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I use frozen cooked shrimp with heads, shells, tails - everything! If you are going to do this, make sure you have a good blender that can pulverise the shells!!

hey Luke*, I bought my Canon 400D which came with a twin lens set (18-55 and 75-300) for about $1200 last Nov from dick smith (20% sale) and then this year, bought a 60mm macro from the states for about $450. These macro lenses are so awesome!! My 60mm doesn't have as big a working distance as your 100mm but I find that it does that job quite well. My next purchase will be one or two external flashes to position them above the tank which will illuminate the fish better than the on-board front-on flash. But they cost around $500 each.. :-? Spink, If you want to get a dSLR camera, I think now might be a good time to get a 350D/400D because the latest model in the series, the 450D is coming out either now or very soon. With release of the new model, there will be ppl who will want to sell their older model to upgrade to this new one and also the retailers will probably drop their prices on these older models to make room for the new.

You can try the popular european shrimp mix for african cichlids. I had a go at making this a couple of weeks ago with some additions. I added some cooked mussels, spirilina flake and instead of peas, I used a packet of mixed veges (peas, corn, carrot) that I found in the freezer. Looking back, i think using corn was a mistake :oops: It ended up being quite pulpy no matter how much I tried to blend it and the cichlids didn't like it and were spitting it out with made a mess of the tank.. :evil:

Thanks for the comments. This was taken with my canon 400D with the 60mm macro lens. The cories were in a bit of a breeding frenzy, swimming all over the place during the photo shoot so I could only manage a few good shots - plus i'm a newby photographer as well.. :oops: These are really lovely fish to both keep and breed - very gentle in nature and entertaining to watch. These guys were in a community tank before with guppies and in that setup, I'd find a new young cory emerge once every month or so - the guppies end up picking off most of the little babies. But now they have their own little tank and over the past week, they've spawned twice and I've collected about 70 eggs - some of which have started to hatch. Will keep this updated as I take more photos.

Managed to get a few pics of my panda cories in a breeding frenzy this evening. They are in a small breeding tank with sand, java moss, some rocks, driftwood and some breeding mops. Males chasing the females around: This is the first time I saw the 'T-position' that I've read a lot about in the literature. Once in the position, the male shivers for a second or so (like you see with malawi cichlids) and then disengages. The female then appears to go into a daze (like female fighters after the 'squeeze') and lays still on the sand for 3-4 seconds. She then 'wakes up' and there's an egg clasped in her pair of fins under her belly (can't remember what they're called edit: ventral fins!) and she starts looking for a place to deposit the eggs. female with egg... And i thought this was an interesting pic. Their barbels have variable black pigmentation..

Cool thanks ryan.

I know its not a good idea to feed blood worms to african cichlids (problems with bloat etc) but what about white worms to condition them for breeding or as a weekly treat? I have electric yellows, demasonis and peacocks. Thanks.

I have a Canon 400D and I used a canon 60mm macro lens for these shots. I'm also new to aquarium photography and have only started not long ago. I am happy with my 400D (initially came with an 18-55mm kit lens but I have upgraded to an 17-85mm) and recently bought the 60mm for close up photography. Good luck with whatever you choose to invest in!

Yeah - these guys are non-stop breeders. My DIY caves are working a treat. Its just nice to see tank mates giving each other hand (or in this case, a shell)

Was browsing my tank tonight when a small blob of orange caught my eye. I found this little guy making his way around the tank with some cargo he had picked up somewhere along the way. Poor little thing must've been in the midst of some hanky panky and slithered away wondering why his back feels so heavy... Hope u guys enjoyed the pics!

Are there online copies of the magazine Caryl?

hey FuglyDragon, thanks for sharing your opinion. I remember doing some research on it a while back and coming to the conclusion that the GBA and common BN were probably from the same species. I posted a thread about some of my GBA offspring developing black patches which led to the question of whether GBAs and common BNs are the same species. I was quite strongly informed that they are different species and should not be interbred. To this point, I am still not entirely sure that they are the same species or not but have chosen not to interbreed them. But I get the feeling that somewhere along the way, people have interbred the GBA with the common BN. On a side note, I have a pair of breeding albino BNs and the result of their offspring thus far is all brown. They have bred about 5 times already and every single one that has survived is brown.. This topic has discussed a few times in a couple of threads on this forum and also at plecofanatics and planetcatfish. From what I've read, there appears to be two forms or two genes responsible for albinism in BNs. One type of albinism results in a white/pale fish and the other gives a more yellowish looking fish - both have red eyes and two separate genes are responsible for each albinism. If you breed a 'pale' albino with a 'yellow' albino then it appears you will get brown offspring because the offspring are heterozygous for both albino genes. I have noticed that my albino male is very yellow whereas the female is very pale (different forms of albinism) and thus far all their offspring are brown. This of course is only my opinion based on what Ive read and what I've seen with the fish I have.

So are you saying that both the GBA and the albino BN are just variations of the common brown BN species?

The red-eyed ones are the albino variety of the common brown bristlenose. The GBAs (L144s) are a different species to the common brown BN. I'm not sure if there is an albino variety of the GBA available.

i think its Golden Bristlenose Ancistrus .

Try adding two or three rams horn snails. I use them for my GBA eggs and they eat only the eggs that have fungussed (sp?) and leave the good ones alone. It beats trying to tease the bad ones out using a tweezer and ending up popping some of the good ones. This is a particular problem with GBA and BN eggs which tend to stick and clump together.

Great looking duboisi colony you got here Johannes! How many are there in the colony? How many females/males?

Heres a piece written by practical fishkeeping that talks about an article published in the Singapore aquarium magazine describing how you would go about removing a fish's tail and how to inject coloured dyes into them.

Yes Smidgey.. heres a pic of parrot fish with no tails

They have either been bred with no tails - or I remember reading somewhere, their tails were actually cut off.. I hope someone proves me wrong .

Thanks Peanuts. I think this will be the first and only african tank for a while. I plan to keep it as it is for a year to see how the colonies develop. I have reached somewhat of a nice balance (in terms of time spent on maintenance and health of the fishes) with my 5 tanks at the moment and plan to keep the harmony. I just hate it when you don't have time to keep up the maintenance schedule and you end up with dead/unhealthy fish which is a a real waste. One fish that I have seen on other forums which seems interesting is the Pseudotropheus saulosi - the females are bright yellow and the males turn blue with stripes - a tank of them will look just like a dem/yellows tank! But I haven't seen any available in NZ...

Cool. My dems are only half the size of my yellows at the moment. Can't wait till they get bigger and 'fill up' the tank more! Thanks my4age. I got the silica sand from placemakers but they should be available at other hardware stores like mitre 10 and Bunnings. I got a bag of about 20kg for $16 I think off the top of my head.

Thanks Glen. How many dems do you keep together in your tank?

Thanks. These plants came from a seminal bunch of Java fern that I bought about 5 years ago . As they grew, they kept sprouting little plantlets from the old dying leaves and these ones I have now are probably the 3rd or 4th generation plants that have survived. Well these guys haven't eaten any of the leaves yet - fingers crossed they'll continue to leave them alone! The roots of these java ferns are well attached to small flat rocks or a small bunch of gravel - so they stay anchored quite well without the need to actually plant them.