Bob the builder

I had a pair of quite large ones a few years back I fed them a good meaty diet, bred them once ,when I moved them to another tank away from the kids the male tore strips of the female while I was at work and she died shortly after .Months later I was reading a book in the lfs, that had them in it that said they required a good proportion of vegetable matter in their diet .I'd do a good search on the net for them so you don't deprive them of the correct diet ,I couldn't help thinking the male wouln't have been so cranky if he'd have had a little less red meat in his diet .

Good luck with the plants in with geos ,my guess would be that they have to be really well rooted to put up with the digging of these guys ,I could be wrong though.

yes ,but I thought the TM word wasn't allowed on here, I recieved one of the other plants I bought of the website that shall remain nameless , it was half the price but I managed to split it into six or seven reasonable little java ferns so it turned out to be a good deal ,I suppose it's a matter of finding out who the good supplies come from and only using people you can trust .I am currently in negotiations with the first guy so who knows it might turn out that he is ok .My java moss was sitting in the mailbox in the heat most of the day ,the only reason I went and got it was because the person emailed me saying they had sent it on friday ,it could have been a java flavoured boil in the bag by sunday.

bought some plants ,arrived quickly so small one of them got sucked straight through the slats in the filter , I had to get the wife to try and plant the rest as my fingers were too clunky ,they were almost dead in fact if it was a fish I think I'd be flushing it , a disappointing start to a new style to my tank ,anyone else had a raw deal on plants ?

Actually it was twenty one years ago and it's definitely a litho cross ,I don't care for them myself apparantly they cross breed with fryeri and cause people to get rude to new comers to the hobby who may have a lack of experience but make up for it in enthusiasm.Thanks.

smidey the ones I sold you would have resembled the 2nd and 7th photos of the fryeri from Lumbaulo on the cichlid forum note the "spots" or "short lines" they ain't utaka spots. I kind of think it's a bit rude to say not to buy fish of someone your actually having discussions with on the forum its not a slag off session, its adult discussion .I was madly in love with photos of these fish when they were still haplochrmis ahli and you couldn't hardly even get africans in nz so I'm not likely to sell anyone mutts . Thanks.

please don't get him started on the fryeri/litho cross issue, I sold him those fryeri and they are definitely not crosses unless they did the dirty in the lake.rcon sold me the parents and at the price I paid they better not be crosses.

yep nitrates (I should know mine are off the chart ) .

feeling guilty about not offering my fish a range of food after reading this thread I thought I would sneak them some brine shrimp when I wasn't looking unfortunately what I had learnt about bloat last time hadn't changed ,at least not for my tanks anyway, so after almost wearing out a net scooping out dead inch long dolphin juvi's I decided several things ,one being that spirulina may seem like a crappy diet but does have an up side and that the dog is not such a bad pet after all . bloat :47 me :0.

I'm with Ryan on this I lost a whole tank full of fryeri from feeding lots good hearty food that this carnivore should thrive on.Trouble is the nitrate levels in high density aquariums is useally not as good as the lake and the fish get stressed and die from bloat so a spirulina diet is a good way to keep the wastes and therefore nitrates low and as we all know the slimey meaty stuff is well known for causing bloat .I was losing several 8 month old fish a day until I switched to spirulina based diet with very occasional supplements of something a bit tastier .Smidey I only said that I feed a spirulina based diet not only spirulina they always need variety .spirulina is loaded with protein anyway.

Dan look under fryeri lumbaulo on the cichlid forum (don't know how to do the link) the juvi's are exactly like all the older ones that I've sold or kept ,I had my doubts for about half an hour one day ,nothing a good session on the net couldn't fix though. there are so many variants of the fryeri they don't all look the same either.cheers.