fishy-fish

Footprint is 1400 x 535. I will be building a sump for this tank and will look to turn over the water 8-10 times per hour (3000L/hr)

PM smidey - he sells some NLS stuff at a good price :thup:

thanks for the advice :roll: much appreciated. I will keep you posted with my progress :thup:

As above, I have a 330L tank which I'm thinking about stocking with various plecs. I am rather green around the gills when it comes to plecs so what are some do's and don'ts when it comes to a plec tank? Can you put various species together in one tank? Is there conspecific agression issues with multiple males? Is interbreeding an issue? What other tank mates would you recommend? Clown loaches? Corys? Dither fish? Any advice/direction would be greatly appreciated! :thup:

that's what I feed my african fry with :thup: it goes a heck of a long way too. Adults on 2mm NLS cichlid formula with the odd bit of vege

or maybe they are LDA72... :dunno:

Photo update...

Might be the coromandel water... :slfg:

:love: breed em them sell some to me! :happy2:

skullet :digH:

I have fine grade and can gravel vacc it no probs. The little that gets sucked out just gey put back n the tank HTH

You can gravel vac fine grade argonite and it gives you the added benefit of a bit of PH buffering. A 25kg bag should set you back about $50. Coral sand is another option.

+1 well said nudge

:nfs: :thup:

Not sure on the source of the smell but a good habit when cleaning sand substrate is to siphon out the visable poo then aerate the sand with your hand to remove any gas build ups from trapped waste. It could be coming from the waste trapped under rocks but it shouldn't smell like a dead fish! I tend to do turn about with my water changes - one week I'll clean around rocks and what I can see and get too then the next week I'll take the rocks out and give it a good clean then rearrange the tank. Seems to help spark breeding which is a plus!

I have plenty of 4, 5 & 6mm glass at the mo. Happy to cut to size and courier.

Cheers Lynda!

Any suggestions on what to feed them? They still have a bit of an egg sack tummy left but I've put some cucumber in there just in case. I hope they can find it as I placed it in the middle of the tank but they are all huddled in large clusters around the perimeter of the tank! I heard plecs can be lazy eaters, so any tips would be great!

Hi Dana, welcome aboard! :thup: Found this article, hope it helps... What can you use to safely clean the glass? Vinegar. There are a rare few commercial window glass cleaners made out of vinegar that do not contain ammonia, but they can be difficult to find and are costly. But why not make your own? You can make an excellent window glass cleaner from ½ cup of ordinary white vinegar dissolved in ½ gallon of distilled water. You can purchase clean, brand new spray bottles in the Big Box store, and you can add your home-made window cleaner to the brand new spray bottle. Mark this bottle for aquarium cleaning purposes, and your fish will be perfectly safe. Well, wait a minute… you don’t have to confine use of your home-made spray to the aquarium. Actually, you’ll discover that your homemade glass cleaner works very nicely on all glass surfaces, including windows and mirrors. Once you use this homemade cleaner, you probably won’t want to buy expensive commercial glass cleaners again. Last, how about those unsightly white deposits that accumulate on the cover of the aquarium, or on the black plastic trim? Well, your homemade vinegar glass cleaner works there as well, only you don’t want to spray it directly on the aquarium surfaces above the water. Instead, spray a little on a clean cloth and use that to wipe down the top of the aquarium. It will remove those white hard water deposits on the aquarium, restoring the cover to a like-new appearance. Even if a couple of drops of your homemade vinegar spray should enter the water column, it won’t be toxic to your fish, and it won’t upset your water balance. Natural buffers in your water will very quickly neutralize the acetic acid in the vinegar, and no harm will come from it. Keeping your aquarium clean and sparkling is easy and safe. And now you know how to do it without investing wads of money in expensive aquarium cleaning supplies

With some decent rock work you may get away with a colony of dems as long as you don't end up with too many males but it really is pushing it. What about some apistos, a school of tetra and a fancy plec or two?

Geez these BN fry grow quick! The corner huddle

Welcome aboard Phil :thup: Glad to hear you've seen the light and decided to stock africans! :slfg: In general, africans are best kept in a longer/wider tank than narrow/tall. The larger the footprint of the tank the easier it is to gain tank harmony as it allows for the males of each species to establish individual territories. Sorry to say, but an AR620T is probably not going to cut it for africans. If you can upsize the tank then I agree with hamster, dems and yellows are a great way to get started with africans and their contrasting colours are stunning! You also avoid the drab looking female issue you get with alot of other species as both males and females are basically the same with a few minor variances. If you do go this route, I would suggest buying them as fry/juveys and allow them to grow out together and I would recommend no less than 12 dems with 20 being a good sized colony.

I put all my rocks etc through the dishwasher twice without powder to help steralize them. Better to be safe than sorry.

YEE HAA! :happy1: Congrats mate! :thup:

I'm becoming to realise more and more how hard it is to get good quality, correctly ID'ed fish in NZ. I have no desire to label any of my fish incorrect names and sell them by duping people. Ethics and integrity seem to be questionable with a great deal of breeders it seems. I can understand the accidental mistake, but if you're going to sell fish as a particular species that is less common in the marketplace and you're charging more for them then you should be 100% certain of the fishes ID. I purchased 10 johanni fry from a breeder from this fishroom and it seems they are not johanni but either hybrids or psuedotropheus interruptus. It could be an honest mistake, but if I hadn't posted photos and asked the question here to double check, I too could have bein selling fry with an incorrect ID and only muddling the species in this country even further. It really is a problem that needs addressing. Good one you breeders out there who do their utmost to sell pure species and get their ID's right. We need more people like this in the hobby for the benefit of all. As far as my BN fry goes - I will be labelling them as common BN's until I get solid proof otherwise. Better to be safe than sorry.