ryanjury

I reckon you have room for more dolphins too, and I agree great fish.

You should be able to find a land scape supplier who will sell smaller quantities or show up at 4.30 on a stinking hot Friday with beers and cash I am sure they will sell you a few

Yes limestone rock is great for african tanks.

Unless he has the matching females (which he wont for all the strains you have because I know the guy who is selling them is only selling males) then again he is stupid if that was his plan because he would only produce hybrids. I wouldn't place much stock on any advice this guy offers if he recommends a 24 hour quarantine in his sump tanks.

:nfs: Shame we don't get them all here!

lol maybe I lost track here but I thought we were talking about Cyprichromis.. Yes Ikola should be relatively easy to get, I wouldn't recommend them though, I went through quite a few (and quite a few $$) and had no luck with them another mate I know brought 40 and still had no luck, they are pretty agro..

I have tried the begging and pleading however no one seems to have anything on these fish unfortunately.

No arguement needed, they were imported under the old scheme many years ago, when MAF did a revamp of the list (went from allowed genuses to speciffic fish) they asked shops/importers/fish keepers to provide evidence of fish that were in the country. Evidence could include photos, import/wholesale lists etc, it appears that no evidence was submitted for these fish so they were not added. If someone was to have an old import list or wholesale list lying around then they could be added. There are other fish that are unfortunately in the same boat and now no longer allowed to be imported.

Looking at the list of fish you are getting I think I know where you are getting the peacocks from so you shouldn't have any disease issues with them. I agree, it is a nice stocking list it will be interesting to see how they all get along, hopefully it doesn't turn in to world war 3 in your tank, but you have a nice list of different fish there and getting them all at the same time and hopefully around the same size should increase the chances it will work.

Yeah it is a shame that they died out, have heard rumours of them still being around but who knows where... I saw a pair quite a few years ago but the male killed the female and then the male eventually died. I like giraffes too They have always been a big fav of mine, used to love the ones that were pushing 25cm at butterfly creek, along with the giant kadangos.. I always thought putting less light on the tank would bring the fish out more because the fish would feel more confident, especially with a low light fish like fronts.

Absolutely no point at all, as living art has suggested there is no disease that will disappear in 24 hours and most wont disappear on their own, quarantine is usually for 2-3weeks min, and the worst place to do it would be in a sump which would feed any diseases etc through any tank it was hooked up to. What other fish do you have and do you have an empty tank to put them in for a while? What sort of peacocks did you get?

Again.. I agree they would be awesome for this purpose I will be very interested to hear how the lighting goes it is not something I have considered.

I would probably have to agree with smidey here, I have had tanks like this too, the fish just seem to be really skittish in there for no apparent reason.. It can be lighting or position of tank or even tank mates. I have found fronts quite skittish maybe everything else is skittish because they are?

You might have to look non tang to fill the gap, either some haps or even something robust and schooling like rainbow fish or I have used things like coumbian tetras etc in the past.

I just had rocks and stuff scattered around the bottom, nothing more than half the height of the tank. What tropheus do you have?

Whenever I have kept tropheus they have always cruised around all levels of the tank..

You can do electric blues, electric yellows and dems, the giraffes will outgrow the tank eventually, the fronts will def get too big and the jacks (assuming jack Dempsey), convicts and kribs all prefer different water conditions to Africans so wont really get along. I have kept clown loaches with Africans with no issues but it isn't really recommended due to differing water conditions they prefer.

I would go with the 1 big filter and a 300W jager too, although I have found nothing wrong with aqua one heaters for the price they are quite good, they don't tend to jam on and cook tanks of fish like other cheap heaters out there. Good luck with your set up, what is your planned stocking list?

search.php?keywords=tortoise&terms=all&author=&sc=1&sf=all&sk=t&sd=d&sr=posts&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=Search You might have some looking contacting people in this search

Smidey hit the nail on the head.. Your taiwans would be fine and your giraffes would be fine until they got some good size on them (and possibly even long term). But you wouldn't have much luck with breeding groups in there if you wanted to go with big haps. I have also found that giraffes don't like breeding in busy tanks, well they breed but they are quite big and stupid and if other smaller faster fish are in the tank they sneak in and eat all the eggs so the breeding is unsuccessful. My suggestion to you would be look at buying a bigger tank say 5x2x2 then you can stick all your haps etc in that, hopefully it is big enough for them to be happy especially with a higher stocking level. Then you could use your 4ft as a breeding tank for the haps. If you had to stick with your 4ft I would keep all your taiwans and see how they work out, maybe thin out a few males, and your yellows/dems maybe some peacocks, it wouldn't be the best breeding setup but would look good and some of the fish might breed.

Your tank is probably a bit small for mixed hap tank long term they are generally big open water fish, you could probably do the taiwans though I found them to be quite small and peaceful, and kadangos or giraffes when younger I bred my giraffes in a 4ft tank for a while but had to move them to a 5ft. Regarding cross breeding the only way to guarantee they wont cross breed (ie if you plan to breed for sale) is to breed them in species tanks, any and all mouth brooding Africans can and will cross breed. Fish of the same genus ie red empress and Taiwan reefs, or 2 zebra or peacock species will cross breed more readily than say a hap and a mbuna would. Of course there are exceptions to this, and no one can say what will or wont cross. Another issue you may have in a tank this size when you start trying to have multiple haps is when they get bigger a dominant one will emerge and he will most likely breed with all the girls or stop smaller groups from breeding. My suggestion would be to go with a group of haps a group of peacocks and a group of mbuna maybe dems and yellows because these don't seem to cross. The peacocks in this tank set up may get a hard time but might be ok you would have to see how the dynamics work out.

I wouldn't waste my time with the bacteria in a bottle, and I would also have transferred all or 90% (if you wanted to keep the little tank running) of the media to the bigger tank. It is hard to say if you have transferred enough, I usually don't transfer much and start off with a light stocking in a bigger tank (like you have) and I have no issues. Just feed lightly and monitor things, 7 yellows in a 185L tank is going to be a very small bioload. Regarding keeping the other tank running, unless the bacteria is being fed (ie fish or source of ammonia in the tank) it is supposed to die off. I have always left tanks running and empty with no issues so I think some bacteria survives, but I am very cautious and build up stock slowly in those tanks to make sure I don't crash the tank. The best way to do it would be to transfer all the media and then just grab a bit out when you want to use the little tank.

If you already have electric yellows in another tank that is running and cycled why not transfer the media (or most of the media so you leave your other tank cycled) and the fish at the same time? The media you already have will be cycled and transferring that will get the other filter up and running, plus 7 electric yellows aren't going to make much of a bio load in a 185L tank. It is very important to think about cycling with tanks but as soon as you have one up and running there is no real need to start from fresh with all the methods described above. Even when you are first starting out it is far better to beg borrow or steal media from local fish keepers to get your tanks started and just build up on fish gradually over a period of time to avoid any spikes or tank crashes.

I was thinking more of ethical reasons - haps are big open water fish and jamming them in to a small tank wouldn't be something I would do or recommend, but they would be fine for a while until they get too big. Demasoni I have found to only be really aggressive to their own kind and normal aggression to other kinds when they enter in to the spawning areas when breeding. The aggression to their own kind is minimised by having lots of demasoni to spread it around, I have been keeping them for many years in many different types of setups. I guess like anything it depends on what luck you have had with fish, some people have fish that thrive in the most unlikely situations or fish that behave differently to what they should. And every tank dynamic is different which makes it interesting.

Probably pushing it with kadangos, bumblebees or ice blues in a 185L tank, you may get away with it but I have seen some pretty big kadangos around and ice blues are down right nasty..