ryanjury

I have done plenty of tanks with white substrate but I am a fan of the darker stuff now.. I would suggest doing a google image search for african tanks or malawi tanks or tang tanks and just seeing what pops up and what you like..

What fish and where from?

Black sand looks good it allows the fish to be the focal point of the tank as they contrast nicely against it.. But I guess it depends what type of african cichlid you are planning on doing?

Zebra plecos are awesome I am glad to hear someone has bred them and they are getting spread around.. I like to breed the snot out of stuff especially stuff that is harder to get, my main motivation for this is to get the fish out there in the hope that we will keep species in NZ. You just never know what will never be imported again, talking to people who kept fish 20+ years ago we had all sorts of things in the country that we now don't have and will never (legally) be imported again maybe if these people had forums/trademe and bred the snot out of things and spread them all over NZ we would still have them? I know some people are against this because with supply/demand if you supply more prices drop and that makes sense but wont help us if MAF just closed the borders and we lost half the species we now have in the country. Either way as I started out zebra plecos look cool

Gutted I am surprised anyone could get near your place without being seen/heard! I hope he gets recovered soon..

Hi and welcome, pleny of info on keeping africans in the cichlid section and plenty of us keeping them too

Black blotches can be caused by foods high in spirulina but it is usually harmless..

Hi and welcome, nice tank and good build

I keep Columbian tetras and they are awesome, I keep mine with tropheus, shellies and clown loaches they seem to be robust enough to house with africans which is good.

Sorry to hear about your loss.. Now is about the time you would expect the mum to start eating them (preparation for spawning again if the male isn't removed) or when the fry would get a little more independent and may start to wander so could be either one.. Sorry to hear about the male good work on the spare male though, sounds like she is a good mum so that is a great start.

Yeah I can imagine the costs/risks of running a marine tank would be quite high.. Depending on the tank size an african tank dems/yellows and some peacocks would give a similar impact and be very low care (I am slightly biased). Do let us know what you find though, have you gone through the yellow pages and looked up aquarium hire?

I don't think it is worth that much money.. JMO though. Where in the South Island are you living.. You can get alot of tank/tanks for $1850 I don't think all the fish tanks I own (40+) and gear owe me that much.

What type of tank is it? You can usually source 5fters for alot less than that? Unless it is some fancy tank.. Seems like an awful lot of money to me..

I moved 40 odd tanks from Bulls to Auckland using NZ van lines, all the tanks were wrapped in bubble wrap, I had 4-5 break which were insured so it was all good. I moved 25odd from Auckland to Bulls and didn't loose any (one got chipped) so it is just the luck of the draw. The tank size you are looking at is a fairly standard and easy to source tank I would question the merit of paying for transport/insurance when it may just be cheaper to order one somewhere locally and drive and get it yourself with a trailer and some poly..

Should be the same as other swordtails, sometimes they are a little bit aggressive and get a bit bigger than the other fish.. The male may be considering breeding with the female guppies as well..

Yeah they should all be looking similar I picked this guy out of around 30 males so hope he is pretty good.. Haven't been breeding mine though have other things to work on atm and think I have spread these guys pretty well so hopefully they will get out there for the future..

Nice pics Good luck!

I think Silica sand is on trademe in 1kg lots for stuff all and that is white.. Black sand just cruise out to a black sand beach and grab some..

Joe I finally got some pics of one of the various red faced males I have, this guy is only small still so is yet to get all of his colour..

Hard to tell could be some sort of worm or if they are in with bigger fish they could be being beaten up/not getting a chance to get any food so starving.

One type is always going to do better in the environment you put them in, do better on your food or be naturally more dominant than the other..

Sometimes you can get away without a receipt if you know the time/date you brought it they can look through the computer system and find it for you..

I regularly mix fry from my africans and grow them out together.. You just have to make sure you don't mix fish that look the same so you can tell them apart again. I also have to match aggression/growth rate/size and it is always the way that one type doesn't do as well as the other.

Maybe not swap but do store credit/refund if it is still in its original retail packet, receipt and all that sort of stuff and you talk very nicely to them. Just say you have done research and you are not happy with it as long as they can stick it back on the shelf it should be ok.

I had 2-3 of them and they were pretty crap really they don't seem to have a good rep around the place, I am unsure if mine were the latest design though so maybe they have fixed them?