ryanjury

Sponge filters are what you use when your breeding and you don't want the eggs to be sucked up.. Mine spawned all the time I fed them up on whiteworms and daphnia I had blues and golds breeding like mad, I killed all the babies though either before or just afte free swimming so haven't figured that out yet, I then lost all the blues and all the golds except for one male I have just brought some more blues so hopefully I can get them breeding, and hopefully one of the blue females breeds with the gold

I don't use it and haven't used it for ages, I only used it on my discus tank it was a PITA to use when I did water changes straight from the tap.. I have never had a problem. I always top up the (this is going to sound bad) more disposable fish tank first just in case there is an excess chlorine problem or something random going on but have never seen it. I do have dechrolinator on hand just in case, and I would recommend the stuff I have it goes a long way and costs stuff all.

Yeah I think that would work im not game enough to try it though sudden changes in diet or the wrong food can cause bloat and that sucks! lol Id rather eat snapper! Sounds like you have it sorted Johannes People do have to bear in mind what fish they do have and their natural diet, alot of the haps/peacocks are predators and like meaty foods whereas alot of the mbuna, demasoni for example are vegetarian's. Tropheus are another that are known for getting bloat I only had one and he was sweet until I ran out of vege flake fed him normal cheap flake for a few days and he got bloat and died real fast as did some of the mbuna which I managed to save. As I mix both in the same tank I feed them mainly vege's and the hap's seem to do well but it is probably not ideal.

The cheaper they are the worse they are Talked to a guy in a petshop down there and he had a fire caused by one of those cheap multiboards burnt out his room killed half his fish.. The fire fighters said it was very common for them to cause problems.. Hmm luckily my fishroom is in the garage surrounded by fireproof poly I guess Glad to hear all is well if you want more fish let me know

I think being a hybrid their colours can vary But I don't know much about them..

What type of cichlids? Mine get NLS spirilina flake and my homemade frozen food.. I don't cheap normal flake or bloodworms or other really meaty foods it causes bloat and other problems Ive had bloat once when I fed some cheap normal flake and I can tell you when there are plenty of other safer foods out there its not worth the risk to me.

lol I only just picked up on that.. I must have done the whole reading the first and last letter thing and making the word work.. Anyway your tank is a relatively good size you could try some zebra's and other peacocks in there but noone can really be too sure how it will work out when they get bigger and potentially agro, how much scope do you have to rehome/setup a new tank?

Could just do 2 jebo 819's if you were on the cheap

Theres one here Tiden http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/some-o ... 30310.html

Mine have just bred I have had them in a tank in the fishroom water changes every couple of weeks just plain old food, they do get agro though mine killed most of my adult albino koi swords once they laid :evil: But nice fish and they seem easy to breed..

They're just mutants lol

Sorry to hear about your losses I hope everything else up there is going well for you.. I would rinse out the media as well as you can and get the filter going asap I would also seed it with media from one of your other tank's. Keep doing the water changes and doing your water tests im sure it will all pickup I have had the same thing happen. Even move the fish out to another tank if you can. And the fish will gasp at the surface because their gills have been smashed around basically they're being poisoned by the ammonia and they are struggling to breath increasing oxygen can help but the first thing should be to get the ammonia down and get some filtration going to hopefully keep on top of it. Good luck I hope you loose no more also keep an eye on the the remaining fish for a while for any secondary problems aficans are tough so they should be fine

You can do peacocks and yellows in that tank.. Maybe some zebra's but they tend to get big and agro and can take over. The reason I usually recommend demasoni is because they look cool especially in larger numgers) stay small and are more likely to work long term in smaller tanks, other combo's may work but sometimes only while the fish are young or only if you get a mellow male. If you have a heap of tanks then you can afford to try weird and wonderful combinations because you have the ability to remove fish as they get beaten up..

25% water change is the same no matter how big your tank is? lol If you do more water changes then you can remove more crap and the fish will grow faster.. That (and the fact that they are very very sensitive to crap in the water and can be stunded easily) is why discus keepers do upto 90% water changes daily..

How big is your tank?

Yeah it can work I have seen it done.. But I would go for singles unless you have a huge tank and evern then it would have to be 4-5ft min as acara's and firemouth's get big, they may get too agro and big for the keyhole though.. I don't understand why people want to mix them all lol IMO you can get a much better display by sticking to africans or to americans

Yep unfortunately they do exist...

Your tank is overfiltered and not that heavily stocked measure your nitrates you could get away with 2 weekly water changes or more Small daily water changes are nice for the fish but as Ira pointed out not as good as 1 larger one, just change 25% daily and watch your fish grow like weeds!

Yeah I have heard that they are in the country Mekhaela was telling me she had some when I talked to her last.. I know where your coming from but it is very very hard to id fish just from pics on the internet and pays for people to stick with the names that come with the fish, alot of dodgy melo's have come in under random names and because the males are all very similair there could have been a cross there that wasn't picked up and is hard to id for. I have some johannii here I got from Mekhaela and they look good I have bred a few generations from them and all come out the same, I have been staying away from the melo's on the list due to the random "blue melo's" "golden johannii" and others coming through just doing random stuff who knows what they actually are personally I think its exporters getting a load of random crap most other countries wont accept and sending it to one of their smaller customers who wont complain..

It sounds like your talking about an airpump with airstone attached? If you need it or not depends on your stocking levels and tank size.. If you can turn it off and the fish don't start breathing heavily or gasping at the surface then its not needed. If you aim your external filter spraybars so they're disturbing the surface or stick them above the water level so they create surface movement it will achieve the same thing but it pays not to rely on this just in case the spraybar falls in and all your fish suffer.. Airstones just increase the surface area and aid in the oxygen exchange the bubbles do nothing except move the water, so if your overstocked you can create heaps of surface movement and the fish will be ok? If that makes any sense.

I kept mine in an african tank for a while and I have seen them in a few african tanks since it doesn't mean its right but it can work.. they do tend to get big so unless you have a huge tank its probably not a good idea

I do have 14 or so in my colony and they're doing well none are getting beaten or anything so I don't mind if they weren't doing well id keep more, im keen to try and find some unrelated ones to add at some stage Im adding 4-5 each spawn and going to stop around 30-40 of them maybe seperate out some males who knows.

Eheim classic would be too small you would have to go for one of the eheim pro's which is big big $$ for that tank.. FX5 is rated for 1500L tank but I would run 2 if I had a tank that big probably max 1000L lightly stocked.. The intake is massive I have it at one end and the outlet as far towards the other end as possible pointing keeping things stirred up.. Seems to do the job. Mine came with media because I brought it second hand, I believe it comes with the sponges you just have to get biomedia noodles and the like which you can buy from shops or might have lying around it does take a heap of it though I emptied 3 cycled filters worth into mine when I got it. I think that blue ran another filter for CO2 or something? Another great thing is it comes with a spare hose attachment and you stick an inch and a half pipe on it and it and use it to pump the water out for your water changes..

Yeah I love the little guys I am soo tempted to keep all the babies and get a massive colony lol But everyone always pm's and I sell them all I am slowly adding a few each spawn and the colony is building up

Glad to hear all is ok My fish look like that if they eat too much also but it doesn't seem to cause any problems..