ryanjury

4x4 is pretty extreme for a 4ft tank how big is it etc? 4x2 the correct way (ie the strongest lengthwise way) should be fine..

I don't know if turbo 4WD will cost you alot more in insurance it is not like it is a performance car.. For $5k you should get something good but you might have to hunt out something with a few k's but has been well maintained had a recondition etc..

With all the food you feed I would question why the female isn't fattening up? Is she getting enough food? Or does she have some sort of internal problem, have you treated them with anything since you got them? From memory you have been adding fish from all over the show so there is a possibility you may have introduced something? Anyway I would leave them together and see what pairs with what, pairs the fish have chosen are always more successful, but you can always break up undesirable pairs and try and force pairings to see what happens..

You would need alot of lighting to grow plants in a tank that deep Sorry that safety factor article means nothing without the explanation http://www.fnzas.org.nz/index.php?PG=glass1 it is very important because when tanks go they do go in a great hurry and glass that thick will go straight through you or anyone who gets in its way..

Yeah I would chop it down a bit too just to get that safety factor in, I have had a tank 80cm deep before and it was dammed near impossible to work in.. I didn't even bother setting up the 90cm deep 4fters I had (although a guy did buy them for his seahorses funny enough) as they were just too deep.

That is a good price for 12mm glass.. Using the safety factor calculator you only get a safety factor of 2.3 using 12mm I think you are meant to get it over 3 to be safe.. http://www.fnzas.org.nz/index.php?PG=glass3

A 90cm deep tank would also require like 15mm glass to be safe wouldn't it? Meaning the tank would cost mega $$$..

Aim of the game would be to breed the albinos together or to breed them back to their parents to get more..

It is awesome that you got some albinos out of a normal, do you have pictures of the parents or are they out of a mixed tank? Albinos are naturally alot weaker and slower than other fish so it might pay to separate them if you wanted to give them a good chance to get food and grow big and strong.

Also bear in mind that clown loaches are a slow growing fish so it will be a number of years before they actually do outgrow your tank I do agree though petshops should pass on the advice that they should be in groups and in bigger tanks, years ago I was at a shop in Auckland and they told me they wouldn't sell any less than 3 and that they grew big so was impressed with that, but don't think it happens very often.

Wow what a good looking tank, looks like it will be awesome when everything starts growing Good work! Nice combos of fish there too..

The only real way you could be sure that they will get along is if they had been living (in the same sized tank as you have) together for their whole lives and got along, or buy 2 that have paired off. Buying 2 youngsters wont guarantee anything as the aggression issues will start when they mature. Discus and neons get along ok, but neons don't last very long at the higher temps that discus prefer, neons these days don't seem to last very long anyway but they do worse at higher temps, barbs are not known for being fans of high temps either. You are likely to have the same aggression issues between 2 angels as well unless they are a pair then they will be agro to everyone else.. Angels also get big enough to eat neons.

Sorry to hear about your loss I have heard of the same thing happening a few times, I thought the council were supposed to notify you if they made changes to the water? s3xtcy a PH of 3.5 out of the tap sounds extremely low, are you on town supply? Most town supplies are make to be slightly alkaline as it is easier on the piping..

I would try smaller piles and see how that goes for them, try and stack them up higher (obviously being aware of their stability) in the corners to give bullied fish somewhere to hide..

Nice fish One thing I have found with territorial fish is to make clear territories the way you have it it is very easy for a male to lay claim to a large area as it isn't very well broken up. I have also found if a fish does get a hard time it tends to try and find shelter higher in the tank, in your tank these fish going higher have nowhere to go so maybe trying to build a higher stack would be better for the fish that are getting a hard time?

Yeah you need a good number to start off with to spread the aggression sounds like you started off that way which is good, it is also possible you have heaps of males so if things don't settle down then you might need to thin a few out and see how that works out for you. How big is the tank? My colony is at 25 at the moment too with around 10 smaller ones I added to grow up in there and increase numbers, I have had to thin out males a few times and will have to do so again when the smaller ones grow up and start causing trouble. I think you may be at a stage where this is something you should look into if your fish are getting damaged and a real hard time. Their aggression is pretty much only directed at their own kind which is something that I find not alot of people understand, lots of people won't touch them as they think they will destroy all their fish.. I have long finned rosy barbs and swordtails happy as in with my colony/peacocks/yellows. I also have an exception that goes against all the rules (and what I would ever recommend) with my dems in that I have 3 adult males in the same mixed african tank with no damage to any of them only one is fully coloured and obviously dominant but the other 2 are healthy and happy with perfect fins etc. The random barring is normal, I don't keep or breed the fish that have this but it is normal just depends if you like it or not it is not an indication of hybrids or anything it happens in the lake.. Have to disagree with Phoenix I find it better to get the fish smaller and grow them out together so they sort themselves out and grow up together as a colony. As always with a colony forming fish a colony that has grown up from small together will get along better and have more chance of long term success. You will also have more success adding younger fish to your colony if you add them small (and in groups) as they are seen as less of a threat to the bigger fish and can fit into smaller holes so are pretty much left alone. Dem babies are also hardy as, I got my first batch of 65 (5 or so years ago) all of them stripped straight out of their mothers mouth into a bag took them home and raised them with no issues. Breeding is pretty easy just add heaps of rocks and stuff and babies should survive they are pretty tough, and yeah they do start breeding really small but broods are small initially, you can also catch and strip the fish but I find them exceptionally hard to strip and have killed a female or 2 trying to do this so it is not ideal.

Lots of fish in there to pick off the fry.. The most important thing is to make sure you make lots of little hidey holes that are small enough for the fry to hide in but no big enough to let the adults in to get them, layers of stacked up rock or even coral works really well with the little holes..

There are quite a few fish in that tank so I wouldn't be confident of them making it very far probably not even past the egg stage with those algae eaters (they cruise around in the dark and eat the eggs). You can try and leave a night light on so they can attempt to guard them all night if you want to. Also be aware that there is a very limited market for standard kribs make sure you have a petshop that will take them

Firstly congrats on the eggs! What other fish are in the tank? The babies survival depends on what others are cruising around ready to eat them. I have bred kribs with guppies in the tank and had good survival rates the parents guard them quite well. Do you have other tanks to remove and raise the fry? Do you want to? My advice if you wanted to keep as many babies as possible would be to let the parents get them to free swimming and then siphon them into their own tank. Krib fry are very easy to care for they will even go as far as to eat crushed flake or decap brineshrimp. They will go better if you feed them some microworms or newly hatched brineshrimp for the first few weeks. Or of course if you have another tank you could leave this batch and then move the parents (or even move all the other tank mates into another tank so they cannot eat the fry) as it wont be long before they breed again.

I would get the pure ammonia that people use for fishless cycles and use that.. Then you could make up exact ammonia levels to make an accuarte test. Another one I think would be good to do would be to load up a tank with ammonia and compare how fast different medias lower the ammonia levels. Ie x buckets x identical filters (plus a control) one filter filled with filter wool alone, another with pumice, another with ceramic rings another with those plastic bio ball things measure the ammonia daily and see what one works better I think it would be interesting to see what happens. Only difficult things would be finding identical filters (I guess you could even make these pretty easily) and getting the same airflow through each one..

That is awesome I am just looking at it from an engineering point of viewing and thinking of how long it would have taken him to build and think up all the ideas it is just amazing.. Good work!

If you have tons of rocks then you can get some fry survive depending on species and tank mates. Also bear in mind sometimes survival of fry in mixed tanks may be undesirable due to the production of hybrids, but that entirely depends on your mix and what you want to get out of them..

It also depends what type of worm you may be worming for, but the common ones I have seen discus guys use are metro/prazi, levamisole is also good again depending on what you are treating for..

Yep plan B is a better option, if you wanted to fit even more tanks in why not just throw in a curve ball in there and run 8 2fts end on on each shelf

They do look good and the lack of power consumption would be good for people with lots of tanks.. Where did you get them from and how much were they? Do you think you would be able to grow plants under them?