smidey

our bros have specific words for each different "kai" up here, black gold, spiders, kinas .......

on a serious note, we refer to crays as spiders up here. is this term used anywhere else?

you can make it what ever length you want. just put legs at either end & spread them evenly down the length. I recommend you have them at 600mm or less apart. i used particle board which is cheap or free if you get cover sheets. the best to use would be ply but that costs.

i did it like this for a 3m stand i would do they ends as shown & have two in the centre, one on each leg that is either side of the centre one.

beer is like air, we just have it. It is not an accessory

i like this one the most but that would be quite the task to create. but something like this would be easier

how about something like mine but just the height of the bottom shelf to suit this was taken before i added front to back bracing in the centre & either end. It is 2.0m long, just add two more legs to it's length.

nice work, i don't believe this has happened to often in NZ. here are some pics, you can see the syno fry attaching themselves to the eggs.

i just split them, add garlic butter then open side down on bbq. it saves dishes 8)

so your saying that the room heated it, was the room more than 28 deg when you got home? at 2am the room would have been cooled a little from the 10pm temp. What sort of heater is it? I suspect that the heater is heating above the temp setting, try turning it down a degree & see how the temp is during the day. I have seen my tanks at 32 before on the hottest day but fortunately africans don't die easily.

i disagree, the sunsun tank i have had for over four years is far better than the aquaone tanks i had.

if the library doesn't have them they may order it in. that's what happens up here.

picking which tropheus you get should be made carefully as different tropheus species shouldn't be mixed except with duboisi. i chose not to keep bulu points as they are the same colour as pembas just alot less of it. as long as you setup properly & feed the right food you shouldn't have any dramas. my ph is low for what is ideal for these guys but mine still do fine so i would say as long as your filtration & food are correct they should be straight forward. before i got tropheus everything said they must be in groups of 12 or more or it will end in tears. i keep duboisi, moliro & pembas & all of these were kept in groups of 9 or 10, my dubs are down to 8 adults at the moment & everything has been fine. some will say the ratios of males to females must be a few males to many females but with my dubs i have 5 males & 3 females. i simply haven't had the trouble that most keepers advise you will have in certain situations. in saying this i may just be the luckiest troph keeper ever, they are just my experiences.

nice work & impeccable taste in fish to! there are a few shellies around as i understand it, i have some juvies but it seemed a few people on here got lamprologus ocellatus gold & they bred very readily & numbers have increased very well. it don't know how easy it would be to make shellies the focus as they are very small & quite agro. your tank is a good size & i think you would struggle to make them the focus. I have a tang tank that had troph duboisi, troph moliro, alto comps & when the shellies are bigger i will see how they go in there. It provides a good mix of sizes & colours, the trophs are constantly hooning around & the altos are quite settled most of the time so there is plenty of variety. i think the shellies will add another dimension to the look with their bottom shell dwelling nature but it may be a bit of an experiment with the altos.

to me that looks like a clean up to improve flow. they have removed any inhibiting vegetation & widened the stream. i think once the toitoi or similar grows back it will be similar again just without the trees. for it to have three culvert pipes it must see some major flow at some point of the year.

i went down the road of buying cheap heaters, i bought 6 jebos when i first got bigger tanks. while they were working the tank temp would vary by 3 or 4 degrees before they would turn on. after two years they all pretty much failed within a couple of months. After the sometimes stressful times when they were working & the pain of having to replace them immediately when they failed i went for the jagers. since i started using them the temp only drops around 1 deg or less before they click on & they keep the tank to the temp i want it at. I know they will last for years longer than the jebos did, i have an old jager i estimate is around 7 years old & it still works perfectly. I am sure jagers have failed occasionally but recently i have heard of a few old green ones being sold, they must be 10 years plus old so that is a great sign. they may well be, other equipment they produce is well designed & made with good quality materials. The tank i have has been brilliant, the hood is made with aluminium & screwed together with stainless steel screws. they allowed gaps for after market plumbing of a canister into the hood & the cabinet panels are wrapped with foil to help prevent water damage. i cannot find anything wrong with my tank & i have had it for around 4 years now.

i am a jager man so that's actually what i would buy, if i was going to buy a fluval it would be one of the E series ones.

one of the more important pieces of equipment are heaters & IMO you will save yourself alot of hassle in the long run if you buy a decent brand to start with. I have no experience with Sunsun heaters, i have a sunsun tank & it is brilliant but i would buy a fluval or jager when it comes to heaters.

i haven't found tropheus any harder to keep than your average african, in fact i have changed nothing i do except for the food when i got rid of all my malawis for the tangs. they aren't that slow growing, not as fast as some of the zebras i kept but i wouldn't think they are any slower than the baenschi peacocks i had. I haven't lost any to illness, i have lost a small number of fish due to my own mistakes but other than that it has been really easy. If a new setup is done properly than i say they are really easy to keep.

the reason i say a tanganyikan tank is the following fish can be kept that look great but they are mental in the tank. They never stop moving around, from doing lengths in a group to chasing each other or shifting gravel by the bucket load. there is always something happening at a fast pace to watch. i have a tank containing: tropheus duboisi which enable you to have another tropheus specie as they won't cross & moliros or another....... (duboisi & one other specie only is safe) or tropheus pembas (which i currently have for sale) with altolamprologus compressiceps & in the future i will try leleupi or brichardi & i will also ad a fancy place just for something different.

a tanganyikan tank tropheus duboisi tropheus moliro or pemba neolamprologus leleupi neolamprologus brchardi lamprologus ocellatus gold shellies & maybe alto comps or similar but they may eat the shellies when adults. It will take years for them to become adults though. then add a gold nugget or similar depending on your water parameters. 8)

not sure if that is good for her or very bad for you :facepalm: :lol:

take the to a joiner, not that difficult a job for someone with the tools & materials.

i have one of the Via Aqua (old aqua one brand) & was having trouble with it sucking air. I got a Cf1000 seal kit & put new rings & taps etc & it is just like a new one. I have had it around four years & it was pretty old when i got it so it is doing well. the Cf1000 & cf1200 i have had for over 4 years are just as good today as they first day i bought them.

this is the thread of my stand which may help viewtopic.php?f=28&t=48784&hilit=timber+stand+for