: You don't want to use to many elbows and pipe bends as this will slow the pump flow

Is that exporters price from an overseas supplier? I wonder how much quarantine and shipping would be? Probably not cheap. I'd still pay too much for fish I want - Why stop now? :roll:

:roll: Gee someone's put alot of work into that - Maybe for a doctorate - Just goes to show there are some doctors who make you better - and theres other doctors who make you sick

Hi Eileen Another fish addict - welcome - And a cichlid fan as well - congratulations.

IMHO - in my humble opinion It is very hard to keep a small volume of water - say less than 30 litres - in fish inhabitable condition - a good well cultured filter will do it - but Having an airstone in the gravel doesn't count. If you want a gravel filter you'll need to set it up properly - Have a look at your LFS for an example of how an UG Filter works - All this info IMHO

I'm glad about that save me the red face :oops:

I'd love to leave my kribs in their home - but the truth is it's just too tough on the other fish in the community tank that these horny cichlids keep breeding in - well sort of but it's even harder trying to get enough food to the fry - damn near impossible to feed brine shrimp in a 250 litres - and I also need to cover up the intake on the filter which gets blocked - and and and and - I'm going to seperate the parents soon. I don't have the space (plenty of spare tanks but) to set them up a home but one of these days. I'm not sure the local LFS would enjoy having every second customer turning up to trade in Kribs but it's worth a try.

Maybe add another 50 SAE's :lol:

Hi Helena Welcome to the site - When did you set up your small tank? When did you turn off the filter? Are you not able to modify the outflow so that it is not so turbulent and causing problems to the fish. Maybe having it falling onto a big rock poking out of the surface or something? The filter needs to build up bacteria to deal with ammonia and nitrite gases in the water. It sounds like your fish are suffering from this but its hard to know without more info. Take a water sample to your LFS or test yourself - PH ammonia and nitrite. You should do a 50% water change tonight - and IMHO don't worry about adding anymore salt for the time being. 50% tonight and 20 % tommorow - Take a sample tonight before the water change and get it tested if you can. Good Luck and have fun

Has the riccia settled down Kevin? How's the new reverse UG filter doing - sparkling clean water?

4 or 5 days in a row might be OK unless your trying to have kribs breeding in a community tank. I havn't had experience with this - be interested to hear from someone who has. I'd say it make it very hard work for ma and pa krib to fend of some very hungry fishies after 5 days.

No Sweat Alan - Good site though presenting the information clearly. Recently been through the exercise myself in response to monthly power bill skyrocketing - Turned out was the oil cloumn heaters we have all over the house - combine that with leaving windows open for the cats and :evil: . Never Mind - At least it wasn't the aquarium's - They come in at $40 a month - and bound to get worse over the coming winters. :roll:

The formula is incorrect - You need to convert the watts to Kw by dividing by 1000 - or you'll be forecasting an enormous power bill

List down every piece of electrical equipment in the tank(s) - If you have a spreadsheet it makes this easier. Then beside each item list the wattage of the item. Then calculate how long each is on per day - remember things like heaters only on about 1/4 of the time even tho continuously plugged in. You then can multiply the watts by the hours per day and then multiply that by 30 - days in the month - divide this answer by 1000 to get back to Kilowatts which is what the power is billed in. Then you need to multiply that by the rate your power coy charge you per kilowatt - continuous useage rate - easy ( ( appliance watts * hours used per day * 30 (days in month) )/ 1000 ) * Kw rate charged by the power company. Heater 300w 300 * 6 hours * 30 = 54000 / 1000 = 54 Kw * 17cents = $9.18 per month average

Anyone in Hamilton got any daphnia? Or know where some are?? Wouldn't want to be dipping my net in that dirty hammy lake but :-?