tukituki

all off my other bn's must be dwarfs then! good to hear the big guy's not a pleco. we can't bring ourselves to put him in with the jewels so he'll stay put for now, he hides in his cave most of the time. Cheers.

He's 3 times the size of my other males! i have been told he is 3.

Here is a photo I didn't realise I had! My other half must have taken this as we were doing the tank swap the other day. You can see the big guy to the left, and an adult male gba just below him, as well as adult female that is about 3-4years old to the right (there are 2 this age in the bucket). Is he a pleco or a seriously big bristlenose?!

I have been wondering but he has the full on bristles, do plecos have them? His bristles do look a little different to our other gba & brown bn males though. I'll try and take a photo later today, i'll take him out of the tank for a few seconds to do it!

i did take photos of him but they look awful. i have never been good at taking photos of fish. dogs and cats and humans fine, fish impossible for me! i'm not sure if all the male bristlenose we've had before are all really small, but this fish is really big, double the size of a normal 3-4year old male. he's cool though. we still can't quite decide whether or not to put him with the cichlids. we don't want him to get hurt but its a bit of a squeeze in the slightly smaller tank now we've done the swap. plus our male bn we've had for years successfully breeds in the tank this big boy is now in. he is bigger than the cichlids, but they, like many others have said, are like bulldogs!

Thanks everyone. The tank is our largest of 3 and is about 150L. We just swapped 2 tanks around as we never expected our newly arrived jewels to be so big, and also never expected the bristlenose we got with new (2nd hand) tank to be so big either. The jewels needed the biggest tank. Plenty of hiding spots. Big bn is a lovely fish but dwarfs our other adult bristlenoses, I'd get him out if the jewels breed. 2 female jewels will pair off? My jewels are pretty placid so far, and 2 7-8cm bn that we accidently left during the swap survived the night with the cichlids but literally jumped into the net when i moved them this morning! picture of what rabbit?

Do you think it would be ok to put a really really big male bristlenose (at least 20cms) in with 6 jewels? Thanks.

Just the jewels. We have no intention of putting any others in. We did initally think the jewels would go in our community tank but after reading quite a bit about them decided this would be a very, very, very bad idea!

Thanks. They seem happy enough but are hiding quite a bit of the time. That's pretty normal with a new tank with a lot of fish though. Plenty of places to hide in their new tank. I'm glad I don't have to try and raise the pH. I think these guys are pretty hardy.

Hi, I have just got some jewel cichlids and want to make sure I have the right water conditions for them. I have read mixed things online, and the guy I got them from was not aware of his pH and didn't add anything to the water, they had been living in a really large community tank. I have my jewels in a species only tank, pH is currently 6.6. Should I be trying to get it closer to 7? Is there anything else I should be doing? Thanks.

Thanks. I've been doing yet more reading and have decided that we will set up a tank just for them. They would upset my community tank greatly. spWe have a good sized tank spare so will get it set up today and start cycling it initially with some guppies. Sound ok?

We are thinking of getting some red jewels and would like some advice please as we have not kept fish like these before. We currently have 2 community tanks going. One is our bristlenose breeding tank, as well as guppies and swordtails. They would not go in this tank I know! Our other tank has a pair of angels (we are picking these 2 up later today), a flying fox, some bristlenose and loaches. Would red jewels go in with this community? Do they need any special water conditions or food? Do they like lots of rocks in their tank? Our pH is currently 6.4. We do have spare tanks also that we could set up for them so they could have their own tank for when they're older and breeding. Thanks.

i have my gba's breeding in a tank with lots of guppies, no problems at all.

mean fighters! sadly we don't have any siamese fighters anymore.

yes i'm most worried about my silver dollars as they are a decent size now, but still not full size yet. the 2 loaches are botica angelicus. trying to catch the fry will be interesting, if they do survive of course. the last lot of eggs were laid outside of a cave so they never hatched, these ones are inside a cave.

my bn male is guarding some eggs in our community tank. just wondering if they do hatch successfully should i be moving them to our breeding tank so they don't get eaten? in the community tank there are: silver dollars, flying fox, loaches and a few non-threatening fish like neons and guppies. cheers.

do you think the filter is sucking them up rather than them climbing inside themselves?

a few of my gba's have gone back in the filter, should I get them out or assume they can get out themselves? i look forward to them getting bigger and not going in the filter!

good to know it happens to others too. i'll have to keep an eye out for others in there! thanks.

We breed GBA's and normal bristlenose too and have never had any problems with fry in unusual places until yesterday. I was giving them a feed and was looking through the glass of the tank when I saw quite a few of the newly hatched fry on the inside of our eheim cannister filter. I couldn't quite believe my eyes, i think they must have gone in there and would find it hard to get back out. There was quite a few in there, nearly all still alive but 2 didn't make it. I've no idea how long they've been in there - hours or days. Has any one ever experienced this before?

i think we will be moving it today, what better to do on a raining dunedin day!

a watt meter would be handy but sadly no money for one at the moment. i don't the heater is on constantly so perhaps its costing $20 a month, so hard to know, it would be a lot less if it was in the warm area of our house though surely? plus we'd actually get to see those lovely baby gba's, as they're shut away in the dark, cold laundry at the moment!

The tank is about 150L and the temperature is 26 degrees C. It is a very cold room. Might be worth the effort of moving it then? At least its just a few metres rather than moving house!

As winter is pretty much upon us we have noticed our powerbill rocket up in the space of a month. We have 2 large tropical fish tanks, one in our lounge where we have the heat pump or fire going, the other in our laundry that is really drafty and cold. Would it be costing us significantly more to heat the tank in the laundry now that it is cold outside? Should we move it to our lounge area to save on power? Makes sense to do it but as its such a mission has to make a difference with power use.

thanks. yes they are. i haven't had much luck breeding them (only one of the many fry ever survived, who turned out to be this boy), but they are great for my community tank. a shame you don't see such pretty ones in the pet shops.