rollergirl

:lol: :lol: :lol: I like a bit of both (looks and personality)- that goes for the fish I choose as well, hehehe. :lol: Case in point- my most recent purchase, a bicolour blennie I was initially going to go for looks (there are these new Alleni Damsels at Origins that are really colourful and pretty) But the blennie was making me laugh with his antics (he was peering out behind this little pipe at me and it was so funny watching him dart around so furtively then slowly peek up behind it!), I just fell in love with him. Am watching him now in fact as he snoops around the tank and pops in and out of holes in the rock like a gofer...So cool!

Haha I was going to start a thread like this a while ago...Except mine would have been for platties, I had 2 male hi-fin platties for about a year that were the best of mates, when one of them mysteriously passed away And his poor mate seemed a bit sad all left behind on his own, so I thought I'd get him a few lady friends to cheer him up. While in the shop I saw another male I liked so brought him home with me as well. Was a bit surprised when the males showed no interest whatsoever in the females and started what appeared to be courting each other as you describe with your guppy boys...My first thought was , "Oh my god, my platties are gay!" Then I thought, oh, maybe they are just doing what real guys do, pretending to be all cool and disaffected and showing no interest in the girls, in order to get their attention? Hmmm...Yea, sometimes I think I really read too much into the social dynamics of my fishes lives :-? Lol :lol:

Having said that they are THE coolest things to watch...Was a bit sad to rehome him actually..

I looked after Gary the ginormous golden apple snail for a friend who had moved to Australia for a few months..and there was nothing I could do to stop him eating anything vegetative in the tank. Would give him spirulina discs, peas, pellets, etc etc, but he was such a pig, he still ended up decimating all the plant life, (usually in order of most-least expensive!!). It got to the point where I was spending upwards of $10 on new plants EACH WEEK , just to satisfy his apparently neverending nutritional needs.... Needless to say, Gary has now found a new home, in a non planted tank!

Could just pull the eggs out???? But why would you want to-Baby fishies are cool!!! :bounce:

The fluval 3 should be a sweet filter...I run one in my community tank and it works fine, water clear as. Don't replace the sponges, just give them a rinse in the tank water when you do water changes and you should be right. (This would be around every 2-3 weeks anyway).

Drat! One day will have a coldwater tank..One day! Hehehe

So- forgive my ignorance- but can brittlestars from our rockpools live in tropical tanks? (I assume they would have to be able to withstand pretty high temps periodically at low tide..But all the time at 25-26 degrees?) Hmmm...if so methinks I shall have to take the 30 second walk down to the rockpools tomorrow for a looksee!!

Also...if you do end up with an Oscar and want colourful tank mates I've seen blue colour morphs of Jack Dempsey's round lately that are just stunning. Wish I had a tank big enough!

Excellent, can't wait to get started now Jn as for dividing the tank...it's 18L so maybe a wee bit small!!! (Especially if it's gonna be planted lol).

Hey I'm hardly the expert on this, but when we moved house and the rock was semi-exposed whilst emptying, filling the tank etc, it went all bleached exactly like that afterwards, but in about a weeks time it all came back with a vengeance. So hopefully yours will too?!

Ok...Sounds reasonable...could I still add flourish to the tank without affecting the fish? I've been looking on websites at peoples planted nanos and just want to get some really nice plant growth..

Lol :lol: Yea it does ta!

Cool Excuse my ignorance Wok but what is HTH???

Hey guys! So i picked up a little 18L jebo from trade me with the intention of possibly turning it into a Killie breeding setup (for Fundulopanchax nigerianus-saw them for sale on T/M- (I think from Aquanut?) And really liked the look of them. Just in the stage of reading up on keeping them at the moment and have figured that to breed them I will also need yet ANOTHER tank to grow out the fry in...which in all honesty I don't really have the room for, unless I convince the boy to let me have some tanks in our bedroom! 8) (It may yet work...) Anyway-that aside-from what I have read the F.nigerianus is quite a peaceful species of killies with less cannabalistic tendencies than most...so i was thinking, (in the meantime at least before I manage to find room for a grow out tank..) of setting up the tank as a densely planted nano, with a pair of killies and maybe a small bristlenose. Tank would have a DIY (yeast/sugar mix, coke bottle and airstone) CO2 system and have an extra light placed over it to bring up the total WPG. My hope is that through luck the killies may spawn in the plants as opposed to on mops and hopefully if the planting is dense enough, at least some of the fry might make it through! (I've heard it does happen occasionally ) What do you guys think? Will it be ok to add CO2 to the tank if it has killies in it (ie, are they particularly sensitive to it or not as far as gas exchange goes...) And will they be sweet with the extra light? Any comments you might have will be welcomed, Cheers! Tash

Updating for those who are interested: Fry have been free swimming for 3 days now :bounce: and can see they have gotten bigger already. I'm feeding 3-4x daily (they're pretty hungry little things-lucky I usually finish uni before 12 so they get a breakfast, lunch, dinner and supper!) and feeding mostly microworms now as my culture has taken off and they do seem to like these the best. On the first couple of days they also got bbs at intervals but the microworms definitley seem to be favoured, so I think I'll stick with these for the next week or so until they are a little bigger. I'm also doing a 10-15% W/C daily an hour after the lunchtime feed to keep nitrates down. Mum and dad (fish not my mum and dad lol) are doing really well too if a bit exhausted looking (wouldn't you be if you had over 100 kids!) so to say thanks I gave them a special treat of bloodworms today On a side note our lounge is now almost completely full of tanks. Filled up our 4 foot marine tank last night and added live rock so not too long till we can start stocking that, just going to give it a week or so to balance out and keep an eye on ammonia, nitrite etc (although with live rock we hopefully shouldn't get any). I have also bought a larger 180L tank to replace my 130l planted community (when I get the time to do the swap!), plus just bought another little 20l jebo tank from t/m to have as a spare or maybe (just maybe) to look at breeding killies in in the future... These of course to go along with the 120L hexagonal clown and softie tank and the 40L hex fry grow-out tank....LOL now can you imagine all this in a tiny 2 bedroom house?!! Yep-have most definitely fallen victim to a severe case of MTS!! :lol: Will have pics up after the weekend hopefully so people can see what I'm talking about. Cheers, Tash

Actually a cold shower is good for people...No seriously-turn it to cold for a few seconds when you're in there and then back to hot, gets the circulatory system pumping for the day! :lol: But yea not sure if I'd like it forced on me lol. I always add some warm water to my W/C water just to bring it up to approximate temp

Not sure about the light- as far as I know it shouldn't affect them, may get a bit hot though? The only thing I would be worrying about is that the eggs may get fungused without the parents to clean them off periodically. What other fish do you have in the tank anyway?

Cool thanks guys Most of the fry seemed pretty keen on the brine shrimp which is great, obviously they are small enough to fit in their mouths! Ended up finding an ancient air pump which I thought had stopped working, got it going and now have another hatchery setup so as to have a constant fresh supply. (I feel like my whole lounge is now solely focused on reproduction though-what with the 2 shrimp hatcheries, microworm cultures, horny guppies and platies and heaps of ram fry...I've developed a headache just thinking about it lol :lol: ) And ta alanmin for the microworms tip-I've got a turkey baster type thingy which i guess is the same sort of device as what you're talking about. I'll try it for the morning feed

*driftwood* :oops: Lol

Grrr, I hate that stuff. IMO it is nearly impossible to get rid of the spores once you've had it in the drfitwood. I had a piece that sat outside in the sun for 2 whole weeks and a week after putting it back in the tank there's blimmin blackbeard all over it again-nowhere else in the tank, just the drfitwood! That's some pretty tenacious algae! :evil:

Yay, it must be ram season, my bolivians spawned last week and fry are just at the free swimming stage as of last night Do you have a spare small tank that you can remove the parents and eggs to? Doesn't need to be much, just a few plants and gravel bottom (for the male to dig pits) and a cycled sponge filter (or do what I did and cover an internal filter with mesh so as not to suck fry in). At 28-29 degrees C the eggs should hatch in a couple of days... Anyway-at least you know you have a pair now and if all reports are true they will spawn every 2 or 3 weeks in the right conditions so you'll have more than one chance to rear babies! :lol: Try these links (finger's x'd they work lol) I found them to be pretty helpful so far: http://www.aquaticcommunity.com/cichlid/bolivianram.php http://www.gcca.net/fom/Microgeophagus_altispinosa.htm http://www.aquarticles.com/articles/bre ... inosa.html

That's the one I've got, they look pretty small to me too, so fingers x'd, I really do want them starting out on live food if at all possible. Question-I only have one hatchery set up at this stage as I don't have a spare air pump, but will the hatched shrimp survive in their brine solution for 24 hours?? (if it's kept aerated?)

Yep, got some of these to try out at next feeding time (7pm) I did hear they were a bit big for the mouths of ram fry at first but can only try. Mum and dad will go for them if the babies don't I'm sure!

Just tried this and turned filter off as well.. There aren't really enough microworms in the culture yet though, and the fry don't seem to be interested in eating the ones I did get into the tank? Weird. I'll just have to stick with liquid fry food I guess... :-?