ryanjury

Awesome good work Simon!

Probably some good ones here.. http://www.cichlid-forum.com/tanks/ Also the good old google search brings up tons.. http://www.google.co.nz/images?hl=en&q= ... 66&bih=587

Marine fish/corals get all their minerals from the water, it is in the instant salt or seawater that you use, if you top up with tap water etc then you can add nutrients which over time can cause issues.

Yeah don't use pure RO water it is too pure and you will have mineral deficiencies with your fish, you need to add a trace elements mix to it.

The tropheus would be a good choice, I would be inclined to get more bulus than 10 though they are nasty little buggers.. I have found the tropheus harder to keep but worth it, I have had a few cases of bloat and lost a couple, and I am yet to have them breed but they will get there one day The shellies will breed in a tank with tropheus too, my shellies breed happily in my tank with tropheus dubs, columbian tetras and clown loaches I just remove the shell when the fry become free swimming, I usually miss a few fry which the parents continue to protect and they hide quite well so it is good to watch.

I think the copper ones are bad.. I remember people telling me they used to stick them in their tank to get rid of snails and things.

Sweet that's a good sized 3ft, it is probably big enough for you to do demasoni as well if you liked them. Just chuck some coral/limestone rocks in and things should stay pretty stable.

Sounds like a good start, electric yellows aren't that fussy but best to keep PH above 7 and water relatively hard. What size tank are you putting them in? And are you planning on putting anything with them or a species tank?

Ditto

Are you going to stick all of those fish in a 3ft tank Or is that your wish list? Have you been through that list and seen what of those fish you like and what may be suitable going on internet profiles etc? Have you googled "3ft dwarf cichlid tank" and seen what pops up. I know we can try and give you all the answers but you will probably learn alot more if you do a quick google and see what you can find and what you actually like and then ask more questions from there.

And you just never know the sunsun heaters could be just as good as an eheim/jagar, it is very likely they are not but you just never know

What an awesome fish! Gutted you lost the females, but there are a few of us holding our breath for them to be bred, no pressure Jen

Yeah they are cool too Really depends what you want, with the americans you tend to have lower stocking levels because of their aggression but the fish are pretty cool. I prefer a whole wall of colour coming up to meet me and being busy and looking awesome which is why I do and suggest the africans, others may prefer more subtle looks or even those big bland monster fish :)

It really depends what you want to get out of it and what you like, I love the tropheus don't get me wrong, but they are expensive, slow growing and can just all turn over and die. In a 720L tank to actually do it justice you would want to buy at least 30-40 tropheus otherwise you would have an empty tank even once they grew up, and if you wanted to breed up more then you would have to be patient enough to do so. The haps are cheap extremely hardy and easy to source breed etc, I know most people who walk into my fish room comment on how awesome the big male giraffe is but not many notice the tropheus although I prefer the ikola more.. Cost depends on what you want, males or bigger fish go for more but smaller fish to grow out are pretty cheap you could grow them out see what you like and thin out females as you go, things like dolphins/yellows look good in a group of males/females so could probably be left alone.

You can stick alot of fish in there providing you have the filtration to back it up, my 540L looked like this at one stage.. http://s47.photobucket.com/albums/f183/ ... 00x600.jpg and still has a heap of fish in it. Male only would be awesome but you have the issue of sourcing all the males and getting it to balance, you have the advantage of a nice big tank which will help. Ideally it would work best if you could source 2-3 males of each type you liked at the same size and add them all together adding a heap of fish at once so they hopefully sort themselves out.

lelu and shellies are also supposed to be a bad mix when the lelu are adults but yeah a tang tank would be cool too

Fish are not designed to live in a sterile environment, I have heard suggestions that running a UV in a tank full term makes fish more susceptible to issues when you turn it because they are used to living in a sterile environment and loose their natural immunity. Unsure how true it is but it seems to have some logic behind it. Do you have issues with parasites/viruses atm? If anything I would purchase one and just have it on hand in case you get white spot or something like that.

If you were going africans the haps would be the way to go.. I would do 6-10 of D comp, electra, giraffes, kadango, taiwan reef and you could do livingstonii/polystigs as well. Maybe add 20 or so yellows to put some yellow in the tank for something different, it would be awesome. All of the fish except the polystig/taiwan reefs (although I already have a spawn of these growing out so others should as well) should be easily and cheaply available from breeders I know I have and could breed the first 5 on my list anyway.

You have to have an african tank at some stage, 720L would be awesome.. A big hap tank, or tropheus or even fronts..

I love externals, they are out of the tank and really powerful, also they are fine for 6-12months without needing cleaning so there is stuff all mucking around with them. The aqua ones are good because you just unscrew the taps and move the whole canister away to clean it, the good thing about aqua one is although they are cheap I have never broken a tap on them and I am pretty rough with them so that is good in my books.

lol good luck getting all of those fish But good suggestion, I would probably drop it down to the 1 pair of apistos and one pair of rams maybe even ditch the rams in favour of some kribs or something like that because the rams are pretty hard to look after, well some have luck but most usually loose them quite quickly and they are expensive fish.

Why not get those divers to try and catch them and keep them in your tanks..

I would suspect ammonia spike too, do lots of water changes and hope it helps. From memory ammonia burns the gills so the fish may breath fast for because of that, or they may be too far gone already to help.

I don't know much about cameras but you may get an older model with higher specs second hand on trademe, obviously there are risks with that and if it is a gift it is a bit rough but might be an option.

Just helping d-hawk here he has already told me the tank is three foot long, 36cm high and 32 deep. I know it has been said before but what type of cichlids are you interested in d-hawk? Dwarf cichlids? Central american? African etc? What colours do you hope to get.. With that tank size you are pushing it for most african cichlids, you could do gold shellies or some jullies or dems when smaller but ideally even they would need a bigger tank. Peacocks/yellows would be ok for a while as well but would probably need more room eventually too.