David R

Would it kill you to spend more than 12 seconds making a post and give us an idea of what the link we're supposed to click is about? Don't really want the Mrs walking in as I open a video full of 18 year old girls in bikinis.... :roll:

If you put a fish in a medicated quarantine it may prevent a big outbreak of something like whitespot, but by suppressing a full outbreak it may just kill off the weaker parasites meaning you put the fish that you think is healthy in your main tank with the most treatment-resistant parasites still present.

Cool! Look forward to seeing your set up, I need to hurry up with mine!! :oops:

Hang it over the front if its only temporary [if I've understood your problem?]. Running in series could cause problems if the pumps aren't evenly matched, and as the bacteria establish in the first filter and start consuming the waste there will be less for the bacteria in the following filters to consume.

Find the fish you like and can actually get hold of here and then find out what their natural habitat is like.

Why don't you just tell your dad to buy the tank now and wait until the tank is established (maybe get a couple of hardy fish) before adding more fish? Fish keeping is all about patience, and IMO if he's bring back a "school" of electric blue rams for a brand new tank its a disaster in the making. If you have a couple of filters running on your tank then you could put that on there to help provide some beneficial bacteria, but if everything else is brand new its still a big risk adding delicate fish like rams.

Good move. IMO they're just one of those fish that far too many people attempt to keep, and sadly most never reach their full potential of being monsters well over 2' long. OP the 6' tank should be ok, not ideal but ok, for some time, especially if you can stretch to 30" wide.

Used to be a lot more common 10+ years ago, but was too "boring" in comparison to the more "fancy" plecs [royals, gold nuggets etc] that started becoming more widely available and it was forgotten about. I haven't seen one here in person but I'm certain they have been here, as I remember talking to the old owner of the LFS in Whangarei about it, went something along the lines of "$150 for something that looks like a common but with blue eyes?! What a rip, give me a royal any day"....

That design has great potential for overflow when your filter wool gets clogged. I tried a similar design with submerged filter wool and found it to be too restrictive with the volume of water flowing through the sump. I've redesigned it based around some filter bags from http://www.particlesolutionz.co.nz as I think they'll be far better than normal filter wool and have a longer life. Napier Aquarium uses them. I don't think the heaters will be a problem, all my heaters sit right next to each other in the sump and seem to work fine. The other question is why are you running both bioballs and ceramic noodles if they're both submerged? Bioballs work best above water, you're wasting space and money by putting them under water.

^ good info, thats just what I've been looking for. Even those that didn't fall under the "surinamensis complex" shouldn't be difficult to add as most are similar in size or smaller than what we currently get and very similar in behaviour/habitat/potential risk.

You mean Gymnogeophagus balzanii? Already on there, actually thats another genus worth expanding on...

Here's a few of my suggestions for species that could be added to existing genera; Uaru fernandezyepezi [did I really need to say it :lol: ] Geophagus Sp. 'Tapajos Orange Head' Geophagus Sp. 'Araguaia Orange Head' Geophagus Sp. 'Pindare' Polypterus bichir [would cover the ssp. P. b. lapradei and P. b. bichir] Polypterus endlicheri [would cover the ssp. P. e. congicus and P. e. endlicheri] Satanoperca daemon There are other genera that I need to look into such as Crenicichla, Amphilophus, and Nandopsis. I can't for the life of me fish Jaguar cichlids/Parachromis (ex-Cichlasoma) managuense on there. I know they were there but they seem to have vanished of the version of the list I am looking at, that would be another genus worth expanding. Another thing is that they still list the genus Cichlasoma on there. That genus is now redundant, except for a few species, but it used to cover a huge number of cichlids from central and south america. Using synonyms, you could add countless new species [and genera] that were once considered to be Cichlasoma....

No, there certainly wasn't 800 black aros bought in!! AFAIK, the importers can only quarantine one shipment at a time, so they need to find a supplier who has enough of a selection that they can make a viable order.

As I mentioned before, it is something we need to consider, but we should also be looking to the future. A couple of years ago Uaru f's were available infrequently as expensive wild caught fish that were right up there with wild Altum angels in terms of difficulty to acclimatise and keep alive. Now F1 captive bred young are becoming available (still pricey) from more than one source, and they are proving to be much hardier than their parents. My guess is that in another year or two they will be much more readily available as more people start breeding the F1's. I certainly wouldn't want to not add something to the list just because an importer says he can't get it at the moment, look how long it took them to get black aros back in stock. Availability of fish is always changing, and mostly for the better. Reef; thats good news, there are plenty of genera that could do with expanding!!

Depends on the species of shovelnose, some of the smaller ones like lima or tigrinus will be alright in medium sized tanks as they top out at under 2' .

You know there's loads of "unclassified" fish on the market eh? Its not uncommon. Geophagus Sp. 'Red Head Tapajos', Heros Sp. 'Rotkeil', Countless suckermouth cats, African cichlids etc. When you see a genus followed by "Sp." it is an abbreviation for "species" and is used when the species is unknown, the other words (like "rotkeil") that follow are just a handle assigned to it until it is formally classified. The classification of some fish that have been in the hobby for years is still not resolved, there is still a lot of confusion surrounding what exactly "green terrors" are, for example, and they have been imported and bred in captivity for over 30 years! There are all sorts of complicated issues, like when does variation between isolated populations constitute a new species, that confuse things. A taxonomist may write a description for a species based on one type locality, but the fish from the next river may have subtle differences and until someone gets around to doing some serious research it will remain unknown whether they are actually a new species or just a regional variant. And [not wanting to sound like a broken record] that is why I feel its important for people to understand Latin, because if the average hobbyist doesn't know the difference between Andinoacara cf. rivulatus and Andinoacara rivulatus we end up with all sorts of confusion...

I'm going to run two 300W Jagers in my big tank, but its in an insulated room with several other tanks. Set the temp on the two 300W's a bit lower than the 500W so they only come on after a water change or if it really needs it.

Search on MFK for "rtcxtsn", red tailed cat/ tiger shovelnose hybrids are pretty common overseas. Would require a pretty large set up to try do it here, and then you'd have to find the fish! TBH I'm actually glad we dont. Some of the medium size species [like the two I mentioned before] can be housed in a large tank because they aren't particularly active, but I doubt there are many people here who are willing and able to provide for a huge catfish like a RTC or paroon shark. I've seen both at 4'+ in public aquaria overseas, and even if your tank could physically house them it would be far from ideal, akin to housing a foot long oscar in a 4' tank. If you could get a RTC you'd also be pretty limited with what you could keep with in, maybe a couple of pacus and a huge old silver aro, they have enormous mouths and eyes even bigger than their stomach. IMO you'd probably enjoy your tank a whole lot more keeping a selection of medium sized fish so you can actually see their natural behaviour in such a large space.

I agree, but only to a point. The availability of fish is always changing, and 99% of the time its for the better. If we were doing this a couple of years ago even I would have said there probably isn't much point in adding Polypterus ansorgii or Uaru fernandezyepezi based on their availability, both were sporadically available as wild caught fish from specialist suppliers, but now captive-bred juvis of both species are becoming commonly available. Yes it should be a consideration, but we shouldn't leave things off just because they aren't common at the moment. It would certainly make things easier if that was the case. Am I right in thinking with the current system we need to provide just as much information regardless of whether it is a completely new genus or nearly identical to a species already on the list?

You mentioned that MAF would rather receive one good submission annualy than several throughout the year, when was the last one made?

There is at least one in NZ alive, have seen it in preson and its a monster! Would make a tank of the dimensions you stated look small, IMO. Unfortunately we don't get any of the larger non-suckermouth cats here, I'd love to get my hands on M. irwini or M. tigrinus but I don't fancy my chances of getting them added to the list given the hysteria associated with "catfish"...

LOL!! Did you have a powerhead or something creating a current in the right direction?

How about you do some maths before running your mouth? I have made about 4900 posts in the little over 7 years I have been a member of this forum, about 1.8 per day average. Hardly excessive is it? Certainly not as high as many of the more prolific newer members.... Perhaps I will? Although perhaps if you look back at my posting you might find I have been doing as much [if not more] giving than taking. I may have "paid nothing" but I've almost certainly contributed a fair bit more than you with your 180 posts. Perhaps you haven't been here long enough to notice, but there has been a long-running trend for more experienced people to disappear off the top of both the forum and the club in general. This is one of the big issues Jennifer is trying to address, and that is exactly what I meant by catering to "the lowest common denominator". There are countless other internet forums that are far better resources than this one for more serious hobbyists. If I need advice about designing a sump for my 1400L tank I'll go to MFK because there are a huge number of people there with experience with tanks that size, where as here I could probably count the number of people with 1000L+ tanks with out taking my shoes off. The reason I continue to post here is because it is a good resource for local knowledge [stuff that can't be answered by people in America or Europe] and to try to foster and help encourage the hobby in NZ. You seem to have interpreted "the lowest common denominator" as some sort of insult, when really all I was saying is that FNZAS and the forum is very good at catering to beginner to moderately experienced people but doesn't offer as much to the advanced hobbyist. Obviously people aren't going to be entirely selfless in this exercise, I wouldn't be interested in making a submission without including Uaru fernandezyepezi, but thats not to say I wouldn't help out with other species that I'm not likely to keep. People are always going to be more enthusiastic and knowledgeable about their areas of interest (I'm sure you wouldn't be too interested in helping with a submission that didn't include any salt water stuff), so what we need to do is get the right people involved so we cover a wide range of fish. Correcting the mistakes on the list, or expanding genera already allowed in to include a wider range of species? Either way, I'm [obviously] interested in helping with the SA and CA cichlids, and oddbals like Polypterus.

That male is a stunner!!! Maybe there's something in the water, I just heard from a friend who has a group of about 12 (IIRC) altifrons in a 1000L and he currently has four pairs with eggs/fry and the tank is utter chaos!