Disneyworld

Is this page buzzing, or what - Richard, I wouldn't do it, even if the bee is not capable of stinging I would imagine that there is still poison in it, and that could affect your fish. On the other hand, some African tribes ingest small amounts of poison to cure some diseases, go figure, the bee might put your fish on a buzz (corny, Dis :-? )

In reply to Goldie, Disneyworld breeds guppies - but my "stock" of the last few months has been a huge disappointment, I bred a colourful female with a beautiful, huge male, and they produced deformed babies. Never thought I would see something as sad as this in my breeding days, they have unfortunately all become protein for my Lake Malawis (murderer!) :oops: I have been trying what Pegasus is currently doing: endeavour to breed more colourful females. Colourful males are relatively easy, but I have found the NZ stock a little bit wanting in the female colouring, a bit sexist, don't you think Anyone has any suggestions on improving the female stock (I'm talking guppies here, people), lets hear it...

Needed to share this with you all: my beautiful electric blue Lake Malawi cichlid has gone to big fish heaven. Shortly before her death she started swimming upside down. Yes, thats right, she literally flipped. Has anyone seen similar behaviour before?

My experience: The freeze dried tubex worms are a definite no-no for mbuna. It tends to bloat, and eventually kill, them, but I have honestly never experienced problems with the "ordinary" blood worms. I feed them bloodworms as a special treat once a month, it could be that the secret is not to feed it to them too often.

Beautiful tank, Ira. I have similar plant munching fish, and for plant coverage added Java fern. To prevent the buggers from eating the plants I feed them a vegetable tablet once every fortnight. It seems to work, not a single fish has touched the Java fern then...Anybody else had the same experience?

I got into tropical fish because I bought a house with a goldfish pond (years ago). I became totally hooked, and one thing led to another Nothing wrong with goldfish, they have loads of character, but who know, you might go tropical one day

The person with the most money :lol:

I've been feeding those type of "problem" fish vegetable tablets. They contain a high dose of veggie nutrients, and have had success with this method. Just a thought

Thank you, Ira. Yes, it is a mystus, but I have seen them in groups in the petstores, and they still don't move. Naturally lazy, sorry folks. Mine used to be very outgoing, but lately you hardly ever see him. Perhaps he senses that I don't like his lazy nature

I didn't like the "tone" of voice our friend AbelA used in his discussion, not everyone is an idiot, Abel. Yes, I did use pretreated wood, did boil it (always do) and yes, I left it for one week in a huge bowl of water to check for sediment coming off it. It didn't, the wood looked fine, yet there is still a small amount of dust coming off it into the water. Oh well, I have learned to live with the regular cleans, and the cichlids are happy.

I have been fortunate enough to own fish in Europe, South Africa, and now NZ. In all these places the water differed enormously, but as long as I added Aquaplus there has never been a problem...

disneyworld will be in Upper Hut this Saturday, Ira I'm not sure what the scientific name of this catfish is: he is quite large, long whiskers, grey body, white belly, sharp erect fin on his back, and infinitely lazy. If someone really wants to see him I'm more than willing to send a photo. (disneyworld embarrassed at getting such a lazy cleanup crew :oops: ) I purchased him only so he could do a job, and he aint doing it...

I finally found a beautiful, large catfish to clean up my tank. The cichlids do not dare intimidate him, but why did I have to buy the laziest one of the lot? This fellow cruises around the tank all day, but has not cleaned as much as an inch of the tank. Starving him also doesn't help, anyone for a catfish? He is yours if you can catch him

Oh no Caryl, please don't tell me I have more problems, there are enough as it is - I do a weekly water change, the stuff sticking to the glass is also not algae, its a brown powdery substance, and comes off easily. I can only think its residue from the wood. It doesn't seem to bother the fish in any way, but it bothers me. I'll be out there shortly looking for a ctafish, perhaps they can help.

Yep, its disneyworld and her cichlids again - due to the fact that I do live on the earthquake fault I decided months ago to decorate my new cichlid tank with big stones at the bottom, and light wood at the top. At least that way the decor won't crash the glass in a shake. A small side effect I have noticed is that the wood stains the tank with a light brown sediment. Is there a "cleanup" fish available that would be happy to feed on this, and at the same time is not murdered by the agressive cichlids? I am currently combatting this problem by cleaning the glass at least twice a week, but there must be a better way :-?

Why, the dirty so-and-so . The females dislike him, too bad for my deprived cichlid, he will have to shudder for a long time....

I finally build up a small collection of the Lake Malawi cichlid, one of my old time favourites. However, the dominant male has been displaying weird behaviour lately: he shakes and shudders at intervals, quite similar to someone having an epileptic fit. He is big, healthy, no parasites, etc, etc, and the other cychlids don't display this behaviour. Does anyone know what the reason for this could be, or do I just have to accept that I own an oddball fish?

Wow, Cees is very ambitious, but I love the idea. However, how does one get past MAF? Importing mammals and fish into NZ is apparently quite an ordeal. I too have been involved with the breeding of guppies for some time, and was quite shocked to notice in a Lower Hutt petshop a couple of females displaying their original "wild" grey colouring. Whats happened to the beautiful fan tails? I support the import of new blood whole heartedly. If anyone out there has a couple of decent guppies I would love to hear from them!

As nobody has an answer to my question I will be bold enough to answer my own: I have found a nice array of Lake Malawi cychlids in a Lower Hutt pet store. Are there any other Malawi "nuts" out there, I cannot possibly be the only one...

I have great difficulty finding Lake Malawi cychlids in NZ. Can anyone please recommend a decent source within NZ? It would be a great shame not to have this wonderful fish in this country. Thanks