smidey

there should always be a little more food than they need in a few minutes so they should get plenty. the NLS floats around for a while to so i can't see how they will miss out. my shellies never miss out and they are a lot slower than all their tank mates. I also have about 8 troph juvies around 3cm in the main tank and they don't starve either.

it could be food related from what has been posted so far.

i still don't think feeding is a good idea but will be interesting to see the result if it is bloat.

why would you ask, just get in and get into it! they are awesome :thup:

bloat spreads very quickly, in 12 hours it can effect many more of your colony but what ever, do what you like. you've set up completely wrong for trophs and the result may well be that you lose the lot and that will be your own fault. I won't be offering you any more advice from now, it's a waste of time. now your planning on feeding them.... have you actually read any thing i have written?? :facepalm: :rolfl:

up to you. if it's bloat by the end of the week you'll see a lot more deaths, if not then i'd think it was harassment that caused the deaths but that will only get worse as the numbers reduce. i would remove most of the wood now and stop feeding for a couple days. have a hunt around to see if any decaying fish are hiding in the tank. good luck.

you need to check the ph of the tank, i have coral and shells in my tank along with arogonite substrate and i have no wood. when you say "the amount of fish in there" what numbers are we talking, 17 trophs? that isn't many for that sized tank at all. if you create separate areas i think you'll find they are far better off. here's a vid to give you a better idea of what works for me

if you don't deal with this well you are very likely to lose all the trophs if it is bloat. It has happened a few times that i have heard of but i have never lost a single fish to bloat in 6 or more years of keeping them. I have a 400L, 2.0m tank. I have around 35 tropheus, 8 leleupi, 5 shellies and 3 altos. You don't need to fill the tank up with stuff, i have a minimal amount and it works so much better than a tank full of crap. i think you need to decide which fish you want in your tank and set it up just for them but i can't see it working long term with wood and plecs in there. here's my tank. pic taken just now, it's not sparkling as i hadn't planned a photo shoot.

i suggest you loose the wood and stop feeding anything other than NLS and JBL novorift. wouldn't the wood be moving the water parameters away from what the trophs need? what is your water source? town supply, concrete tank or plastic tank? I think you should know what your ph is, especially if your having troph health issues. secondly re-arrange your tank. you need to create separate areas in the tank, not one big mass of structure. I also used to have a similar setup and once i separated it into two separate rock piles at either end the aggression almost instantly reduced and the fish had their own areas to exist. the females have the same type of pecking orders as the males so territories are also fought for by them.

tank size? stocking amount & species? filtration? normal temp? ph? territories? can you post a pic of the tank? that will tell me a lot. if they are getting bloat stop feeding, white stringy poo?

Its a natural progression from boring SA to Africans haha You want your water parameters set to a Ph of 7.2 or higher. Plenty of rock work for territories and hiding places and a filtration rate of five or six times the tank volume per hour. As for stocking, pick fish like e yellows, demonsoni and zebras like cobalt blue our red zebras which will colour contrast off each other. Peacocks and haps like giraffes or fryeri are also an option as you have a good sized tank.

Congrats, nice enclosure to

all of the above....... plus check out this library on cichlid forum, what the refer to New World Cichlids and African cichlids are your two main sides of the choice. Each group required different water parameters and foods to the other. http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/ Then once you've decided on which team to bat for your next challenge will be to sort out what is available here in NZ and what setup they need. Good luck. We are here to help when you need it.

fresh or salt water?

last time i saw figures i thoughts it's about $1:60 per litre for the petrol and the rest is tax. that's why the have the road users separate for diesel as most off road machines are diesel powered. ride on mowers can be pricey to run, mines gets through a bit.

Go with ply, it will by far be the best material other than aluminium or similar. I made a ply hood a few years ago, worked well and I also laminated the underside with Formica so no chance of it getting too much moisture

haha that's possibly the funniest thing i have heard come out of a LFS

forget it about getting rid of the aggro fish, get rid of one and another will take his place. If you don't want aggro fish get something other than africans I would create separate piles of your coral/rocks etc. Give dominant fish different areas to claim rather than just one structure, create spaces between them and define areas as best you can. keep the yellows i think. Add demonsoni, they are very aggro but search "conspecific aggression" to understand what they are like, they are aggro toward their own species generally so keep them in groups of one or 12 to spread the aggro behaviour between many. you have heaps of filtration so load it up, add a lot more fish gradually. As you add more numbers the tank will calm down, at the moment the aggressor has only a few to chase, when he has 20 or more to chase he'll get tired of it or if he keeps it up there will be soo many to chase then each fish will only get a small amount of harassment generally. You do need to play with your setup in the way of rockwork etc and stocking but you'll find the best way eventually. Also keep in mind that fish have differing temperaments from fish to fish like humans or other animals so results can vary with the same species.

stick with the yellows. The haven't formed a gang, it will be one or two dominant fish that the others will be hiding from. The fontosa and dolphins will get too large for your tank. The best way to sort aggression in a african tank is add fish so the dominant fish has so many fish to chase he can't keep up. What are you tank dimensions? can you post a picture so i can see your rockwork etc? what filtration you running? I would add more demonsoni, another 12 or so and see what other species are also available. I'd add another species like fryeri, cobalt blue or red zebras but that will depend on availability.

eternal optimist vs realist, a very interesting match on the up side a bloke walked away with $100K for a catch, wish i was that guy.

I'd be looking to get more of the species you already have as well, often the more fish you have the less aggression and injuries you'll have.

what filtration you running? that will be the determining factor with in reason i think. The great thing about the sunsuns i think is that they have gaps for adding canister piping at the back of the hood, aquaone cf canister plumbing goes through it very well so add a cf1000 or cf1200 and you'll have heaps of filtration potential. I have had huge numbers of africans in one of those, up to 40 i think of various sizes. I had fryeri, yellows, red zebs, lump heads, peacocks and cobalt blues together and it worked no trouble. i suggest you just add fish as you get them, not too many at a time so the filtration ability can build up. It will really just come down to what fish are compadible with what. You'll get opinions and experiences that contradict each other most times so often it will come down to the specific temperament of an individual fish whether it works or not. It can be hit and miss with malawi species. here's a pic of my old tank

i said last of the main countries, the two below us in test rankings are zimbabwe and bangladesh :facepalm: . Zim have been a test nation since late 1992 and bangladesh in late 2000. We started playing in 1930 so we are last of the main countries. ah, your sarcasm. I got the sarcasm on the parts about how we have a good chance and are dark horses but not on the incorrect name :dunno: :sml1: the stats and rankings on our actual performances are terrible, occasionally we have a good run but they are few and far between unfortunately. we simply aren't very good for any length of time, that length of time being much shorter than other teams like australia, south africa etc. every team has it's peak and building phases but we have a lot more building than peak times. It's no where near our main game so have limited numbers playing so that makes it hard to achieve greatness, not a big enough pool of young players to rise into the big game.

factually, they are rated 8th out of the 8 main countries in all forms of the game. That's last, so not dark horse nor good chance territory. very sure. you may want to check out http://www.blackcaps.co.nz and see for yourself.

That's funny, we are only just above the teams that are considered minnows and have a very short history in the game at an international level. if we are on the up and are a dark horse then Bangladesh should have a better chance of winning. And its Black Caps not Black hats :lar: