Naz_Nomad

Today I lost two bronze cories and some albino gardneri killie babies due to a faulty heater. Upsetting though it is, I decided to post to warn folk of the problem heater. I hate losing fish. I have a small two foot tank in the spare room, to house my few killies until I move house and can set up the breeding tanks. In it initially were three American-Flag Fish, four bronze cories and a handful of albino Gardneri babies I got from Tim. It has a simple, cheap but adequate chinese filter and a 50W Jebo heater. I dropped into the room this morning to feed the guys before going to work and there was steam coming off the water - temperature 34 degrees in a cool room! The heater was going full blast and burnt my hand when I removed it. Seems that the thermostat died in the night and the heater just kept on going and going. It was set to 22 degrees and had been fine for the last couple of weeks. The survivors of this little disaster are two cories who don't look happy and the three American-Flags who don't seem to care what happens in their tank. I did a reasonably large water change and left the tank to cool a bit more before adding another heater, which seems to be working fine. I have thrown out the Jebo. I am very very sad at the loss of the killie babies - they were going to be my initial breeding project along with the American-Flag Fish and some swordtails and Kribs I have in my community tank. They were babies. It just makes it worse in my eyes.

The only heater I have ever had a problem with is a Jebo. Jewel are good - they keep the water at the temp you set. What more do you want?

Wouldn't it be an idea to have a sticky detailing how to join at the top of this section of the forum? I know it's on the club pages and folk are happy to answer etc, but this question is still asked often. Hey, I asked a couple or three months back myself.

I had the same problem with my fist female swordtail. second lot of babies, when she'd finished delivering, she just laid down and wasn't interested any more. Died after a couple of days. It's very sad, but I think that it is something that happens with swordtails.

I got mine this morning. Do I win a prize?

Mine get JBL Gala flake food, Wardley Cichlid Crumbles, bottom feeder pellets they get to before the loaches and cories and dried bloodworms with occasional frozen blood worms. The only thing I have found that they don't like is tubiflex worms. I used to give them regular shrimp tablets but they got a bit feisty chasing them round the tank, a regular caravan with the lead cichlid with the shrimp tab in his mouth trying to get away from half a dozen pursuers.

Stop adding ammonia. Do a huge water change - 50% or so. Check your water parameters after 24 hours. If there's no ammonia or nitrite, add a few fish because your cycle is complete. And no, fishless cycling isn't mad scientist stuff, it's tried and tested and in europe it's the most popular way to quickly cycle tanks without stressing or endangering fish.

The very high nitrate is causing the algae to grow. The nitrite is probably only present because you're still dosing amonia. Nitrifying bacteria convert ammonia to nitrite then nitrite to nitrate. If your nitrite is 2 and steady and nitrate is as high as 20, then your cycling is probably complete - leave the ammonia out for a few days. If the ammonia and nitrite levels drop, then you're done and dusted. How long has your tank been cycling and what levels did you dose the ammonia to? Fishless (ammonia) cycling is usually complete after the first nitrite spike and when the nitrate starts to show. Do a large water change before adding fish. Add your SAE's and a couple of bristlenose and all should be good, the algae will start to diminish very quickly if you don't bother feeding them any other supplimentary food, sounds like there is enough in there to feed them anyway! Alternatively, get yourself a scraper thing on a long stick - they're fairly cheap at most aquarium stores - and use that to clear algae. Not much good for plants, admittedly, but great for rocks, wood and glass.

Since Discus are peaceful middle/top fish and Keyholes are peaceful middle/bottom fish I would say yes but I have no experience with keeping Discus. I do plan a big South American display tank with Discus, Keyholes, Tetras and Cories when I move house and can upgrade to a 450 litre but have nothing big enough to keep Discus that isn't already fully stocked with fish. Possibly the only drawback would be that Keyholes like planted tanks so they have hiding places and some folk say planted tanks aren't the best for Discus. Again, as I have no experience with Discus and haven't even got to the stage of detailed reading about their care and maintenance this is just hearsay. Personally I reckon the bloke as told me that must be wrong because Discus come from somewhere in the Amazon basin and thats a pretty heavily planted big natural-looking tank someone set up there with all that forest and stuff. So yes, I would say that based on my very limited knowledge of Discus, there's no reason not to keep them with Keyholes. Of course, I may be wrong and there's a Discus keeper out there as knows better.

Another active and colourful livebearer would be the Swordtail. Very easy to breed, buy a couple or three females and a male, just add water and they start breeding. In a swordtail's world everything falls into three categories:- 1 - Breed with it 2 - Eat it 3 - Try 1. Try 2. If neither works, ignore it. Peaceful, active, colourful, easy to feed, very hardy and breed like buggery. They are also too big and fast to be damaged or eaten easily by other community tank inhabitants if you have a slight incompatibility issue, which all of us have from time to time.

Keyholes are difficult to sex, expecially when younger. I have eight now and am still not sure of the sex of three of them, which I am hoping are females. Males have longer extensions on their anal and dorsal fins apparently, so my first five were definately male, though they were too young to sex when I bought them. The newest three have more rounded fins and I am hoping they are females and when they grow a little more will start to take an interest in the big blokes in the tank. However, all Keyholes have what appear to be more rounded anal and dorsal fins when young and the extensions grow in later in my experience. Good luck getting yours to breed! I would love to get a pair on the breeding cycle, Keyholes are the best Cichlid available. In my opinion. So clever, so active and interesting.

Join the club. I love my Keyholes, best fish ever.

Get two male Bolivians and make sure there is either a large plant or piece of driftwood down the centre of the tank to make two clear territories. They like to mark out their territory and watch each other over the border, it's great fun to watch - keeps me amused for hours! They have fun trying to slip over the border and there's loads of fin flaring ad a little butting of heads but never any injuries. I have had trouble finsing females too, took a gamble on a handful of very young ones and ended up with five males. Lovely fish if somewhat thick.

The Bolivians and the Keyholes both rule their own tanks now due to me buying: 1) Another 180 litre tank 2) More Keyholes 3) More Bolivians. Kind of in that order. They started in the same tank but have been seperate a couple or three months now. Both tolerate community conditions well. I keep my pH at 7.0 and heater temp set to about 25 degrees C and both sets of fish are very happy.

That one is 200 litres.

I have two young clowns in with my Keyholes and there are three Kribs in the tank too. No problems apart from one Krib attacking the other and eating her tail off (both females btw). I think the only time Clowns and Keyholes might get antsy is when the Keyholes are ready to breed as the Clowns will be looking hungrily at where the eggs will be laid which may upset Cichlid parents-to-be.

The only problem with Eheim canisters is that silly ceramic impeller rod. It breaks real easy but is very easy and cheap to replace. Roll on the day they replace it with a decent plastic or metal one!

You can put virtually anything that isn't aggressive with Keyholes, they are almost the perfect community fish. They get on very well with most tetra types, cories, bristlenose. They generally dwell in the bottom and middle of the tank and prefer planted tanks with hiding places as they are a peaceful and shy fish. I have had them with angels, but they didn't seem to like each other very much but that may have just been my Angels so unless you have a larger tank, my experience is to keep them apart as Angels tend to be bullies come food time and Keyholes don't compete very much. Keep them away from fin nippers too as the males have long flowing dorsal and anal fins which make excellent targets for the likes of Tiger Barbs. My reading also suggests keeping them seperate from other Ciclids that inhabit the same strata of the tank who are competitive and/or aggressive. I have Bolivian Rams and Kribs and they tend to ignore the Keyholes and vice versa.

Kribs are pretty much like any Cichlid, they'll care for the young they haven't eaten as eggs and will get aggressive at breeding time. Guppies should make some nice target fish for them though.

Neons are sometimes a little fragile but cheap. I suggest 4 Black Phantoms for the top/middle of the tank, 2 Keyhole cichlids for the lower and middle, a bristlenose for cleaning and 4 cories. All relatively tolerant of a wide range of conditions, not overly expensive and best of all, all are south american fish. Stick an Amazon Sword and some hairgrass and driftwood in there and you'll even have almost a biotype tank! Bargain!

Depends on the plant food. You can overdose on Flourish Excel but if the fish start rising and gasping, you change some water to lower the concentration. I would assume it's the same with almost all pour-in plant food. So you did right, like VisionMassif said. :bounce:

Thank you Ira. I knew it was one or the other. Iron must be for making nails with then :lol:

Snails are fine creatures. They do loads of cleaning for you in their own slow and small way. Don't forget that they also add to waste in the water, because snails DO POOP too. They can also damage plants by having a munch. If there are too many, Clown and Skunk Loaches and Featherfin Catfish apparently eat them, some more than others, of course. I did read somewhere that adding Iron to the water kills them off too, or was it copper? I may have to find that again. Personally, I just clean a few out every now and then if they are getting too many. SpidersWeb: please be careful with the 4 letter words

Spawning Mops or Java Moss? Do they both work as well what are the advantages/disadvantages? Thank you.

Maybe thats the problem for me, Foxglove. I love my SA cichlids but don't have much interest in Rift Lake Cichlids.