ryanjury

lol do tell?

Oh yeah sweet as silverfox let me know I can add a few names to the list for borelli and possibly other species if you can arrange it..

That site clearly states noone really knows what they are and they are most likely hybrid.. It is a very good site and has some of the best info on steel blues that I have seen so thanks for sharing it Do you have your importers licence and quarantine room silverfox it would be a very handy thing to have (but not economical to have) at times that's for sure... Seems the steel blues are pretty easy to breed there are a few locally breeding them that I know of so bound to be many more with them, a very nice fish though one of these days I might get a girl for my lonely boy, but as their future in NZ is pretty secure its probably not worth it.. Dixon do you have any pics of your male from BK's line? Or does it just look like a steel blue?

I am no expert I have only kept discus for short lengths of time before I got sick of the work involved but from reserach and threads on here I found found the following.. You can also use the search function to answer most of your questions Might take a while to weed through all the info but there is alot of good stuff there... search.php?keywords=discus&terms=all&author=&sc=1&sf=all&sk=t&sd=d&sr=posts&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=Search You could get 3 discus and they might even live but I wouldn't put money on them doing very well. Recommended tank size is 40L+ per discus. It is also recommended you keep them in a bare bottom tank to grow them out with large water changes daily or every second day to keep down any waste and avoid stunting them. 3 is also a bad number especially in a smaller tank as one will be bigger and more dominant and probably bash the remaining 2 or at least the larger 2 will gang up on the smaller one meaning it gets less food and hides at the back stressed all day. End of the day it depends how well you want them to do, I have seen plenty of people say oh my discus did well in this tank and I didn't do daily water changes and seen the tiny stunted dull discus they are keeping.. And then I have been out to discusgurus house and seen the stunning dinner plate discus being kept the way discus should be and reaching their full potential.

Glad to hear that the fish are out and about I have had no aggression problems with dragonsbloods.. But I have the recently imported line I believe that mystic had a very old line that I have heard were quite agro, maybe different lines and different aggression levels or maybe I have just been lucky

When I got the steel blue and BK female pair I emailed BK and asked for his opinion.. He picked the female as his and the male had definite differences from his "borelli" line mainly he was alot more colourful than BK's ones.. I guess it is upto you

Firstly where did you buy them from and what did you buy them as? There are plenty of dodgy mbuna kicking around on trademe and in shops, sometimes these get given random common names and onsold.. Always best to get off breeders or from shops direct off wholesale list (even this is dodgy as all sorts of random things get in at times). As for what your fish are, I have no idea on the top ones they look to be almost melanachromis type shape but random colour and faint barring, bottom ones look like randoms probably hybrids based on the types and random barring on them.. That's just my opinion I am not very good with ID's esp with mixed mbuna..

Animates have been getting in steel blues as borelli and they are unable/unwilling to rename them as anything else due to their system and how it works.. I had a female from BK and a steel blue male, they looked similar but not the same so too dodgy to breed from.. I would suggest you get more "borelli" from animates or more "borelli" from BK to make up pairs of what you have otherwise apisto id's are just too dodgy.. I am unsure exactly what that Borelli from BK are either they are probably the opal or wild type colouration as mine didn't really do an awful lot and I ended up loosing them all

lol you are going to produce more babies than you will know what to do with.. There are a few of us looking for quality apisto species in NZ at the moment but doesn't seem to be too much around, its a shame that these hybrid steel blues keep coming in as borelli That link you posted was for Apistogramma steindachneri which is nothing like steel blues? Plenty of info around on them though.. http://www.google.co.nz/search?hl=en&q= ... =&aq=f&oq=

Good work So I am assuming the "borelli" you brought off trademe are steel blues too I was the one emailing you asking to buy some if they were true..

One of your pics doesn't work and can you post a better pic of the fish you are wanting an id of "the blue ones" there are a few blue ones in that picture.. You also might have more luck posting in the cichlid section

You can't beat electric yellows for yellow Red you can get from red empresses, but you will only ever have one really colourful one (dominant male) in the tank, you might be able to find some maleri reds which are actually red I have some nice ones here after trying a few different places to find some that are actually red not orange.. As Smidey suggested you could go down the red zebra route too, I find the orange/pink to be a nice contrast between yellow and blue. It can sometimes be hard to get fish to come out once they are skittish, when you add new ones they seem to think it is a big scary place too because the existing fish are hiding.. Another option for red could also be red rainbow fish I have kept them with africans before and they are big/fast enough to get out of the way and they look good.

Nope demasoni are fine, they only scrap between each other so you need to buy at least 12.. My colony was breeding well, but they I lost most of the first 2 batches randomly and they have stopped breeding.. I might have to go out there and change stuff around see if I can kick them back into it

Dolphins are usually pretty confident open water swimmers that hang out together... As I said in your other thread about them being skittish I suspect it is where the tank is, they don't like sudden movement (ie tanks around doors) or direct sunlight on an angle tends to make them freak out. As everyone else has said you need to add some colour, blue dolphins are cool I really like them as the get older a nice colour and shape. Probably a good place to start would be the yellows, they're easy to get and yellow is a good contrast to your blue you already have. Then you have to look into what else you like, maybe a colony of one type of peacock or a few males, maybe some mbuna, it all depends what you like and what will work. Have a look around on the net, have a look in other peoples tanks petshops etc and get some names of fish you like and then see if they will work with what you already have in there.

Add more yellows, maybe some demasoni or something for a different colour? The greshaki can be very aggressive so be careful with them in a smaller tank esp when kept with more peaceful species like peacocks. I think you just need to have a look around and see what is out there, see what you like and see if it is suitable for your tank there are plenty of options out there

Hey Chilli I am sorry to hear about this, I can fully understand why you would be mad.. They have a responsibility to you to at lest keep in touch with you considering they have a large amount of your money.. Here is hoping they do get in touch and sort this out I know there are others too who have been left hanging.. Awesome work livingart glad to see that someone can help out and get these beardies somewhere nice to live.

Sounds like it might work out if livingart can meet you I will send you a pm to get more details Sandy..

I have never kept them but have been tempted on occasion, they would probably be ok temperment wise with your johannii, mixing any mbuna of the same family esp 2 melo's is risking cross breeding.. Its always a weigh up, personally I think you are best to stock up your tank with fish you can easily tell apart (ie no mixing peacocks with brown females) and remove them when you want to breed. If they do breed and any fry survive then keep them as hybrids or give them away to someone who wont breed them.

I would like to get some fish to livingart, these fish will take a large polybox so shipping would be cost prohibitive if anyone is going that way already and has some spare room it would be awesome

Melanochromis joanjohnsonae - Rainbow Melanochromis Cool fish generally look like this http://www.onzemalawicichliden.eu/Melan ... ae%205.jpg

Sounds like most of them are covered here, a few other melo species have orange females too but we don't get them in NZ maybe we have interuptus but who knows Be very careful with the blue male/orange female estherae it is almost a recipe for people to stick random blue zebra males with orange females and call them true.. I don't know if we have the blue male/orange female strain in NZ, to my knowledge all ours are pink or orange males and orange females.

Your tank looks cool That kadango should look good when coloured up. lol looks like he is trying to breed with that yellow I wouldn't put it past him as some melo's girls are a golden colour...

I don't like your chances of scoring and snapping perspex around a corner but I haven't tried it so who knows.. This sounds like a perfect opportunity to get some tools My jig saw cost me $10 from the warehouse that is all you would need, maybe some clamps apart from that its easy, you could maybe even try and do it by hand with a coping saw for curves and hacksaw for straight bits.. Failing that I am sure you have a friend with tools?

Ditto Gutted to hear about the losses though Especially the pemba's! I hope the new owner manages to get them going..

It depends on how much carbon you have and how much it is actually having to do.. If you aren't using carbon for any specific reason (ie med removal) then I would just remove it and not use it.. It has been a long time (years) since I have used it in any of my 20 odd tanks and I have had no problems or need to use it.