Bananalobster

I do not think it is the same as in the picture as that spot looks white, this one is a raised red bump. Which also has me thinking its not "hole in the head" as it seems to be quite the opposite. He seems very active and excited about his bubble nest and insists on yanking on all the plants leaves and using them to fortify his nest lol. When I feed him the little round pellets he pushes them into his bubble nest must think they are eggs or something hehehe :lol:

I bought a pair of dwarf gouramis about 1 week ago, and have just noticed today the male has a small raised red spot on side of his face. I don't know how long it has been there but he is eating fine and displaying at female and has even made his own bubble nest . My question is should I leave it and see if it heals? Or should I make a quick trip to the petshop and pick up some melafix or something of the sorts?

That is true for the larger gouramis but with the dwarf species females are alot duller, sometimes they will have some color but nowhere near as bright as the males. As said above it will be very obvious if gthere is a female in there.

I have never noticed any agression between the two kinds when I kept them, can you give any more details? Might help someone figure out whats going wrong.

On another site somebody took the blue rubber seal off, siliconed around the rim where it was and then stuck the blue seal back on and that seamed to work for him.

how would you clean it out if you siliconed it shut?

Any progress on the DIY filter? Im making one myself so would love to see how good the finished product works or any problems you came across. Went out and bought the exact same container, just taller model lol.

I'm pretty sure they have eaten them now.. Day 3 today and they are swimming round the tank as normal again. Ah well maybe next time aye? Anybody know about how long before they will try again?

If your fish look stressed and are hiding away from the current and bubbles then it is too much. It depends alot on the kind of fish aswell I.e Siamese fighters don't like a strong current because they are not great swimmers. Yet other fish really enjoy it.

cant say I have ever heard of that brand but seems to come with some good features at that price Especially good considering it comes all the media Sorry I cant help more.

I can't see into their pot but I am pretty sure my pair have laid eggs.. I can see the females egg tube and they are taking turns guarding / patrolling the cave! I only got them last week so this is very exciting When will they hatch? Il have to take a trip down to the lfs and pick up some baby food. Do the parents chew food up and spit it over the fry? As that would be neat to see too hehe. This is my first time getting egg layers to spawn so any advise would be awesome 8) I know I shouldnt be holding out too much hope of their first spawn surviving but its just so hard not to! :bounce: :Edit: Eggs confirmed, about 100 or so I think, had to squeeze my head round the corner of the tank to see lol so hard to say how many. So funny to see the girl bossing the guy into their cave so she can go have a swim round, seem to be doing an okay job so far no signs of them eating them as yet they are still taking turns fanning the eggs but the female probably does the most part. From what I have read that seems to be the norm. Anybody else have past experiences with these guys?

I have an aqua one 620T tank (approx. 120 litre tall tank) with a pair of keyhole cichlids i bought a few days ago.. I know that they may get aggressive when they spawn and want to know if its possible to add a couple siamese fighters or a couple neon dwarfs for some interest in the upper levels of the tank? From what I read keyholes are quite timid but I'm not sure about whether its a good idea because they are paired :roll:

Not sure if it buffers water like driftwood does but I know it is used in aquarium set ups. Found a site for setting up an asian tank thought you might be interested http://images.google.co.nz/imgres?imgur ... n%26sa%3DN

I have sand in my malawi tank atm, i find when im syphoning i may suck about a teaspoon of sand up each time, but when you pour the water out its left in the bottom anyway so if you were that worried you could just scoop it back into the tank . Also is a good ph buffer if you were thinking about africans rift lake cichlids. :Edit: Oh also I havnt seen any algae growing on it and has been set up for about a year, i think the fishies probably disturb it quite alot they like their digging so it could just be because of that

Last night when I came back from work they were doing little jiggy dances and shoveling bits of gravel round

Thanks for the advise yes you are right they are alot better now, not pacing the glass anywhere near as much as they were and seem alot more chilled.

Thanks maybe I am just getting a little carried away lol.

Hey there everyone! It has deffinitely been a while since I have visited this site.. I find myself in need of a bit of advise with my new arrivals. I went to the pet store yesterday and saw a pair of keyholes spawning on a piece of driftwood in the midst of about 30 other cichlids lol. They were doing an awesome job of it, the female was laying eggs and the male was racing around keeping a ten cm perimeter clear for his partner. I had a spare Aqua one 620T tank at home with one little cockatoo cichlid in there, so just had to have them, (dont worry the cockatoo has been rehomed). They are in there by themselves with large pieces of driftwood and teracotta pots on their sides, with largish dark grey gravel for substrate. 1000lph filter and temp is 26 degrees celcius. My question is should I add a few upper level swimmers? They seem to be rather nervous at the moment, shying away when they see someone enter the room. I thought maybe if they had some dither fish they might be a little more relaxed, as they were anything but timid in the shop and that particular tank had alot of fish in it. Any advise on these guys would be very welcome I am feeding them Petmaster small cichlid pellets and frozen brine shrimp both of which they have no problem chucking back. Just a little worried they may be a little bit stressed from the move as they have only been in the tank for about 24 hours.

Maybe thats what they want lol

Awesome pics conaquavict!! Please excuse my ignorance but what type of apistos are they? Very pretty!

Nup dont think so sharn, but thanks heaps for the suggestions! Im a lost cause when it comes to remembering stuff. :roll: I am dead set on the orange flash cichlids, caseroles are so bright and vivid.. I have black gravel aswell so they would look so pretty if I could get some!

(Sorry bout the double post guys..) If this is the case and the female is the one that initiates the spawning would it be better just to have 1 male and 1 female so that the male is not hassled 24/7? If that is the case I probably will need some dithers as the tank would look very empty lol. I saw some pencil fish in the lfs that I forgot about.. Neat looking fish and look to be fish that feed from the surface. Would these pose a threat to fry? I would want something a little less predatory if I was to go for dithers.

I havnt heard of them.. Ive just read that it is the female that harrasses the male to spawn? Is this true?? I have always seen it the other way around with most cichlids.

Possibly sharn.. Just searched google for them and many of them were silver with a black stripe although I found one picture of that type that had a similar coloring, but the ones I saw had a much "deeper" body I think they call it.. Higher back? http://www.petsforum.com/characin/carey ... 17_720.jpg Similar to that with longer fins.

cool Ill try it then. Hehe yeah I forgot to add in the first post that it will be planted. Just the basic fast growing easy to care for stuff. They had some awesome looking dark blue/black/purple colored tetras in the hollywood fish shop in Auckland and I cant remember for the life of me what they were called. I thought it was black phantom but when I searched this name on google it came up with a silver colored tetra with a black spot in the middle. The ones I saw were very dark with beautiful long fins. Don't usually like tetras but these were neat.