ryanjury

I think any fish or shellfish meat is good for fish.. I tend to stick to saltwater stuff as it is less likely to contain nasties that can live in freshwater and harm your fish but freshwater stuff is probably ok if you can verify it is clean.. I would also feed in moderation for a while because like everything I am sure moderation is the best..

Yeah it should be fine. It is quite tough though so might pay to have it in the right sized pieces for the fish, you could probably freeze and grate it or cut it up if need be. Or if you have big fish they should rip it to pieces. As with all meaty foods don't overfeed or it will foul your tank up really fast..

Guess it also depends on the size of your tank and water change schedule.. Discus will do well with gravel and stuff but it is alot harder to remove all the waste, they also tend to go around picking up food off the bottom after being fed which they won't see if it is hidden in gravel..

Are you planning on putting the yellows with the rams and other things? You can keep the yellows and GBA's together and they will still breed, my bristlenoses reguararly breed in my big african tank, the only problem is any babies produced are eaten so I have to remove the babies when they are almost free swimming (siphon or I pull out the ornament they are on). You could also do a group of Dems with your yellows in a 4ft tank to get a nice blue/yellow contrast..

It really does depend on what type of eggs are you trying to hatch.. Meth blue does stain everything and I have found it does work best when the water is quite blue (hense the staining of everything). Airstones are also good but again it depends what you are trying to hatch, there is also the very real possibility that the eggs are not fertile at all and that is why you cannot get them to hatch.

Only problem with both of these is they are harder to breed and keep alive.. It is very hit and miss sometimes they just go well for you sometimes they just drop dead or the fry just don't live. I agree it would be awesome to breed either and recently I have had upto 7-8 pairs of dwarfs but had no luck breeding any of them and gradually had losses before I had any fry to carry on..

Angels are pretty good, get a nice pair or research the genetics and source a pair with different colours so that you will get a split of fry colours to improve the chances of being able to sell them all..

lol I know plenty of people with big fish who feed nothing but flake and they do fine on it.. Yes bigger fish will get more out of pellets but they can do just as well on flake, it is possible if he has got run down and lack of food then something may have set in. Maybe worms or a bacterial infection or something like that, but if he is still eating then try feed him up first, maybe even separate him for a while to ensure he actually gets a good helping of food. If that doesn't work and he is still not fattening up then you may have to go down other roads..

Have fun guys, I will hopefully be accompaning the Marlborough club on their tank/shop crawl to Christchurch that weekend so should be fun

I just use spray paint on my tanks and have always done so.. I have only had one peel off and that was going strong for years and years and only peeled off when we moved and handled it.. Backing paper would work but remember it looks terrible when water does drip down the back and the paper sticks to the tank and also gets horrible water marks between the backing paper and glass.

Simon (thefishtank on here) advertises in the commercial section and sells dirt cheap but very high quality flake foods.. I have noticed no difference in going from nutrifin max (quite dare) to the flake foods he sells.

Plenty of dodgy or misnamed maleri reds around.. Alot of them are more orange than red I have managed to get a strain that is pretty red and some of the rubescens (line bred maleris) are redish as well.. Do you have photos of the parents (or did you view them) and did you get them from a good source? If I can find this thread when I am home I will post up some pics of mine..

Photos of the fish here I believe.. viewtopic.php?f=13&t=43492

Hard to tell from blurry pics but here are some guesses.. 1. Melo auratus male 2. unsure because of the photo but looks like what is usually sold as a blue zebra which means it is a zebra and it is blue of unknown parentage usually hybrid. 3. Male Ice blue (Greshaki) 4. Male Bumblebee 5. Another male ice blue 6. Peach/red zebra male 7. Unsure due to pic can't make out detail in tail or dorsal fine but could be powder blue.. 8. Same as no. 2 HTH as you can see you have a wide assortment of fish there is no guarantee any of them are what I have posted as they could all be hybrids that have thrown back the only way to tell would be if they came from a descent place with a good name and were bred in species tanks..

If you take better photos of all of your fish then we can all give you some idea what you may have..

I have no idea what they are exactly (hard to know unless you got them off a breeder with proper names etc) but it does appear you have some ice blues in there, a peach or red zebra male some sort of melanachromis, some sort of peacock and some yellows, again it is hard to know how pure any of them are.. Can you get better photos of any of the fish?

Yeah the nimbos can and will cross breed... As will all of your mixed zebras you have in there, if you do take any fry from those tanks then you should probably sell/give them away as mixed or hybrid fish because you would have no idea who spawned with the zebra females. Zebras are really good at crossing the dominant male zebra in your tank will breed with all the available zebra girls regardless of their species sometimes even several males of different species will breed with the same girl. Obviously if you don't plan to sell or pass on any fish then it wont matter When people breed in these mixed tanks and give the fish pure names then it causes issues later on when other people buy them expecting something and get ripped off, or the fry are spread around and mixed with pure stocks ruining other species. Again don't want to sound mean or stir up the hybrid debate again but it is one of my pet hates and one of the things that brings the quality of the africans in NZ down alot. If you are going to breed in mixed tanks at least be honest with buyers or people who get the fish about what they are.

All things going well with course etc I am hoping to be able to join in with this and would love to meet some of the Christchurch crowd

Wow trace and Steve you guys must have a heap of tanks to keep and breed all of them! I have Metriaclima aurora, Aurora Metriaclima callainos cobalt zebras Pseudotropheus socolofi powder blue zebras Metriaclima estherae, Red Zebra Cynotilapia afra Ice blues (selling out of these though) Ps. demasoni Labidochromis caeruleus, Electric Yellow Melanochromis johannii Metriaclima zebra (OB), ob zebras D. compressiceps, Malawi eye biters Copadichromis Borleyi, Red Kadango Nimbochromis Venustus, Giraffe Hap Sciaenochromis fryeri, Electric Blue Placidochromis Electra, Electra Cyrtocara moorii, dolphins Astatotilapia brownae, Brown Hap Protomelas Taeniotalus, Red Empress Otopharynx lithobates Julidochromis Marlieri Aulonocara Jacobs (2 different strains) Aulonocara stuartgranti 'Maleri', Sunshine or Gold Peacock Aulonocara stuartgranti 'Maleri', Red Aulonocara Nyassae Cobue Aulonocara OB/Marble peacocks Aulonocara Dragonsblood peacocks Aulonocara Baencshi I think that is about it.. It has taken a long time to gather all of these from descent sources, most are breeders but I only have around 20 tanks for africans so can only do 5-6 species in their own tank at a time..

Tanks look awesome, do you have polystig and livingstonii in there too? Is this the tank you are breeding in?

Then a couple of years later that common species disappears and everyone wants it again

Don't mean to put a damper on your buzz or sound mean... But if you have a mix of zebras in those 40-50 fish then you most likely have hybrids in your powder blues mouths or at the very least you cannot call the fry powder blues because you do not know.. Yellows may be ok in a mixed tank but they can and do cross quite often with zebras (mainly red zebras). Disclaimer: I am not telling deetrav what he can or can't keep in a tank, what he can or can't breed or sell I am just telling him what he is likely to be producing.

Awesome news What other fish were in the tank though?

Yeah I want a Tropheus tank one of these days it will happen I asked Rcon about the crossing too when I saw photos of it and he said they didn't.. There is an article on it here.. http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/t ... mixing.php

I would just breed them in that tank you have spare and then remove the parents when the fry are big enough with enough water changes that tank should be fine.. They will just keep on breeding as long as they are happy But is everyone getting along ok so far? I am sure plenty of people with discus community tanks have pairs in there with problems..