David R

Cool video, they look even better in person though! Hope mine turn out as good!!

Sorry, I should have mentioned that I did biology at school and know what a punnet square is. :lol: What I was asking is do you know if the theory is true in this case? IE do two albino sens have all albino fry.

Short answer; No. Any bristlenose/plec type fish will be picked on until its dead. A chinese algae eater might be alright, but when they get bigger they don't eat much algae AFAIK. Best idea would be to fix the cause of the algae.

Sounds like either your heater is stuffed or the thermometer isn't very accurate.

It certainly looks bulkier/chunkier than the average RD, but the lips also look quite big. Spink how big is it? True RD's don't usually get much over 10" where as midas can get to 14".

From what I've found, the vest majority of "red devils" in the hobby are probably mixtures of A. labiatus and A. citrinellus (midas cichlid). The problem is that most of the pictures of these fish on the internet are of the hybrids and not the actual species, unless you are looking at pics of wild caught fish where they can actually be correctly identified, like the ones from Jeff Rapps site that I posted. The other problem is the loose usage of common names instead of correct latin names; many people don't even know the differences between the two species (or that there is two species) and therefor add to the confusion. Here's an interesting discussion of this topic. But as for the OP's fish, I don't think anyone can do better than saying its part of the Red Devil/Midas group.

Will be cool to see if it is a platinum one, I don't think I've ever heard of them in NZ. Where are you getting it from, and do they have any more?! Anne do you know anything about breeding them, like if you bred two platinums what percentage of the offspring would be platinum?

Really? How can you be so sure its not a hybrid :roll:

David; my parents are both school teachers and knew how badly kids with different/unusual/funny names get mocked at school... :lol:

:Where from??!!!?!?!?!

The two pumps thing is an accident waiting to happen IMO. There are plenty of plans for DIY overflow boxes that hang on the back of the tank. Much safer way of doing it, still not as good as a drilled tank tho!!

Actually, looking at it now it has quite big lips (red devil = A. labiatus = lips), so it could be a RD, but my money is still on RD/midas hybrid. Nice looking fish either way. Check out these lips on the true red devil!!!

How big are they??

Dats aren't fast growers either, if you started out with smaller dats they would live together for many years.

Doesn't look like a true red devil, possibly a rd/midas hybrid, part of that complex anyway.

Thats a good idea having a secondary overflow so you can't overflow the tank. I'd still rather just get used to the noise, I had a 5'x2'x2' in my bedroom on an open 4x2 stand with a big sump and big pumps, after a week or two I didn't even notice it.

Why would anyone buy canister filters when for the same price (or less) you can build a sump with more and better filtration, as well as increasing the overall system volume and getting the heaters out of the display tank? That's a pretty basic diagram of a fresh water sump, one of the big advantages is that buy having media above the water level you get more bacteria growing because of the higher oxygen levels. IMO a 'full syphon' sounds like trouble, it seems like a good way to overflow the tank...

Mainfreight Precision, might not be cheap though...

Looks good, just watch the pH as beach sand often has a lot of crushed shell in it.

What is the substrate??

Jansens Mt Eden is just up the road from HFF Mt Roskill as you're heading back towards the motorway.

12 and 15cm are only big babies for a fish that has the potential to get to 40cm. At that size the hormones won't be fully engaged, its not til they reach adulthood they start getting grumpy. That said, they do seem to be very variable, some are killers, others are laid back. Give it a good sized tank with room for its territory and you should be alright.

Beautiful!!

About 550L ATM, soon to be around 1200L.

Because that would be even more stupid than banning reptiles! (and would put me out of a job) This whole warped sense of patriotism that has everyone planting "natives" is a load of poo, half the "natives" are nursery-grown hybrids, not actually native species. The nursery I work for is breeding some pretty rare plants that are endangered in habitat and very rare in cultivation, its a shame CITES, MAF and other borders and bureaucrats make it so hard to import/export plant material...