ryanjury

Its a real pain when this happens.. People buy a random fish go on google see the first thing that kinda matches bam thats now the scientiffic name, sure enough they find out that fish is very uncommon and the price rises. But all the had was something very common with very dubious linage, I'm not a catfish expert but it seems to happen allot with the ancistrus here, happens allot with the peacocks/mbuna that I keep to. See so many fish with really dodgy names, pretty gutting to end up buying them down the line but when you go back to the breeder they have disappeared or don't care. Guess it all depends on the ethics of breeding? I am sure that most people don't have any bad intent with doing it maybe just lack of knowledge and a quest to find the right name to sell their fish with I guess. Anyway well done on the breeding I used to breed bristlenoses in my african tanks too, cracks me up because they are so far out of their "normal" prefered conditions that it isn't funny but they seem happy enough!

Those reds are amazing! Awesome good work.. Even the female is more colourful than most males we can get in the country!

What other one do we have?

That male is only 2-3yrs old.. I bred him and sold him to a lady who had an 8x3x2ft tank(i showed her the light and converted her from big south American cichlids to Africans) I was lucky to get 2 big males back off her after I lost mine and start breeding them again.

You can probably see what mine are in with in the pics.. Mine are living in whats left of my all male tank (removed aggressive ones until it worked) so a couple of big male haps a male yellow, some clown loaches etc.. They are pretty cool fish and just keep to themselves and they are so different that most other fish leave them alone.

Was just in my photo bucket noticed this Cool fish!

Nice pics Already posted some pics of my calvus but here you go again.. They just laid another batch too, pretty stocked because I thought that I had nuked the female treated her for being egg bound. Also have fry at 3-4cm now looking quite cool.. Is it just me or does Zeusterae's fish look more like red fins than gold heads? And yeah my calvus go for conch shells.

Yeah dolphins are awesome fish My big males are cool and turn heads.. A similar shape to fronts and they do allot more as well

Gotta be africans Dolphins would be a good start, they are cool fish..

There is a calculator on the main site that calculates safety factor etc for tanks, I wouldn't want this tank in my house around my kids with a safety factor that low. The reason the calcs are an overkill is to make up for imperfections in glass or any external factors (earthquakes, people bumping tank etc), especially when using second hand glass. People have had tanks let go so violently hat glass has been thrown across fish rooms and gone through 10mm tanks, not something you would want you or your kids in the way of. In saying that I have seen tanks with lower safety factors that are fine its just allot more risk.

If you can find a nice long retatively low light LED setup or someone to DIY you one you will get better light and use allot less power.. Otherwise T5's, just remember that you can put tons of light on and get your tank glowing but then you will battle algae. New tank looks good too BTW! Not that there was anything wrong with the old one!

lol you remove the fish to strip it you just take it out of the tank and strip it and then stick it back in before it looses is place in the colony and then chuck the fish in a breeding net..

My guess would be the holding females will fight with each other.. Plus the major disadvantahe of removing them from the colony is that they will get scrapped out or have trouble reintegrating into the colony after they have spat. My suggestion would be to strip them and stick them in a breeding net or trap in the parents tank and raise them from there. Another issue with letting them go full term is you get allot less fry.

That sucks! Just a reminder to everyone else I hope you can make it, we will need a good showing to actually vote for stuff!

Sweet cheers Warren might just go drop the depth to 500 to get the safety factor a bit higher..

lol interesting how threads go when someone gets realistic and throws the hybrid thing out there I have given some constructive advice, let the fish colour up and then put some more pics up, that fish has obviously had a very hard time so wont be in full colours. It isn't the same shape or colours as a hueseri but that does take some experience with peacocks to pick. Most of the fish we get in are hybrids And there are a few of us that pick and choose the best of them that most match profiles on the internet and then breed an grow them out to see if they breed true to type and if they are worth carrying on. Most of my peacock lines can be traced back many years to a very good breeder who had allot of good quality fish (Carey in Christchurch) most other peacock lines I don't bother with because most aren't worth it.. lol I wish I was like someone I know with a whole heap of good quality (mostly F1) peacocks sitting in my tanks Id with pictures is very subjective and not very good, also with hybrids you have no idea what way the fish will throw, for example you could do an id on that fish but his fry could be completely different.. Also with no idea what the females are it is even harder. And then how do you know if your reputable website is reputable? How do you know with variant of the fish you are iding on? Are you iding against a show winning specimen off the net? Do you have the experience to be telling the difference between peacocks which (lets be honest here) all look like basically the same thing and there are only very discrete differences between different species and all will cross breed. I know that one "breeder" who used to have a big operation used to be very creative with his ids and made up a whole heap of random species that weren't here and commanded huge prices for them. Not saying your fish is a hybrid I am just saying it is not Aulonocara hueseri and from my experience (only around 6 years of keeping and breeding them and roughly 40 tanks of cichlids so not much) 99% of the peacocks in NZ are hybrids so that is a good place to start and be realistic about. I generally roll with the attitude that there are already so many crap peacocks around that if something doesn't have a name then I wont touch it and will go with something else from a good breeder with a name and good history. But I am more into spreading quality fish than making money. And any common name is very subjective, sunshine peacock for example could be considered stuartgranti maleri or baenshi or any other gold or yellow peacock, just another issue we cross with peacocks I guess.

For sure But if you don't know the true origin of the fish then the ID is just a guess and it would be a very dicey call to adopt that guess of an ID and breed and sell from it.. Just knowing the quality of the peacocks in NZ and the fact that most people (or "breeders") breed in mixed tanks and make up names based on random google searches means that 99% are hybrids until proven otherwise. In fact most of our imported stock that is imported with proper names are actually hybrids to begin with so we just can't win. I say give it some time to grow and colour up and then have a guess even then it would just be a guess.. But in all honestly if your friend brought a bunch and has forgotten where from and what they were, how do you know they are all from the same place or any idea what they are?

There was someone a while back who brought some random peacocks and used that name when selling them.. Just cuz someone goes on google and sorta half manages to kinda match a fish to a random photo doesn't mean a definite I'd.

I doubt they are aulonocara hueseri.. Where did you get that ID from?

It is really hard to tell.. That fish is not in full colours (and judging by tail has been getting a hammering so prob not very happy) give it some time and space to colour up.. Any idea what "breeder" your friend got it off?

Well done those fish should have been breeding ages ago I am glad someone has got them started.. If it is her first hold don't expect her to go full term or to have many fry if she does but at least you know they are ready and happy. Regarding the buffers I haven't noticed any good things with using them, for my altos I use baking soda and epsom salts there are buffer recipes on Cichlid forum on how to make them for a fraction of the cost.

Lol bugger that wont be cheap ESP with star fire on the front.. But yeah it was what I was expecting anyway just thought might have got away with 10mm.

I know most the calculators assume euro bracing and say that 10mm glass is sweet, so when taking bracing away would you goto 12mm glass?

I have always used bristlenoses with no issues even with my big giraffes and other african cichlids, they used to breed in my big display tank and fry even used to survive.. I think it may all be in the introduction of them, if you just dump them in then they may get cracked until the fish realise they can't eat them, aclimitise them slowly and introduce them at night so they can find cover and have a better chance at survival. I have seen golden algae eaters in with big africans as well, only issue was when the giraffes got big enough to eat the algae eaters..

I would only really recommend other mbuna for that tank, big thing with mbuna is good sized tanks and tons of fish to spread the aggression. Only issue with this is cross breeding if you are planning to breed from the fish. Ratio of yellows isn't really important they aren't that hard on each other, they are just taking up space in your tank. I wouldn't really recommend anymore fish in that sized tank just let the ones you have grow up and see how things work out first.