ryanjury

Looking good man Hope she does the distance for you.. Keep me in mind if you do want to sell babies eventually Your female seems to have a very thin band? Is that normal..

It would take forever for one to get to 5inch though

I love my yellow's and so do most people who come over and see my tanks The yellow's and demasoni turn the most heads people always say "the yellow and blue/purple ones are cool" and kids always go for the yellow's.. They even get called taxicabs from some friends kids being yellow and black.. And yellow's don't get big or nasty they'd be lucky to outgrow 4-5" and that would be a very very old one.. I can see why they're popular, they're bright yellow and black awesome colours, they're easy to breed, easy to keep, relatively nice natured.. All good!

Make a durso overflow.. http://www.aurx.net/saltwater/durso.html and keep searching you will find more info and designs You might almost have to do 2 overflows in a tank that size, you would need a great big pump though, there is a big 9000lph one on an auction site at the moment for $120 that might do the trick which is very cheap.. If you cant be bothered drilling your tank building overflows etc don't worry about it and buy a couple of FX5's!

Sounds like spawning activity and turning around to have a feed to me

I'm sure noone will care about you running a lead to your neighbours (with their consent for a few hours, of course you should use an RCD or transformer or something like that and be aware of the weather.. And for only 6 hours im sure the tank will be fine, dont stress too much! Ive had mine with the power out for longer and just made sure the filters started again.. If your worried D/C it and clean it out with tank water and do a water change you will be fine.

If I couldn't get the glass I would still just patch it I have plenty of tanks I got for free that have patched bottoms and even backs and they're fine haven't had one go or even leak.. But I guess thats just what I'm like lol If theres a cheap or easy way of fixing that I consider safe it ill take it

if you just brought them take them straight back.. I know your young and hard up for it.. I have brought a few WCMM and had trouble too couldn't get them healthy..

A new 3ft tank would cost what? $50? And if you had a bit of glass lying around you could fix it for free.. Im sure you could even find someone in Chch with glass to cut you a bottom for free anyway if you were up here id do it for you..

I use the same thickness or thicker than the original bottom, anything bigger than 3ft I don't muck around with

If the crack is clean I just patch where it is cracked.. If it goes to a point or has random chips and stuff then you need a bigger patch as the crack can start again from these points..

FYI http://www.cichlid-forum.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t =154128&highlight=demasoni 29gal long = 76x30x46 cm = 100 odd litres. Personally I wouldn't go smaller than a 3ft

I always just patch them Depending on what glass etc I have I just cover the crack with a piece of glass on the inside and silicon I have some random ones where I've dropped stuff on there and theres a heap of cracks coming out from a hole and have just siliconed over them and got away with it.. However now that I've got a heap of glass lying around I'm getting better at cutting it and replacing all the really smashed up ones lol

I would say 3ft minimum sorry man.. A high tank is no good for them they need territory, although my dominant male's territory is the whole 5x2 base of the tank the other demasoni have somewhere to hide if he has a wobbly or is breeding and none have been damaged severely.

Crushed coral, lime chip (make sure its pure), argonite (sp?), limestone rock, crushed oyster shell's in your filter...

Both The more filtration for any fish the better You don't NEED to raise the ph to 8.2 but you could stick some baking soda in to bring it up a bit Im sure all my tanks are just below 8 some probably a bit lower and the fish are all happy

I used to do my water this way adding baking soda and salt to each 20 litre bucket when I stuck it in but gave up in the end too much work So much easier to stick the hose in each tank and let the coral sand do the buffering.. But if you cant find any you don't really have any option..

I just check it IAW the instructions in whatever test kit im using? lol Usually counting drops till water changes colour..

Why worry for 6 hours? I have had filters with no water flowing through them for upto 24hours and set them up again with the same bioload and done no extra maintenance and been fine?

Gh is general hardness.. Dont you just count the drops until the water changes colour? The more drops the harder the water? So if you drop in 15-20 drops its sweet? Kh is the same thing just count the drops, if your Kh is low your ph will swing all around the place so its good to get that as high as it needs to be..

lol yeah I love the demasoni they're wicked yellow's do take forever to get very big... If you do want demasoni let me know will have a heap of them ready to go in a month or so Yellow's being rift lake african cichlids like a high ph and hard water They will adjust to lower ph's if they have to being so many generations off wild caught but most of us like to try and get the ph up there.

You could keep them with kribs/tetras its not recommended though, electric yellow's are one of the most peaceful africans I have seen them in some random setups doing fine, but they do prefer hard water with a high ph which tetras dont..

wow they are small fish I have done reading and it suggested they dont mature until 15cm's! So I was putting the fact mine weren't successful to that, my males around 12-13cm's and he is not interested in even breeding with the females think he needs to grow up, but I guess its like everything depends on the individual fish yours obviously mature faster.. 10 electra females? You must have alot of tanks to grow all the babies up and hold them until they sell? Or do you use alot of them as food?

Yeah yellow's are always good, I brought a bunch of fish off trademe once, turned up and got the shock of my life.. There was 4f 1m yellow's (breeding) a huge giraffe female (15cmish) and 2 male peacocks happily living in a 60 x 30 x 30cm tank next to this guys bed, have also heard of people keeping all sorts of things in 3ft tanks but probably wouldn't recommend it unless your willing to accept it may just be a grow out tank if things go bad and have breeding nets or spare tanks to rescue fish!

Read the other post You might get away with demasoni and yellow, I have been planning to do it and will give it a go eventually If you wanted to come and have a look give me a yell I'm just down the road and (not trying to sound arrogant) probably have a few more africans than you will see in the shops or most people's houses around here..