ryanjury

lol cheers what a nube :oops: You never know though they might still be looking..

I found this thread here viewtopic.php?f=17&t=36109&p=394418&hilit=charters+new+plymouth#p394418 I knew it was somewhere just had to test out the search function which worked very well

Hi Gretal go here viewtopic.php?f=6&t=35095 and email Phil, he will put you in touch with alot of local fishkeepers I know I have seen stacks of poly in a guys garage over there and seen him email out offers for people to come and help themselves I can give you some but I am a wee way away from you.. Other options are doing a ring around warehouse etc and seeing if they having any lying around in skips from packaging etc sometimes its thin so depending on tank size you have to do a few layers..

I think it equates to a if your going to actually identify something then use a Sc name if at all possible because common names cause confusion and don't actually identify anything..

I think it all depends what size tank you have and how mature the fish are.. Also sometime you do just get bullies who will destroy any female you give to them.. How big is your tank MJ? It is a rather interesting mix you have. I successfully kept cobalts in a pair in a big mixed tank with no problems, but I cannot take them out and put them into their own tank for breeding as there are not enough targets and then male hunts out the female and bashes her. Had the same problem with Afra but managed to breed them through a divider and then grow out all the offspring so will keep a heap of female.. Generally with mbuna 1m to 2-3+ females works alot better.

That's cool, I am glad you got one Yeah I would say clear is almost a necessity, especially if you have small fish or sand in the tank and are siphoning out a window or down the sink, it pays to know when your sucking your sand or fish up...

I wouldn't be in any hurry to breed from them anyway, the last pic you posted isn't a red zebra.. It would be interesting to post some more pics of all of them and see what they are all, you may have brought a bunch of hybrids or mixed up zebras.. As adodge said sometimes the eyes get better by themselves as long as the eye isn't going fluffy then fungus hasn't set in and there is a chance, of course they could already be gone..

I don't think formalin is all that flash to use anymore as phoenix said it can be quite nasty.. What about the white spot cure you can already buy from the petshops? Or plain old rock salt? Also I am worried that you "raised your temp to 27.5" what temperature were you keeping your discus at? They should be kept at 28minimum even upto 30 everyday, maybe this stressed them making them more susceptible to white spot? Whatever you treat with you need to keep treating after the spots disappear to kill any the whitespot spores in the water are killed.

lol but Sandy's tank is very deep I can see why she would be looking for a longer one, I used to have a 80cm cube tank that I had to buy a deeper one for because even on a chair my arms weren't long enough to reach the back of the tank with a small one.. Sandy I will have a look see if I have a spare long one in all my boxes of "treasure" (also know to my wife as junk) and let you know Otherwise just keep an eye on trademe its the type of thing that gets sold on there for $1 occasionally..

Awesome that's alot of blue ram fry good work Now to raise them Feed them when they are fully free swimming (ie not just taking little jumps off the bottom). Be very careful not to overfeed or underfeed as both will result in you loosing fry (you should see their tummies fill up and go pink with brineshrimp white with micros). Also try and do lots of little water changes with preheated water of the same parameters that many fry will foul the water quite quickly, from what I have seen with others who have managed to raise the fry, it is very common to have lots of fry in the beginning but only raise 20 or so.

Yeah I'd go with overfeeding too, and I'd put my money on that homemade mix you are feeding to be the problem... Homemade foods are notoriously messy (and very hard to judge how much is enough so easy to overfeed) with all the fine blended particles you need to have a good clean up crew to feed it out often, my tanks all went green and stunk when I fed it out daily. I would cut back on your homemade food to a small amount once or twice a week and feed flake once a day until things get under control.

Sorry to hear about this Barrie, I know that you have offered nothing but good advice and helped alot of people out on here. Your experience in your line of work is often called upon and is invaluable in this hobby, not to mention the things you do with the killie club there have been many who I know have received freebies or invaluable advice from you. Unfortunately you have pointed out the main reason why there are alot of very experienced people who don't bother to post and try and help people out. It is nothing to do with the mods or the way the forums are being run it is the people on here and the way they take things some people just can't take good advice, and also seem to want to take everything as a personal attack. It is very hard to express tone or intent through typing and people always seem to read into everything and see what is not there or meant Anyway Barrie I know there are plenty of people who appreciate your advice and help so I hope that you keep continuing to offer it.

There is a wicked mini golf place by buterfly creek

Have you considered just painting the back of the tank and putting some pieces of limestone or crushed coral in to buffer the water? This my tank and the huge rock piles that I used to build, gave up on it as the fish seem to do well with minimal hiding places and I got sick of having to take all the rocks out to catch a fish, I was also having heaps of hybrid babies surviving because of all the hiding places so had to get rid of them.. http://s47.photobucket.com/albums/f183/ ... 00x600.jpg I would like to give building one a go at some stage too I think they look wicked but a bit worried about painting it etc Maybe one day. Concrete raises the PH not a problem for the africans

Yeah I agree with Caryl here.. If you use any of that stuff, yes it will fix the problem, but your tank wont cycle and you wont be able to test our ammonia.. It is likely your ammonia was high because your tank wasn't cycled so it is always best to do the water changes even upto 50% twice a day until the ammonia levels start to drop and the tank cycles.

I have no idea about the specific genetics involved there are plenty here who do though.. What I would do is stick the male to your virgin females, generally you need to pick the female/females with the traits you want to breed from but I doubt you will find any lyretail ones.. You need to grow out the babies from this pairing and breed the male back to the virgin females from that spawn you should get some of the trait you want to breed for in that spawn as you have bred it into the babies and then bred it back to the original.

Having a male wouldn't have helped the problem fish become egg bound with mates too it just happens and plenty of people keep solo females with no problems. PC means planet catfish, like everything it is always best to submit photos or harder questions to more specialised international forums where many of the dedicated experts hang out.

lol that fish isn't a red zebra either looks more like an ice blue to me red zebras should be orange or a pinky/white with a blue tinge. Typical of what you buy off trademe when you get zebras Can you take another photo, I would say the best thing to do is to catch the fish take them out of the water turn your macro on and get someone to take a descent photo of the eye and don't resize them too much so we can actually see what's going on. Phoenix there are tons of people who sell dodgy fish on trademe very common with the africans esp zebras, people buy them from all over the place and attempt to match them up with dodgy photo's off the net and they are usually hybrids.. You also get alot of the "photo off the net but fish are identical" and you show up and find a completely different fish.. I don't know if stress coat would actually do anything? I have never used it, I thought it was one of those products that fishshops pushed and sold but didn't actually do alot to actually cure anything? Are the fish actually blind it is very hard to see what has happened in that photo it is very small, sometimes when fish are first introduced they do dart around the tank when startled and crash into stuff?

Oh well all you can do is place bad feedback so that others are warned there are plenty of dodgy dealers on there always best to try and get them from someone who knows what they're doing, from the looks of the pic you have put up they are pretty poor quality red zebras anyway but that could just be the pic.

Sorry to hear you lost her From the initial photo she looked quite fat when you got her, and from the eggs I would pick egg bound too. From the research I have done (and the egg bound apisto's I have had recently) they can usually reabsorb the eggs and be fine, but if conditions aren't right or your unlucky they can get a bacterial infection which needs to be treated or they die.

Can you post anymore pics? My africans have had a similar problem in the past and I think it comes from the fish smashing its eye into a rock and it becoming infected.. I have treated it by dropping meth blue directly onto the eye (avoiding getting it into the gills). The graze on the eye usually clears up by itself but I put the meth blue on there so that it doesn't become infected and the fish loose its eye, more pictures should be able to clear it up futher although I haven't found fish that photogenic when it comes to taking photos of their eyes or fine details.. It sucks that the person selling the fish wont remedy the problem or even talk to you about it.. The odds of them getting eye damage in bags are very slim so if they were like that when you let them out of the bags then chances are they were like that when they were put in there, maybe that's why they met you? Of course there is every chance they have no idea what they are doing either.. Pop eye is pretty obvious the eyes would be popping right out of the head which they don't look to be doing from your photos.

lol thanks all Yeah it sounds like an investment, I mean who else can I pay $5 pocket money to do water changes for me in a few years and I am sick of doing the lawns too.. lol lmsmith they aren't cheap that's for sure, money isn't the only concern its having the time/energy to get out to the fishroom but I am sure it will all be fine

Wicked man, I have heard the sun does wonders for colour in fish especially red/orange haven't tried any outside myself yet, what type of guppies are those or are they just a mixed bunch?

Generally it is stop or limit the spread of the fungus that occurs with un-fertilised eggs, but wrigglers are still susceptible to fungus so for good measure keep using the meth blue until they are nearing free swimming.

Get your friend to remake NLS and sell it cheaper in NZ with the price of the US $ its worth its weight in gold to import http://www.cichlid-food-canada.com/narticle.html http://www.cichlid-food-canada.com/info.html Lots more info on that site including an interesting bio on the owner.. http://www.cichlid-food-canada.com/story.html