David R

There's some pretty funny videos on there if you search for 'african grey foul mouth' :lol: Amazing animals, I'd love to own one if I had the money and time to devote to it.

eel?

Perhaps it wasn't a strong enough concentration? I'd probably rather be slowly gassed to death by carbon monoxide than have my head smacked in by a giant hammer! :lol:

How big were the fish? I'd suspect a large male would claim more than an entire 4' tank as his territory, which is why some cichlids will try to attack you through the glass.

Slight OT; its not the least stressful [or quickest] option for the fish, and for the person doing it! Clove oil is the best way to put a fish down, there's a good article on it here.

What are they like to keep? What does it eat? Fast grower? I've often thought about buying one but don't know much about them...

Will do tonight, was it the really big one??

Aside from Greg/Tanks2u, Hollywood and Tough Tanks, who else should I try? Greg seems to be ignoring my emails despite listing several large tanks on trademe, Hollywood were quite pricey compared to Gregs original quote, and Tough Tanks just quoted me $2400 for a 150x70x60 tank made from 12mm glass!!! Yes, that is two thousand four hundred dollars!!!! Any other suggestions? I'm also looking for a steel stand, although its not so important as Tough Tanks quoted me a reasonable price for one.

How big was the tank? Males will often harras females, and if she doesn't have enough space to get out of his territory... They're regularly available from hollywood etc up here, but not at a large size.

Good to hear Jim. I've been doing a 30-40% waterchange every 3 days before re-dosing.

...but how am I supposed to test for amonia/nitrates/nitrites while treating my tank for ich with Tonic? The water is stained dark blue, which [i presume] will skew the results. I've been doing some research and I've found that malachite green can damage the biological filtration causing a mini-cycle so I want to keep an eye on the parameters.

Sounds like you definitely have one male, the other could be female or a smaller male.

Any more links/info about the tank??

*crosses fingers and hopes for uarus...

:lol: I'll say nothing... I've been doing my water changes shirtless, but mainly because I haven't been wearing a shirt other than at work. Don't get carried away with the big water changes or you'll lose some of the bacteria, frequent smaller ones would be best.

Oh why wont tough tanks hurry up with my new tank!!!

I'd say it is eating if you're missing a 7cm geophagus... :lol:

$100 IIRC, I got two GA for the auckland show in the pre-sale last week. 8)

Are you running carbon in the filters? Could be useful to get rid of anything nasty the old wood leached.

Not necessarily, otherwise all fish would be plain brown and grey. There's plenty of brightly coloured fish in nature for various reasons. Breeding for good colour is fine, as long as you're breeding for SOMETHING rather than just picking any two random fish from the shop (as most people tend to do with convicts...).

Wow!! Its cool seeing a massive tank like that being used to keep small fish.

You'll probably want to grow out a group of about 10 juveniles and pick the biggest/best coloured ones to breed from. I'd say you would want something around 4'x18"x18" for a breeding tank, and have a spare tank set up in case you need to separate them as males can be pretty hard on females around breeding time, especially in a smaller tank where she doesn't have space to get out of his territory. Just a little side-track on the topic of breeding, make sure you carefully select the fish you are going to breed, not just that they are healthy and free of defects, but look at their colour, size, etc. In nature Darwin weeds out the weak and inferior and we need to make sure we do the same when breeding in captivity.

What kind of cichlid? Might need 10L to 1000L+

My AT is the most active (and stable), the smaller indo's spend a lot of time hiding, and even the big one packs a sad and hides in his pipe occasionally. They all usually have quite an appetite, but the big one can go off his food for a day or two.

But you'd need something bigger than a 50L tank for one discus...