ryanjury

As Smidey said the exact PH level isn't really important, I don't even measure mine but have things to buffer the water in every tank, you want to aim for over 7 and stable. All of the fish you have listed are available in NZ, I am not sure you will find that variant of fryeri but you can definitely get fryeri here, let me know if you need demasoni I have heaps and can ship them down to you.

Electric blues are quite common now. They are pretty easy to get as well.

I would probably do a few male electric blues or peacocks, I wouldn't attempt to do 3 species with females in a tank that size.. Although the trouble with the male peacocks etc is getting the tank to balance because they can be quite agro to each other but it can be done. 12 demasoni would be fine.

Demasoni are aggressive but fine if you keep a group of them, ice blues would grow too big/agro for your tank unfortunately.

I was meaning the quarantine period when they arrive in NZ to be imported in to the country.

I would say doubledutch is on the money there, dwarf gouramis are prone to all sorts of diseases (hence the requirement to quarantine them for longer).

I agree there isn't much point mucking around with a cf1000 if you can get a cf1200.

Demasoni are smaller and skinnier than yellows so they tend to look balanced with more dems than yellows maybe 8 yellows and 12 dems, auratus and just too agro I wouldn't even attempt them in a tank that small, plus you would already have your blue/yellow with your dems and yellows so why add more fish the same colour? Maybe you could add a male peacock or 2 in to the mix to make things a bit different. And I would recommend an external too, I would recommend an aqua one cf1200 I am not sure if hollywoods are selling them cheap but you used to be able to pick them up for $130-140 brand new.

Def too small for demasoni even more so for auratus. A single male shellie would probably be pretty cool though and would have lots of character with fine gravel with spend his days sifting through it etc.

You should be ok with the demasoni, but you will need to get more than 7 probably more like 12-20, they should be fine in that sized tank.

High action interesting tank with variety you can feed fish and crickets to = Africans my giraffes eat crickets all the time, and you can get all the colours/shapes/sizes and they are always at the front of the tank ready to be fed Here is a 540L African tank I used to have in my kitchen and you could make it look far better than this with some giraffes/kadangos in the mix. Generally you can't have much variety with the big south americans unless you have a much larger tank, they aren't as active as Africans but have allot more individual personality. Frontosas have the size but they are quite shy and not allot of action

Africans Won't be able to get any up to 30cm though but will look far better than any of those combinations... Can't really comment on your selections but seems like allot of big aggressive fish for a 540L tank.. Are you planning on just doing say 1 male of each species or groups?

That sucks! You guys are very lucky no one was hurt, it is always my biggest fear when transporting bigger tanks, there have been a couple of close moments (sweaty hands and swairs) but haven't dropped one yet. With a tank this big inside it is always best to get it repaired correctly I am sure Greg can advise you the best way to do this, but if it is cracked them chances are that will be a new base.

First thing when breeding Africans in a mixed tank the father could be any of the mix of cichlids that you have in the tank, however we will go on with the other questions you have. If you want to save the fry then you need to remove the mother to spit naturally and raise the fry away from the other fish or strip her (take the babies from her mouth when they are ready). Electric yellows like most mbuna can be quite resilient and you can sometimes have 1-2 from each batch survive by just letting natural take its course and having tons of hidey holes in your tank. Net breeders can work however as you have pointed out the adult fish in the tank will attempt to eat the fry through the netting, this sucks them to the net and kills them so you need to have a floating breeding trap inside a net breeder. Or a similar set up which gives you 2 separated layers so the fish can't suck the fry on to the netting. Most net breeders have good circulation, you can pick up breeding traps up an drain some water and let fresh water flow back in, I tend to chuck an air stone in if I am using a breeding trap to ensure good water flow. Physical waste (ie fish poo) isn't really harmful to the fish at all the nasty stuff is all invisible and dissolved and is usually taken care of by normal circulation and your tank filters. Another option would be to get a small tank, heater and filter it can all be sourced cheaply these days.

Nice fish and pics man! Blue rams usually eat their eggs well before free swimming so your pair are doing better than most!

The onus is most definitely on the insurance company to prove it, they cannot just go around declining claims without proving things, tons of claims go to the small claims courts and insurance companies have to cross their ts and dot their Is. My partner has been in insurance for many years and her and I have argued these (and many other common insurance misconceptions) plenty of times, she says it is included in here: http://www.nzlii.org/nz/other/nzlc/repo ... R46-3.html I haven't read it though. I think the police could definitely do you for "driving an un-roadworthy vehicle" because it had failed a WOF and been determined as being un-roadworthy and you were still driving it regardless of if you were getting parts or not. I think in this case it would depend on the police officer that pulled you over and what sort of mood they were in.

This is not true, the insurance company would have to prove that the item that failed the WOF contributed to the crash - ie if you failed for having bad brakes and a crash was caused where you failed to stop in time it would be contributing. But if you failed for a bit of rust in your windscreen and it didn't contribute to the crash you would be covered. Insurance companies have to prove you are not covered as per the terms and conditions on your policy and I don't believe having a current WOF/REGO is a condition.

You could build something outside and put your air pump outside and plumb it in, mine is just plumbed using 13mm irrigation tubing and droppers going out to gang valves. From memory the pond one is quiet - I researched getting one to do my room with, but I ended up with a compressor because they were easy to source and cheap.

I have heard good things about the pond one pumps in fishrooms a friend uses one in his. I currently use a compressor one like the hailea and they are noisy, they also get quite hot and diaphragms wear out, so have spare ones on hand. You can buy sheets of the diaphragm rubber and cut your own. eventually the vibrations get to the electronic components inside and the legs break off the diodes or transformer windings go. They do go for a quite a while though but I would recommend having 2 if you are relying on them, they always go at night when you can't get to the shop to replace them. When I last looked you could get them quite cheaply off trademe as well. I am not sure if the pond one is a compressor type pump. Good luck!

Hi and welcome, Do you have any plans for a tank upgrade any time soon? Zebras will quite quickly outgrow that small tank.. If you need any demasoni I have plenty of fry for sale at the moment and I am pretty close to you.

:slfg: If a zebra is called a blue zebra then it is exactly that it is a zebra and it is blue and it is more than likely a hybrid, a mix of all sorts of species of pure zebras. This is what 99% of the zebras in NZ are. Same with peacocks, people buy peacocks and breed them with anything, they are still a peacock but they aren't a pure breed. Blue zebra is just a common name and is no exact fish, just chuck it in google image search and you will see all sorts pop up, zebras, peacocks and even haps. The big issue is that all zebras and all peacocks will cross breed and people like to keep them in mixed tanks and breed them, that is also coupled with the fact that most fish are hybrids before they even come in to the country because of our importation system. The issue with hybrids is when people buy them and give them pure names, people pay good money for these fish expecting them to be what they have paid for, they are not and people get ripped off and you end up with a whole heap of random fish on the market muddying the (already) terrible gene pool of (in this case) african cichlids in NZ.

I would head to the super market or your LFS and ask for a polybox that holds water, I moved all of my big fish and put them straight in to polyboxes. It works out well because you can put quite a bit of water in there and you don't have to bag them all up and they stay warm, when you get to the other end and have your tank up and running you already have them in a container to siphon water straight in to start acclimatising them.

It is an interesting debate on the whole hybrid thing.. I am not a fan of them either, but I am in the same boat as the OP at the moment, I took a punt buying some unknown fish off a random and ended up with hybrids.

I would go with hybrid, flavus aren't in the country (at least in any pure form I am aware of but who knows what people have). Plus 99% of the zebras in the country are hybrids so the odds of a pure flavus just randomly showing up are slim to none.

Jacobs and ice blues would be good with them, however I have had nothing but issues with ice blues when they get bigger aggression wise. Others have had differing degrees of luck with them.