David R

^ sounds like you're not speaking hypothetically? Is that power figure averaged out over the year? You'd want some pretty good safety mechanisms on it with solar heating, wouldn't take much for it to cook the fish if the thermostat failed and stuck open!

Good price, good fish, good shop!!

even a double layered green house will lose most of its heat over night during the cooler months. When I worked at Coromandel Cacti we had a room in the middle of a big greenhouse with double skinned walls and roof and it would still require a fan heater to keep it above 5C during winter nights. It could be a possibility over summer, although with the double layers you'd need very good ventilation or it will cook the fish, and probably an additional heat source to be on the safe side at night.

Got it in one, glass/greenhouses rely on the sun for heat, and the cost of the additional heat required during cool periods would probably exceed the amount you'd save but the solar heating during the day. Better off in an insulated room IMO, and heat the room with a heat pump to help maintain the temperature. Could possibly do a tropical pond in a glasshouse over summer, but would have to be wary of over-heating, not hard for a glass house to hit 40-50C on a sunny day if not well ventilated. Yeah ultima would be a good option for mega filtration, not cheap but tidy, efficient and awesome. Heating cable is another option for heating large tanks. I have a friend with a 3000L+ DIY tank (yes it has a window) heated with heating cable underneath the tank and it works really well. The most realistic option by far is to move to Malaysia. When it comes to tropical ponds its pretty hard to top this guy: http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forum ... p?t=341560 Check out some of his threads, 13000g, 40" royal clown knives, aros, catfish etc. Madness!!

They seem to vary, I saw some a while ago at hollywood that were showing a lot of mottled brown/grey/olive colours and not much red/orange even at a small size, looked similar to a common wild oscar. Are you looking for something like A. crassipinnis? http://www.amazon-exotic-import.de/Gall ... /INDEX.HTM

Could help prevent/reduce drop eye too. I contemplated building one to put my green aro in outside over jan-feb-march to see what effect the natural sunlight would have on its colour.

Probably THE largest, first equal with jags, both have the potential for a large male to get to over 40cm. You could probably house a pair in a 4x2x2' tank for a while, although you may have to keep them separated with a divider. I don't really want to do that as I love seeing their natural behaviour as a pair, hopefully my 6x2.5x2' will be big enough...

By pond do you mean something like a small pool or a DIY ply or concrete tank with no window designed to be viewed from above? I've thought of doing the latter many times, not adding a window would make it a lot easier, but you lose out on so much by only being able to view from above.

3' tank will be fine as long as its 6' wide and 2' tall....

I feed mine a mix of flake, NLS 1mm granules and colourbits, with the occasional feed of bloodworms, brine shrimp and chopped prawn. Don't worry about the food being too small for them. I stir all the flake and granules in so it sinks and they spend the next half an hour going crazy working the sand over.

It will be Saturday morning, if no ones home I can just leave it outside. I'm trying to get rid of my females, so if someone wants a possible breeding pair of festae PM Fruju and me!

I'm coming up north this weekend so could drop some off to you. I havent seen a tank with pure black substrate [im person] but this stuff is pretty dark.

Yeah, about all you can do is experiment. I've got a couple of sacks of the "charcoal cgrey grit" sitting around if you want some darker stuff to mix in with it.

hard to keep???

Fairly close, could possibly mix a little more dark stuff into it.

The mistakes you're talking about are grammatical, not spelling mistakes. I've seen people use "accept" instead of "except" on trademe before... :-?

Doubt it, not if its appetite is anything like my greens was...

I think you're confusing natural selection with hybridisation. It is unlikely that separate species of fish occupying the same piece of water that haven't crossed in countless generations would suddenly cross-breed and form a "new species". Perhaps after an extreme event like a flood where two separate populations are suddenly mixed there is a slim chance that they might be compatible and cross breed, but the vast majority of the time its environmental factors [natural selection, survival of the fittest, call it what you like] that shape a species, not hybridisation. In fact its more often likely to be the opposite, where one species occupying a large area gradually becomes two different species due to different environmental factors or geographic isolation. Unless you're talking about man-made hybrids, which would make up only a small portion of aquarium fish.

Shame they come from the wrong continent. :lol: Would look great though!!

No.

Exactly. This salesman is no spring chicken. He's been in the game for a long time. He should know.

Did you specify the trade-in was "as-is where-is"?

It won't be any more of a problem than any other change in parameters if you acclimatise the fish properly.

Sounds good to me! I'd suggest starting out with a larger group of geos though, and thinning it down to 1-2 males and 3-4 females. The firemouths should be ok, but if they pair up they may cause trouble. Maybe a single male would be a better option?

Can one of the moderators please edit the title into something relevant? :roll: