David R

Nice pics Alois! Lovely looking fish.

Thats more like it!! I'd love a group for my big tank, but being a snob I only want wild types and a group of 10+ could get rather expensive...

http://youtu.be/CpmDIP3Fn2Y

Both HFFs, perhaps Birdbarn if you're out west, and Pupuke on the shore.

1. Return is somewhere between the two overflows and have enough circulation to direct waste towards each end. Both pipes run down to the "start" of the sump. 2. As big as practicable. 3. IMO, a good quality one. Laguna are great IMO, quiet, reliable and efficient in power consumption. Even a small difference in power consumption will add up over time as the pump will be running 24/7. As for diagrams... there are endless possibilities for how you could set it up depending on what you want to do with it. For fresh water I'd say KISS and don't skimp on the mechanical filtration, but if you're going reef/salt its a whole different design again. Start reading and researching, there's plenty of info on [mostly] freshwater sumps on monsterfishkeepers.com in the DIY Filtration and Set Up & Filtration forums, and I'm sure some of the salties will be able to point you in the right direction of where to look for ideas if you're going marine. With sumps [iMO] it is a subject that it is far better to learn about how and why rather than just going by what people tell you. There isn't really a right or wrong way in many cases so knowing the reasoning behind it will allow you to build something ideally suited to your tank.

http://www.loaches.com/disease-treatmen ... in-the-sky

Same goes for any fish really, I know it can work and can be quick, but also has a good chance of not working first time and ending up being pretty gruesome and painful. I wonder what the SPCA would say about that method of euthanasia, perhaps someone could suggest it for their excess kittens?

Clove oil is pretty cheap you know, but if you'd rather bludgeon your pets to death I guess that's up to you...

Are the uarus a pair? Seems a bit young for them to be getting ready to breed (only time I've really seen them get aggressive) but who knows. How old are they?

Nice blue colour in the dorsal fin on her, must be the high protien diet... :lol:

Hybrids with Central American cichlids tend to be a bit more obvious as mostly they are fairly different in appearances, unlike the same-fish-different-paintjob appearance of malawi cichlids ( :lol: ). There are some exceptions though, the main being the midas/red devil complex, where almost anything that isn't wild caught or F1-2 from wild caught stock of known providence is most likely to be a mix of Amphilophus labiatus and A. citrinellus. Also, as F15hguy pointed out, many once simple genera have been split into several different species, as is the case with Amphilophus, though I doubt the firemouths here are anything but T. meeki, but just very poorly bred ones in most cases. The proliferation of flowerhorns has also confused things a bit, but not as much as if we had true A. trimaculatus here, they are usually pretty easy to spot.

What else was in there, you certain it was the uarus? Seems strange given the size difference, but I guess that's cichlids for you...

Feel sorry for the truckie, I know what its like to be completely powerless to stop something like that even though you can see it coming a mile off! As for the bike rider on the wrong side of the road, silly boy....

How big were the uarus? How big was the aro? How big was the tank?

Keep an eye on the more aggressive cichlids (texas/flowerhorn/gt) with the less aggressive ones, particularly the earth eaters. Large Central American cichlids have robust mouths with teeth designed for hunting and lip locking, and they will do damage to the eartheaters fragile mouths that are built for sifting sand (on the topic of which, the brightwater gravel is far from ideal for them). I think you need to decide if you're going to keep more of a peaceful community type tank with the eartheaters and more mellow tankmates or more of a rogue tank with the CA cichlids etc and separate them sooner rather than later. That aside, the tank looks cool, and I'm sure it will look even better when the wood has sunk! Is it 700 high or wide?

I have memberships to dozens of different forums (aquarium and other), planet catfish, cichlid forum, aquaria central, aquatic photography, reef central, reefkeepers, NZMAS, oscarfish.com, waterwolves, simply discus, arofanatics, etc etc, but the only other one I read on a regular basis is Monsterfishkeepers.com. I've been a member since nearly day one as I knew one of the guys who set it up off another forum, and the sheer volume of experience on nearly every aspect of the hobby from building to breeding to photography to importing is unsurpassed. This forum is great for local knowledge (and yes there are some very knowledgeable people here), but the DIY and Set Up & Filtration forums on MFK and the regular users who frequent them are gold for anyone interested in large tanks.

At the moment it just goes straight out the window, but when the big tank is set up I'm going to have to look at some way of re-using it (probably for garden or fruit trees) as we're on tank water. Only problem is the tank will be lower than the garden or fruit trees, so I'll need some sort of pump and storage tank system...

Probably the price is the best indication...... but even at a small size the EBs are quite different looking; If you look back thru the thread there may be some pics of "normal" fry. http://www.cichlid-forum.com/phpBB/view ... p?p=951041

Nelson is probably the "capital" of NZ brewing with the bulk of NZs hop production and a few different breweries, but as far as having a craft beer 'scene' Wellington wins hands down, check out http://www.craftbeercapital.com/. Certainly far more craft beer pubs than any other city in NZ, and many supermarkets/bars/restaurants beer selections reflect this. Even in Auckland it isn't common to see beer offered at generic restaurants that isn't from DB or Lion, but in Wellington there are often offerings from several independent craft breweries. P44, I don't blame the average NZer for not liking beer based on what we've been offered for decades from the two brewing monopolies, tasteless generic brown fizz, I often wonder if a rich warm chocolate or coffee stout, or a spicy Belgian Trippel, or a super hoppy American IPA could change that....

it's the Craft Beer Capital of NZ, go to Hashigo Zake and sample a few brews and one of their awesome pies (the beef rendang is great!), and maybe get your mate to drive home...

Would be interesting to see it, the one I bought is a good easy option but can only handle up to 1000W, so I may need something bigger for my new tank.

Agreed, it is also a big risk trying to adjust your pH by any means with out knowing about the hardness of your water.

"deep" is a funny one really, if you're talking fish tanks it usually refers to the width (although I have heard people use "width" to describe what I would call length), yet if you're about to jump in a pool/river/ocean depth refers to the distance from the surface to the bottom...

I want.... 3200x1200x750, certainly one of the biggest all-glass tanks I've seen.

Slow-ish growing, especially in smaller tanks, but they can and should get to 20cm+. Nice fish, but can be quite active at certain times and will certainly eat smaller fish.