smidey

hi and welcome. i have found if you set up well in the beginning then only a limited amount of time is required for maintenance. Any ideas of what sort of fish you want to keep?

for africans? i have always fed fry what i feed the adults. NLS cichlid formula and JBL novo rift sinking sticks. I have never bothered to crush it.

wow, you do a brilliant job of everything! it's great your not worse off in the injury stakes.

what are the small particles? it's not oxygen bubbles is it?

i don't think price is the "be all and end all" of a setup like that, more about the right person wanting t i think. dropping the price will bring people that aren't thinking about a setup like that into the game i think but if you do sell all parts separately then i think that you'll have more luck as there may be some that are looking for just some parts although they may also tend to ask if you'll part with a specific piece separately. as a complete setup it is a lot of money, as parts it's more achievable for someone on a budget or if they have specific skills that can save them money. If i was into another tank I would buy the tank and sump only and build the stand myself for example. what do you think?

avast house here

are there any other types of comps? maybe one?? the rest are calvus aren't they?

5 footer a bit small for an aro isn't it?

me to, that's why the original one failed in the first place

yep

i leave my water the way it is which is only around 7.4ph and no issues with producing fry. if you get it wrong you could loose fish so i choose to not use any chemicals. hmmm thinking about that, i wonder if that makes my fish organic haha :sml1:

had them probably over 2 years, no spawns

nav fondly refers to tropheus as bloaters here's one of mine

hi and welcome, there are a few of us whangas residents here

if i was buying products from suppliers i would look into what consumers could get it for and calculate whether it is worth buying at that rate.

that comment was a sarcastic statement, i need no schooling on how it works. I sold hardware and joinery for many years. It can be quite simple, to sell an item that someone else stocks it needs to be price competitive for me to consider buying it from a certain place. any other factors can come into it like past experiences etc on why i will or won't buy from one place or another but generally price is the most important as I know what i want to buy. I used to buy all my NLS from HFF but the prices increased so much in a short period i looked elsewhere and found i could get it for half what they were asking. At that stage a 2.24kg bucket was over $190 each so it's pretty straight forward for me. these days it is very easy to find alternative suppliers anywhere in the world so i guess shops will either adapt or fail.

maybe that's where they are going wrong, they are paying retail & air freight like the rest of us then expecting to sell it with profit margin.

for example, retail in US for NLS 2.24kg bucket is $49USD ($60.32NZD today), here it is $155NZD and a few months ago over $190NZD. you do the math.....

i agree but i don't believe that we should pay double from them. someone is making big coin from imported products, i know what my LFS pays for the stuff i buy and it isn't them so it's the wholesaler/importer that needs a big stick

isn't that the same for whitespot? i have fed a range of foods to my trophs over the years including peas, sushi wrap and blood worms and never had an issue but i reduced it to just NLS and novo rift around 18 months ago i guess, still no issues so it works and i'm not game to try any other foods in case it turns pear shaped.

nice work, you must be pleased.

NLS and novorift is what i have used and recommend for tropheus.

i have used flourish excell in the past to get rid of BBA, worked very well.

a canister is an easier thing to set up but a sump will give you more filtration. it just depends on how much effort you want to put in and what you want to spend. a clever design will also make a sump into a holding tank which could be useful.

personally i would prefer that i bought things locally, have done so up until recently but the price differences simply aren't giving me any choice and that combined with great websites these days it is so easy. A mate who has an altered dragster buys most of his stuff from summit racing as do all the other rev heads i have met recently. $5k for parts through a website or $12k from your local, not a hard choice for the exact same products.