ryanjury

This all seems weird to me too.. How can the tank (with no heater plugged in) read 29+C it must mean your room is that warm, have you stuck a thermometer in the room?

Awesome, you would have been my pick to still have some hopefully you get them going.. Maybe use a few livingstonii or venutus females as extra targets when you do put them together?

lol its not an eyebiter there are quite a few with them now.. It is a Nimbochromis fuscotaeniatus http://www.cichlid-forum.com/profiles/s ... hp?id=1156

Haven't heard of anyone breeding them, but I do hope they are being bred so that we can keep them in the country..

Ok cool for some reason I thought that it had to be back flushed.. Would I just have to jimmy up fittings and put it inbetween the prefilter and DI stages?

Can I easily plumb an RO stage into the existing 2 stage that I have? I am assuming it would go between the prefilter and the DI stage and would also have to put something in for back flushing? Roughly how much would a membrane and holder cost?

Ok I have this DI unit http://www.filters.co.nz/pdfs/DI%202%20 ... 0APP68.pdf The problem I am having is that the DI resin is getting used up exceptionally fast, initially I only got the resin and didn't replace the prefilter and it only did 50-100L before the resin all went gold and the water coming out was higher than 200uS (initially it was 5uS which I was happy with). Last night myself and a friend packed the entire prefilter stage with activated carbon and now after less than 100L again the resin is all used up and output gone high again. At this stage I think I am only left with a few options why it is using it so fast. 1. The input water is so fill of crud that the resin is having to work overtime. 2. I need to buy the proper pre filter (but I don't know how much good the 10micron will actually do? I thought the carbon would have done the same job?)

Gutted I had the same thing happen to me a month ago too lost a whole lot of dwarf cichlids some of them very hard to find and others waiting for partners that I had searched high and low to find Do you have any GBAs in a different tank to rebuild and carry on with? Sometimes despite the loss setting up a new tank can be alot of fun

I would definitely be doing 1 fish per bag for bigger more robust fish like larger cichlids they have a tendency to smash each other to a pulp thrashing around in bags..

If anything I would turn the heater down, less temp equal less waste, also don't feed the fish at all until you get another filter no food in = less waste out they will be fine for upto 2 weeks without food.. The media should be ok but if you can you should clean it out and stick it in the tank somewhere maybe with an airstone on top of it to try and keep some water flow through it if it will be a while before you can get another one.. I wonder if there is anyone locally with something even as simple as a box filter they can lend you?

Yep it sure would They are very nice fish though..

Some who have had tanks wiped out with nasty intestinal worms that fish who were quarantined for 3-4weeks and showed no ill effects were carrying would argue that there is reason.. It all depends on how far you want to take it or how much you have to loose really, personally I give it a go if they look fine for a month but if they don't fill out or aren't quite right I medicate them just in case.

It really depends on the person who is doing it.. Some medicate all new fish for common things others dont. Quaratine is a necessity though if you don't want to loose fish eventually you will get dodgy ones that cause problems, what you have suggested is a very good start a month with no contact with any other fish will defiantely let you know if there are any immediate problems.

Your tank is too small.. Auratus are one of the more aggressive mbuna I kept them once but got sick of them dominating everything in my 5fter. Have a read http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/m_auratus.php In that sized tank you wont find many africans you could keep maybe some jullies or something like that get a few and thin it out to a pair and then they should happily just breed away. Or maybe some brichardi or pulchers.

I can't see any way that you can keep that many big aggressive africans in such a small tank and have it work long term did you do any research on the fish before purchasing them? http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/n_venustus.php "This Hap grows to be quite large, and at 8 or 10-inches this fish can be quite an eye-catcher. N. venustus needs to be kept with other large Haps once it starts to get some size, otherwise, smaller tankmates may be considered as food. Sexually active males can be quite aggressive; therefore, several females should ideally be housed with just one male of the species. The recommended tank size for an adult is at least 125 gallons. They can be fed a combination of pellets, flakes, and live or frozen food, although once they reach 3 or four inches, flakes are too messy and should be discontinued." Just FYI your tank is around 130L so around 30gal and being taller rather than longer makes it even more unsuitable for these fish. I don't suppose this guy was in the tank too? viewtopic.php?f=11&t=42747

So your rams are currently living in a tank with a ph of 8? That maybe causing them some irritation but they should be fine.. How often are they flashing?

Measure the KH of your tap water as well, if the KH is high even with a PH of 8 then it will drop quite fast when fish start pooing and peeing in it.. That is the reason why people buffer the rain water with various things to increase the KH of it and help keep things more stable.. Also why do you need a ph of between 6 and 6.5? Sometimes chasing ph levels can cause more hassle and problems than it is actually worth..

You will end up with a male giraffe being the only fish alive then so it wont do.. Giraffes get to 20-30cm and while they aren't overly aggressive they can pack a punch, your pair will need a big tank (300L+) and lots of rock work to stop from killing each other anyway, as per usual africans are not pair forming they breed in harems and need multiple females to lesson the aggression on the females. If you only have that sized tank then keep them separate until you can re home them or buy a tank that will humanly accommodate them. The tank you have is only big enough to keep a pair of Nics at best it is still too small for the cobalts and definitely too small for the giraffes.

I think the most difficult thing would be deciding on quality but it sounds like a good idea.. Maybe have some sort of incentive for breeding something that has a lower number of registered breedings (or considered hard to get or at risk of being lost in NZ) and actually still have males and females a year later, to encourage people to actually breed the rarer species and keep them. This would discourage the people who just buy in anything breed it to get a tick in the box and then flick them all off to try something else there are plenty of good breeder who breed some nice and harder to find stuff but no longer have it I know all of this would be hard or probably impossible to set up but it would be interesting.

It should definitely be quality based, there is at least one breeder who I know breeds and registers a heap of breedings and most people I know who got fish off him got bent fish or fish missing fins or eyes etc so although he was regarded as a good breeder he produced rubbish.. The hardest thing with quality is how to define it.. I have seen plenty of fish sold as "good quality fish" and shown up to find rubbish for sale usually hybrids or in terrible condition etc so some people have no idea on quality or what they are aiming for. Defining standards for each species would help but again it comes down to peoples interpretation, I have seen plenty of people identify peacocks as zebras and vice versa so some people just have no idea. And then we all have our own types of fish we have our eye in and know what a good example looks like so not everyone can determine what a quality fish is of every breed..

It is interesting to hear (from someone very anti inbreeding) that the zebras disappeared because of inbreeding... I always thought they disappeared because they were taken off the allowed import list into Nz and they were banned from export from Brazil which pushed up their demand and price worldwide. Apparently alot of the ones in NZ got send/smuggled into Aussie because the Aussies would pay more for them. Alot of info can be found by sticking L046 in the search on this site.. I also suspect alot of it was like most the other species we have lost when they have disappeared off the list, the main reason is they just weren't out there and being bred enough to keep their future in the country secure. If there are any out there breeding these they would have sourced their fish from the survivors in peoples tanks all over the country, the fish were imported regularly from different places at different times so there is every possibility they actually have good unrelated fish with enough genes to keep them going for many years. The inbreeding subject is always brought up on many forums with many experts posting that it has no adverse effects as long as you are selective in what you breed you will just never get anything different or better than what you started with, electric yellows are an example of. I have heard at least half a dozen people say they have or know someone who has L046 breeding and am yet to see one (except for firenz's photo in an earlier thread) or see any for sale so I don't know where they are going. I don't think anyone would sell any males for $2500ea, I saw 2m 2f sell for $10k in Aussie the only reason they would have got that for them is the breeding potential.

If you got $$'s to burn in gas and maintenance then get a subaru I guess a newer one would be better for the maintenance side of things but still no good on gas.. Cool cars though..

They will eat anything that will fit in their mouths so just crush up anything you feed the adults really. A good alternative to hatching brineshrimp is using decap it is the same thing but you don't need to go through the hassle of hatching it etc.

Had a feeling that may have happened they are usually pretty good parents.. Glad to hear they are ok

I would say you will need a big tank with plenty of other fish (then there is the risk of hybrids) or another few females to spread aggression a pair is probably not a good thing to have as the males are pretty hard on girls.