smidey

Just be careful relying on spray bars, I was doing that and the pipe came loose off the spray bar and stopped assisting the surface and made the tank oxygen deficient. I use both spray bar and bubbles but not a fan of the way the bubbles look

i have experienced the opposite

i keep track of when they spawn and strip anywhere from day 16 to 20. If your not sure when they spawned wait for the bucal cavity (double chin) to be large and show a dark colour, when it's dark the fry inside are a darker colour than the yellow/orange of the eggs they grew from. Don't worry if you strip them too early, they will still have egg sacks if you do but just put them into a breeding net where the other fish can't suck them through the mesh and make sure they have plenty of water flow and they'll grow well. give them food when the still have a bit of the egg sack showing. here's a vid showing how to strip, it's easy once you've done it once or twice http://www.cichlid-forum.com/videos/stripping.php

Are you saying that an air stone is better for surface agitation or that an air stone works better because the bubbles in the tank? I have run my tanks all three different ways at various times. Surface agitation only, air stone with no additional surface agitation and both air stone and deliberate surface agitation. I do not understand the scienceon thus specific topic but what I do know is that there was no difference in any of the fish or water parameters that I could tell with either way of doing it. What I do know is that if I didn't do any of it then I quickly have gasping fish. Which ever way you choose to do it you simply need enough of it to serve your needs but they all work to aerate the water. Air stones aren't the be all and end all of achieving aeration, I have used my canister spray bar or a wave maker to do the job perfectly so just as much credit had to go to surface agitation as air bubbles floating to thesurface I think. Unless I have missed something, the page you linked to are just that persons opinion on it and why he thinks that which is fair enough, personally I agree with it mostly being generated by surface agitation as I'm yet to find an air stone in the ocean so that theory works for me

nice tank, good score. i recommend going with a Cf1200 as well, only thing to consider is if you have enough space in the cabinet for it. They are a bit taller than a CF1000.

what is your intention with e yellow fry? are you intending to sell or just increase your own numbers? If for your own stock leave them to it, add rock work if there isn't already plenty to create hiding places for fry. You need piles of rocks, the bigger the pile usually the more fry will survive. If you intend to sell fry then the only way to do it with any results is to set up a tank just for them, have one or two males and 6 or more females. I strip fry, for a couple of main reasons when they are around 16 days from spawning. At this stage they are usually free swimming or still have a small amount of their egg sack still showing. I have found that stripping consistently results in more fry, i found the longer you leave them the less you get. the second reason is i had a few females got smashed when i put them back into the main tank after putting them into another tank to raise & spit their fry. Females have a pecking order just like the males and when a female has bred, which usually means she is the top or near the top of the female pecking order and then is removed from the tank for any length of time (days) they will fight for dominance when she is re-introduced. So i simply net the female, strip the fry and put her back in the tank.

awesome, great work

They purposely keep in alkaline as acidic is real great for the system

totally incorrect. My SS failed a warrant, only on the fact I needed to certify my vehicle for brake mods and i asked the question of my insurance company and they said it was covered. if the wof failure item directly contributes to a claim it can be rejected but if not then it is still covered.

so i just looked at the spec of the hailea one, noise is less than 60db so it's noisy as. like car noise i guess.

I don't have a pump that sized but do have a few of the smaller hailea ones and they have been excellent and quiet

What are your water parameters out of your tap?

Animals need more than weekend attention, are you going to be there during the week?

There must be others that want some. If you buy two or three buckets at a time it only costs little over $100nzd per bucket delivered.

it's cool that. I have seen an african do that, very cool to watch

The movement of the water in bags won't be any different to a chilly bin and that is what oxygenates the water a keeps them alive. I have used a chilly in in the past quite a few times and IMO is the best way to do it to transport a large number or just outright large fish. I'd use a 20L plastic tub half to two thirds full, if your worried about temp strap a couple of hot water bottles to the outside of it. Drive as loose as you like, fish like oxygen

Welcome, this site is pretty well frequented by plenty of African keepers so should be plenty of help when you need it

I'm sure there will be plenty of info if you do a search on this site as well, I do recall a few threads over the years.

My Jager heaters keep my tanks at what I set them at, I have five heaters and they all work perfectly

it seems to me your totally over reacting.

What's wrong with that? I don't keep my cows for their enjoyment or company, they are food and will be very tasty. Yes they have had a good life well cared for but at the end of the day the are grown for food, I'm not going to read then a bed time story. I don't see any problem with how he posts, it does seem that English is not the first language though which we can bee tolerant of, not sure about others but I read his posts in an Asian accent

i think messing around with hardness and ph is not necessary and potentially asking for trouble. The reason i think that is that i have never ever done any of that in the 7 or 8 years i have kept africans including tanganyikan species. I have only ever looked at ph levels to make sure they are in the higher range rather than lower like 5 or 6 and in fact have not owned a test kit in like three years as i know that my levels are stable. It is very important to use them when setting up but after several months of testing and getting the same answer i gave up and haven't bothered since. My water sources have varied from town water supply which is kept on the side of alkaline so acidic water doesn't eat away the mains fittings etc and am currently on tank water and thankfully my tanks are concrete. I agree if you had plastic tanks that raising the levels would be required. I understand the theory of the hardness over the ph etc and the target of what people recommend your water to be at but it seems the recommended levels are based on what they are in the lakes of origin. The fish we keep, unless somehow you get your hands on WC fish, have always lived in tap water type conditions so i don't think messing around with that is a good idea. I think that if it is stable and constant then your are much better off even if it is not to "Lake spec". I have crushed marble substrate and shells in my tanks as buffers but i don't add anything that adjusts water parameters, never have. I have had awesome success with africans, bred & sold over 1000 fry of various species and had very few if any health issues. Never had a case of bloat with tropheus and the colouring my fish show is always very good so even if i tested my parameters today and they were well off what some say they should be i wouldn't change anything as the fish show me the conditions are good by being healthy, colourful and regularly breeding. there are endless facts available about what your parameters should be based on lake conditions but nothing the documents the history of the fish you buy, what they, their parents or predecessors have been living in and it is very unlikely that they are accustomed to book documented lake conditions. Your best bet would be to test the tank they come out of and match that.

i recommend a filtration amount of 5 to 6 times the tank volume an hour so if your tank is around 600L then 3000lph to 3600lph is plenty so that pump will be more than enough. On my 400L tank i have two canisters, rated at a total of 2200lph (so in reality is less) and that is plenty.

I said Angus drink up to 80l, they are a breed of cattle. Its something that you'll need to manage daily, checking all stock are still there. Very common that people kill and steal sheep as they are easy to handle especially in small paddocks. Making sure they aren't stuck in a fence or have escaped, also common for roaming dogs to attack sheep and in storms can freak out and run through or go over fences and get into neighbors place or onto roads. It is quite a job having animals, just like your fish except on a much larger scale. Behind my property there is a small block of land that the nearby farmer uses to hold his carry over dairy cows, they are cows that didn't calve this season so won't be milked. He didn't check on them for a few days and one got stuck in the creek and died so things can easily go wrong if your not onto it. I check every morning that my cows are still here, they have got out once in two years, ran through the fence.

nice progress, got any close up pics of fish? At that size they will likely only have one or two eggs as the eggs they lay are massive compared to malawians. The most fry i think i have ever got from an adult dubosi is 11 or twelve and she was brimmed, the eggs are roughly 3 times the size of a typical malawian agg.