diffgirl

Im happy to report she is in her big new home now and she is like a fish in heaven!! She still has the habit of jumping for the first day she is in a new environment but calms down after that and now she rules the school Thanks again for the help, it is so cool to have people that can give you advise when your lost for answers! All the best from a happy fishy home :bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

Im with you there, but I'm so curious to see how it goes I am going to leave it in there as long as I can, but any sign of danger it will be getting whisked out straight away, this little one deserves to survive growing up with the meanest of mean! Funny thing or most ironic thing is that we have our breeding cons that qutie often get their young taken off them and fed to others, the last lot got eaten by the mountain minnows of all things, that was our smart idea thinking that they would be safe till their new home was ready because the other cons were chowing down. Well once they get a bit bigger I will put up some pics, at the moment the ones I have taken are hard to see exactly what is going on, it is better to have a first hand view for now LOL. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Well I just couldnt stop laughing last night when I saw what I saw in our Jaguars tank! It all came about when we had a tank shift and rearange about two weeks ago. We have or jags tank with mum dad and the bubs, and we have a convicts tank with two mums and two dads and two sets of bubs. Well in the shift we had to get all the bubs out of the tanks while we moved the tanks around to make room for the new big tank, then once everything was where it needed to got back in they went. Now here is the funny thing, when I was watching the jags (keeping in mind they hate the cons and they were all housed together as juvis, but the war became huge once they all got to breeding age so were seperated never to meet again) low and behold, casually chewwing on some algae right next to all the jag babies is a little pink convict baby! And sure as I thought I was seeing things, closer inspection determined that no, it is true, the convicts have some how infultrated the jags domain, mascarading as their own LOL. The best bit is that the jag mum does the round up when we get too close to their tank and sure enough Mum comes along after a while and sucks him up and spits him out out of harms way! So I thought it was some thing I had to share, and I cant wait to see what happens as it grows up, this poor little fish is going to think it is a jag, but what are the rest of them going to think, I'd say as it gets big enough to tell the difference, the others will notice, what do you think, LOL. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Honestly I have an elite hang on waterfall and I have had the same problem knowing weather what I did was right but in the end the most common answer that I got when asking around was try it and see if it works, and the other was "there is a general way to do it but it is not the rule". So in the end when I couldnt find replacement bits in a hurry for my model I copied what my hubby does in his filters and what my cousin sugested (we are all a bit fish mad LOL) and I made up a filter bag of media/carbon chips etc then the plastic grate then the filter sponge/wool and the water back to the tank. Best the boys described was bigest first, to grab the big bits and eventually get the biologicals going (the more surface area the better bio's) then get finer from there upto the finest filter wool etc you have, that way the water going back in to the tank has been properly screened. So I guess for your filter it would be the noodles, then the plastic screen (I think this is just a seperator) then the filter wool, and I would just put as many noodles as would fit with good water flow being maintained. Keep in mind though if it works dont fix it, this you will tell by clean or not so clean water in your tank I guess. Hope this helps in some way or another or may at best make an amusing read if we are doing it wrong, go with what you know I say ?!? :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

welcome to the forum, I too just joined a little while ago, and I have found everyone here great, so very helpfull and the members tanks is a great place to get ideas from. As for your water situation, we are in auckland and cant say we have many tap water problems, but if you were into a bit of chemstry and wanted to find out for your self exactly what your water was doing, we use a master test kit, and even though I thought it expensive when we got it, it has proved invaluable. I know there are natural ways to get the chlorine etc out of the water, but we have always used stress zyme and stress coat to condition our water before adding our fish, and we also use stress coat to aid any fish when moving them and if there have been any fights and someone has been injured. I just like to know that all our guys are safe and happy and this is what most shops use too (in some brand or another). Using the above products I cant see why there would be a problem. I know though this will just be the start of your learning and I think this is what keeps it interesting, there is always something new I didnt know popping up and needing investigation, and I have been keeping fish of some sort since I was a kid. Well good luck and Im sure with all the input you will find the answer right for you. All the best and I look forward to seeing your pics around. KB

Oh the other thing is I have not seen them swim, my hubby just opened up the filter and there they all were, in my sink eeewwwwwww. But in the sink they were squirming but I dont know if that constitutes swimming LOL. They just creep me out so much :-? :-? :-?

well this is the thing, I got the tank off davidb last weekend and it had the gravel with no water (or very little) and I gave it a quick splash out and then filled and cycled it, so no I dont feed blood worms, but maybe davidb did. On the chemical deal, aside from the obvious hastle I too like to avoid doing anything that could potentialy do any harm to the little guys, but I am a bit scared that the yickey little wormies will harm the fish, its a big ole catch 22, but if every one is together on them being harmless I will gladly leave them there, hey free food is good food in my book, I have just never seen anything like it before. As you may be able to guess I dont handle wormy things very well, especially with the chance they may be paracitic! So what is the word, do they stay or do they go?

Hi guys, Last night we had a bit of a job getting our new tank in and set up ready for the fish (we bought davidb's big tank with all his tetras, what a cool tank!!!) and we were having trouble getting the water clarity right after everything having been moved so we decided to put the tetras into our 2' tank we also got off david a week ago that has been a 1/2 way house for those waiting on the big tank for their final home. Here lies my little problem or should we say lots of little problems. Because we were putting a few more fish in there we thought it best to check the filter to make sure all was ok (its a fluval in tank canister fluval 2 i think) and low and behold there were these horrid little red buggers in there and boy did I flip. So I jumped on the net and googled the hell out of it with few to no results conclusively as to what they were or weather they are good bad or otherwise. So after getting over being freaked out we needed to head over to jansens this morn to grab a few bits and I thought to ask one of the staff there. He told me they were possibly a hook worm that could harm our fish and that I should use snail rid which I grabbed and that I should raise the hardness of the water by using oyster shell chips which I grabbed also, but I am not too sure which test I use to check the "hardness" of the water as I know we have a master test kit but by no means am I a chemist, if I am given instructions I will follow them and be fine but the bottle of the snail rid is vague and the guy at jensens said the Kh level not Ph I think. So who knows what the right test is that I use to get the reading I need, also what the number should be when it is good to put the snail rid in and a bonus would be who can ID the nasty little buggers that were in the filter? See the pics bellow for the culprit: Any info from anyone will be most appreciated, I have all my guys ready to go into their new home but I dont want to move the problem to the other tank, plus I have my new guys that are planning on staying in the 2' tank once everything is sorted so I dont want to get this wrong, there are some special little guys and girls depending on me for this one. Thanks every one, I just hope it is not too major! :-? :-? :-? :-? :-?

I guess if you spent heaps on growing her out she may be worth it but if that was me I dont see why you would then go and sell her, as our guys are going no where but in a hole in the ground in about 10 years when they naturally expire if I can help it, but like I say once these guys get bigger you are welcome to a couple free of charge if you can wait that long, I guess around the 4-5 month mark, I would rather see them go to a good loving home and know it was all set up to suit their breed as I'm sure there are people out there that get these guys when they are small and think they are cute with out thinking about the time of their life when they become big hungry killing machines LOL. Any way good luck with the boys and let me know if you need anythin that I may be able to help with. KB

what beautiful fish, they are stunning! I would say from what I was told, they are both boys, the female has large square blobs of black where as like your two the male has speckles more that large blothches or as well as the large blotches. here are some pics of our boy and girl to give you an idea. first pics are the daddy: this is mummy Jag: so that is our little monsters with their little monsters. If in the future you did want a breeding pair or two, let me know as we are growing out the bubs at the moment and Im sure there will be some females when they start to show their color and you are welcome to them when the time comes just let me know if you are interested. I hope this is all of some help to you, good luck with your beautiful boys they really are something special!! KB

The pic titled Jaguar is pretty surely a male, notice how he has the big blotches but also has the little spots, the little spots are usually the tell tale or as I was told, we have a breeding pair and ours look very similar but our boy has little spots that our girl does not have, if you can put pics of them both up will have a look and try to confirm to you as I was told that is the best way to tell when I went looking for info on ours. Hope this helps, All the best, KB

we did it and I have just gotten up to check on her and she gas calmed down and shes still with us, so thank you sooooo much!! It seems funny but she is more like a pet dog than a fish this one, she had me super worried as you may tell it is 4.30 am and I have had not much sleep I have been so worried. thanks again I will up date her progress, I just cant wait for the BIG tank to get here so she should have no worries at all, I hope.

my black shark needs help, today she got beaten up by one of her tank mates and she has a few battle scars but she is still kicking, but we couldnt leave her where she was because she wouldnt have lasted much longer. So today we did a big change and moved her into our convict tank, they had been in with her in the big tank untill the got moved to their own home, but it is an elite tank with fluro light hood and she spent all the time in it (a few hours) jumping into the hood, some thing she has never really done, well not enough to smash into the lid. This really started to freak me out cause she could easily smash the light or just hurt herself alot. So I moved her to another tank where it is just her and nothing else, she has no one else to bump into and nothing to bump into and a flat glass lid so no lights but no risk of her jumping out, and still she is jumping into the lid. We have put stress coat into her water to make sure she is ok and we have put salts into her water to help lower her stress levels but I am running out of ideas and I feel sick that she is hurting her self! PLEASE HELP, I DONT KNOW WHAT TO DO!!!!!! I really love this fish and dont want to lose her so any solutions are welcome. Just a note she has a huge tank on its way in one week if that will help but other than that or even ideas to calm her down would be good. Thanks everyone

here is an indipendant guideline by one of the global moderators of monster fish keepers it is in inches and us gallons but the conversion is 1"=2.54cm and 1US gallon=3.78L " The "one inch per gallon" rule This is something that comes up fairly often and is rather misunderstood therefore I will attempt to clarify the original meaning of the general guideline of "one inch of fish per gallon of water". This is a suggested guideline for a well maintained and filtered tank. It does not apply to all fish as some have differing requirements. Here is the part that is being misunderstood. The "rule" does NOT refer to the length of the fish! The "rule" applies to the cubic inches of fish in the tank. This means that a 5" gourami should be measured in this manner, length overall (5"), thickness, (1/2"), height, (2 1/2"), so for this fish you multiply the following, 5x 1/2x 2 1/2, this gives you a total of 6 1/4 gallons of water. For small fish like glo-light tetras you will end up with something like this, 1 1/2"x 1/4"x1/2", this comes to 3/16 of a gallon (about 1/5), and that gives you 5 fish of this size per gallon (quite reasonable) For larger fish you end up with something like this, my example here will be a silver arowana at 24" long, 24"x 4"x 1", which gives you 100 gallons of water. As you can see this works fairly well. You do also have to apply some common sense and allow for such things as potential growth, the fish types' tolerance for crowding, and of course the width and length of the tank (a 24" gar will not work in an 18" wide tank even if the tank holds 100 gallons). So please people, accept that this is just a generalized guideline to figure potential stocking levels, not a hard and fast rule. Also remember that just because you don't like it doesn't mean you should slam somebody for using it. And lastly, please don't flame someone by saying a 10" oscar doesn't fit in a 10" tank. Of course it doesn't, but the rule never said it would." Hope this may help stop any argument

Well all I can say is that is what we do and I have had our different setups looked at by alot of different people with common interests and with similar fish and a tank that is 1.14 meters long if I read that bit correctly when you work out the varying formulas for deciding what fish should suit this size tank Jags would be fine, I have seen silver arawanas kept in simmilar tanks and they are fine too yet another big fish. at max size growth keeping in mind that is not always as big as they will grow but how big they could grow, being 30cm that is able to be divided into 1.14m nearly 4 times and all info I found when looking myself was you must have 3 times their length available to them to be healthy for the fish. Another point that was made to me when we started out was you can always up size your tanks if your fish get too big for the tank and our jags started out at 2cm when we got them and if we had put them in a 1.14m tank we would have never seen them. they are 1 year old and they are about 15cm and now breeding, they are happy healthy fish and we are not being mean to them, our tank they are in at the mo is not as big as the 1.14m tank, although we will be moving them into their 4foot tank soon and that will be their home untill they look like they are too big for that which is not for quite some time, if at all. This is just my opinion and what we do, but be sure before doing what we did I did get peoples opinions and advice and researched all over the world for info on what was best to do and this is what we did, all I can say is get as many ideas and opinions as you can find and make your own opinions and try for some info that has logical reasons for doing what they say with measurements or if it is a particular rock or stone to use for example what are the benifits to using it etc.

well I have posted it on another forum that is world wide all the people into monster fish and I am looking forward to hearing what they say because I think it is not all on the up, NZ being the first in the world to discover something like this would be cool but highly unlikely especially after reading all of the great discusion on the subject. Who knows it may be true but why the avoidence by the seller of these guys when questioned on particular info it just doesnt add up. Plus who wouldnt want a 30cm agro monster crusing their tank, thats what we are going for anyway, they are so very cool, I love our jags. They develop new ways of showing you they are bigger than you every day, their latest was trying to eat the camera when I was taking pics of their bubs, they forgot their was a tank wall between them and the camera LOL, they are just so mad! I think the main thing is why try to fix something that isnt broke, jags are cool just the way they are!!

we keep all of your first pics together and they work fine, for a tank that size you could look at jags or jack dempseys too, they can get quite big, upto and over a foot long but super cool fish. we have river wood in our tank for our cleaners the plecos, but the others like the hiding holes too, the color does leach into the water though and it took about a year to stop hapening, but with good filtration it was not too bad. Your gravel color can affect the fish colors, eg bright gravel like white will brighten them and visa versa. Big rocks we used blue rock from a quary my hubby was doing work at, and it gave cool places for everyone to call home, but be sure to put them in a way they cant be shifted by the fish cause ours move their stuff daily. Plants, we have none, they got dug up and eaten, even the hardiest of plants make for something to do for our guys, they just dig and dig. We like to keep ours natural looking so everything in the main tank either came from the earth or was growing at some stage, our food tank where we breed minows to feed to the biger fish we do have some man made ornaments which you could use too. When we set our tanks up we had a look at pics of others tanks and at heaps of diferent forums. Hope this helps KB

I agree with these guys, from what I have been told or read most of these guys are hybrids eg mixture of who knows what and $70 is a high price to pay for who knows what, I bought a hybrid OB malawi and paid $13.00 from jansens and we only bought him because he was cheap, huge (15-18cmlong in the time we owned him) and my hubby wanted him. We had to move him to a new home as he was too big and too mean, he even started hurting our jags and they are the boss of the tank! We also have one the same as the one in the pic and we guesses he is a male zebra due to the egg spots on his lower fin, and I paid $1 for him, we also had a red zeb and we paid $1 for her from private breeders as they were poss hybrid. If you arent sure dont buy is probably the best way to save your money, there is always beter options some where it is just a mater of finding a good reputable breeder.

we keep a mix of striped and pink (gold) cons, the males look very gold and there is some mixed info on what they are, I call them pinks, anyway ours started their life with us in a tank of alsorts, we had in there our Jags, malawis, cons, plecos, a black shark and some jewls, in the begining we had some bolivian butterflys but they only lasted 2 days but other than that they all did well together. The cons are a fiesty fish, they play rough but they seem to weed out the weaker ones pretty quick, at the mo we are breeding and boy do they do that quick, so I would sugest to keep all of one sex if you dont want too much trouble, because as soon as they have fry they get super teritorial but they like to move house alot too and their teritory changes and they dont care who was there first. All our females have lovely red patches on their bellies and top fin this is both the striped and pink and the boys when they become mature they get a bump on their head, here are some pics of ours, like I say girls have red on them. Also a good idea to keep the similar sized fish in your tank, because the rule of thumb is the smaller guys get picked on. keep in mind this is the experience we have had with our guys, and I like to work on the more info the beter, so see what others have to sat and work off it all but I think they are a super cool little fish, our boys full grown are aprox 9-11cm and girls 5-7cm.

Hi there, we keep a mix of cichlids and now we are into breeding convicts and jaguars, and the first thing we came upon problem wise when we were new to it was the fact that cichlids are super messy, they eat alot and in return they produce alot of waste. The first major bit of advice we found helpful was to over filter their tank to help keep the water clean, and because they mostly like to dig we have alot of gravel for them to move around, but because of this they mix the waste up so we found we needed to combat ammonia problems in the water. This resulted in needing a good master test kit and regular checks, now we use ammo carb and ammo chips, this helps get rid of the ammonia but beware of the ammoloc, it is a good fix but even though it makes the ammonia not toxic to the fish anymore the ammonia stays in the water and when you test it still shows up as being there so you will not be able to tell if it then becomes harmful again. So we now try to keep the ammonia level low to nil to start, prevention is always easier and better than cure in the long run. We also keep two Pleco in our tank so the algae doesnt become a problem, they do need to have a piece of river wood in the tank to munch on to keep them healthy, this too is a double plus because the cichlids love all of the nooks and crannies too. I hope you may have found some of this info helpful and I would be glad to give you any more help or info if you think it may be of some use to you, feel free to PM me and I will do what I can. I really think keeping these guys is a neat learning experience and it is always cool to talk to others keeping the same type of fish as there is always something to learn from others. Good luck and have fun, they are just so neat to watch and own, far beter than TV. All the best KB