Ktttk

Nice photos phoenix! They look like they are in very good hands. Well done!

I would like to install a cat/dog door for my fox terrier. Job would require cutting a hole in a glass sliding door. Who would I approach for a job like this? Does anyone have a person they can recommend? I'm based in Mt Wellington, Auckland. Thanks in advance.

hey, its good to hear that the demasoni are doing well! I strip mine after they have held for a couple of weeks. If they let them hold till full term and spit, they end up taking quite a while to recover their body weight. The small females are initially a little tricky to strip, but you get use to it after a while and its quite straight forward. Maybe you could post a pic of the female you suspect to be holding? The best way to tell is to see if she is eating during feeding time. Holding females will usually avoid eating and stay near the bottom of the tank. Here is a pic of my holding female. More pics are available in this thread. Hope this helps.

I don't think 21 fish in a four foot tank would be cramp at all, it might actually be understocked - especially considering that the dems (and possibly jewels as well) don't get that big. I have about 60 fish in my 6 foot tank and almost all of them are at breeding size (dems, yellows, kadangos, electras, baenschi peacocks). I'll qualify this statement by pointing out that I have 3 external filters running on the tank and do fortnightly 40% water changes. And I feed them once a day. Best of luck with your tank!

Sorry to hear whats happened. Did you lose the dems as well?

I second the above mentioned site.

Its a great design and I have credited you for the idea in the post above . As well as keeping healthy and happy fish, I think this hobby and this forum is also about the exchange of ideas and this forum provides a great place for this to take place.

The one heater heats the fry tank - it is in a back compartment that spans across the width of the tank. There are small gaps beneath all the glass dividers that allow water to circulate. I wanted to gaps to be about 1mm but some were a bit large so I slide a thin piece of fly-screen material underneath and use the stones to hold it in place. I tend to put the small fry in the left-most compartment as that has the smallest gap and then as they mature they shift towards the right. Here is a schematic of the tank that will hopefully make it less confusing: Heated water is pumped into the compartments via the spraybar. The water then flows back into the heater compartment through the gaps under the dividers. I got the idea from Johannes' fry tank.

I'll take more photos of the yellows and kadangos later. The kadango was quite red when I initially put him in the tank - he was displaying his colours a lot and trying to establish his dominance - but I think the afra is the dominant one now so the kadango isn't coloured up as much. Thanks for the comment about the afras and cobalts - I'll keep an eye on them. If they do cross-breed I guess it'll be easy to spot as the fry would be stripey??

In the colony there are about 15 I got from you and then i added another 10 from various sources. Having a big tank and lots of fish seems to help with the aggression. There are about 8 males in that tank - there's a lot of chasing but nothing too serious. I am also breeding the yellows and the kadangos - you can probably see them in some of the fry pics. I'm still waiting for the cobalts to breed though - if the yellows, kadangos (and peacocks) have managed to breed in the midst of the demasoni aggression, then I'm sure the cobalts shouldn't have a problem. But I'm still waiting on them - there are 10 in there so shouldn't have a problem getting a least a pair.

Yeah, its taken a while for everything to reach a nice balance and I'm pretty happy with the way it is. In the past 6 months, I've only had 1 death and that was a male demasoni from fighting. Otherwise there's enough space and fish to disperse the aggression.

Some wrigglers in a DIY floating sanctuary The ones with the bright yellow egg sacs are the electric yellows and the the ones with the pale egg sacs are the demasonis. Grow-out tank with the juveniles If you interested in any of the fry, please PM me for details.

The fry tank with divided compartments

Its been a while since I posted pics of my 6 foot african tank so here are some new pics of the tank and my breeding setup. The main 6 foot tank The setup

I used my fingers to pick the eggs out when I bred them last year without any complications. Its best not to pick them straight after they are laid as they need a few hours to harden up. The eggs are relatively large and sturdy and easy to handle. I prefer to pick them out and hatch them in a small container where I can keep an eye on them and watch them develop. In my opinion, what you are doing is fine Cam. They lay a small number of eggs but they do it quite often - up to 3 times a week if you feed them up do lots of water changes. I looked through the mops twice a week as the eggs tend to hatch between 4-5 days. Best of luck with them!

I usually strip mine after they hold for 2-3 weeks - I end up getting little wrigglers with some form of egg sac. Just place these in a net with some air bubbling underneath and they'll be fine. Ryan - the first ever cichlid I stripped was a demasoni and I don't find it too difficult probably because I have had so much practice. It can get a bit finicky at times because you don't want to hurt the fish. I can usually strip one in under a minute now - my first time took about 10 mins!! Poor fish - she's still alive and healthy today tho! I find easier to get the fry to come out by gently pumping the gills (with the holding hand) while holding the mouth open (using a Q tip or a fork) with the other hand. In my 6 foot tank, I think there are about 70 fish in total. When I release my females back in, they sometimes get chased by the dominant males but they usually head to the upper areas of the tank and hang with the other fish. I guess once they have regained some strength after a few days feeding, they'll start scrapping for territory and dominance with the other females.

In my opinion, if its not too much trouble catching the female, then I'd say do it and have a go at stripping her - its not too difficult - here's a video that shows you how. I don't have too many rocks in my tank so its relatively easy for me to remove my holding females. Once I have stripped them, I place them in a separate tank overnight to make sure they are ok before returning them to the main tank when the lights are out. Next day, they are swimming around and eating again. I have kept some females for a week before returning them to the main tank and they are fine. Here's a thread I started with some pics of holding females and babies. Best of luck with yours.

Nice find - thanks for sharing!

I believe that is called a "Secret Santa"?

Try asking at your local chemist or pharmacy.

I might have to separate this latest batch from the others as I'm pretty sure they will be eaten. The other fry I have include yellows as well and they are about 2cm. I'll probably raise them in a floating trap until they are large enough to avoid being eaten!

If they have reached the wriggler stage when I strip them, then its usually 100% survival rate. However, if I strip eggs, the survival rate is around 50% - I use to keep the eggs in a net and put bubble air underneath it. With the DIY tumbler, I have only found 1 dead egg so far.

They are indeed.. especially when they oscillate up and down in the tumbler!

Take a closer look at the server location for the test - Bamako - it is somewhere in East Africa which is ~10750 miles away. Thats why my numbers are so horrible.

lol - check out the ping!