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Update: All the eggs have hatched and I have siphoned them out into a separate tank to raise. I have counted at least 100 of them from the pic:

Congrats. I recommend having half a cm of sand as substrate - they will have a good time rummaging through it looking for food. What cories did you get?

I have a 3 foot tank for a group of 10 GBAs. There are 4 males (2 that are mature and the other 2 are just sprouting their bristles) and 6 females. The bigger of the 2 males always ends up guarding the eggs and the past two spawns have been in different locations. A couple of days ago, I saw the big male guarding a brick that I had recently placed in the tank and today, I saw some eggs in it.. but theres a bit of a twist this time... But first, to set the scene, here is a full tank shot. All the GBAs seem to love that piece of driftwood in the tank. Its quite a soft wood and they really do chew it up cos theres always heaps of brown stringy stuff all over the sand. I have a piece of cardboard on the front glass to give the male some privacy while he is in his brick at the front right. Under the cardboard, you can see that there is a big cave in the middle of the brick and there is also a small cave under the brick... Looking into the brick, we see the big male with his big clutch of eggs and the little male under the brick. At first, I thought the little male was hanging around cos he wanted to get to the eggs.. but when I looked under the brick..:lol: I saw that he himself had a clutch of eggs as well!! So I have two males guarding two separate clutches of eggs - and they are using the same brick . And heres a pic of the last spawn. I find the males to be guarding spawns once every two weeks or so. I plan to take out the fry when they hatch and start wriggling, so the males can recoup before the next round of eggs. Hope you guys enjoyed the pics .

I don't think the gold gourami was tattooed.. looks natural to me. And the clown knife is at least 60cm long. I saw another red tailed catfish at the Milwaukee zoo.. and man do they get huge!!!

I saw something similar in a LFS when I was over in San Francisco towards the end of last year. These guys were labelled as 'Tiger shovel-nose' catfish and they are huge. In the tank, there were also a few other biggies...

cool fish! Are puffers back on the LFS order list?

This is probably a stupid question but since I haven't been to a fish conference before.. what will take place at the conference?

Sand would be perfect for the geophagus.

hey Jonathan, hows it going? Its Kenneth here. I see you've managed to find some time in between your world of warcraft adventures to get back into marine

Thats a lot of money to spend on a tank! (well from my point of view as a student it is :roll: ) It looks like it will be a stunning planted tank with all that plant-growing-equipment. And the intention of the RO/DI unit is for breeding soft and acidic-water fish?

Cool jags! Cool photos!

Try this: http://apisto.bravepages.com/AMAZONIAN%20JUNGLEarticle.htm

theres a few of these guys at hollywoods in mt roskill - saw them when I was there today.

Congrats there, nice ram family you got!

cool, I might giv them a try then to save all the hassle of going through the hatching process.

slightly off topic - but with the decapsulated brine shrimp eggs, do they sink or float? and do you find that they give the same nutrition as live brine shrimp because I read somewhere that said a % of the eggs don't get digested and just end up coming out the other end..?

here ya go.. I think the first one is a tiger shovelnose catfish... a fairly large predatory fish.

are they the golden BN or the regular ones?

Hi guys, an update of my firemouth fry. I was away in the US for 5 weeks over xmas and new years and left my brother to look after the little ones (they were eating dry food by this stage.) He has managed to keep them alive and their colours are coming up really nicely. The biggest is under 3cm or so. Enjoy. The guy in the middle is a male apisto pebas if anyone is wondering. If anyone is interested in these little dudes, let me know - they should be ready in a month or so. -

Just going back to the inbreeding issue.. why out out-cross the GBA with a normal bristlenose and then breed the offspring (which should look like normal BNs but carry the golden gene) with another GBA. The outcome should be an equal number of normal BNs and GBAs with a splash of fresh blood (from the normal BN). I am assuming the genetics of the GBA is similar to albinism (i.e. it is a recessive gene). Correct me if I'm wrong.

Good on ya Antwan - they are a cool fish to have. Good luck with them!

Thanks AMAZONIAN! Now i just have to keep up with the brine shrimp hatching..

Hey guys.. bit of a late update, have been a little busy lately. The female is doing a really good job of guarding the fry and herding them around the tank. I saw them at the free swimming stage about 3 days ago. They are in a 2 foot tank with a small BN. I am feeding them brine shrimp twice a day and they are eating well. From this pic, I count about 50 of the little ones. Heres mum leading the little ones to the floating plants for a snack. Note the brine-shrimp-filled orange bellies.

Well done Paul - Good luck with the baby whites.

Well done Antwan - fingers crossed the female will raise them well..