fishy-fish

Here's a selection of photos of some of my fishys Can someone ID my aulonocara male and female? Melanochromis Johanni male Labidochromis Caeruleus male Another male Male & Female

Yeah, this is a great scape mate! Well done :thup:

As a confessing sufferer of MTS, I recently built a 200L tank and I've had a 75L tank sitting around doing nothing, so I decided to use whatever I had lying around to set these two tanks up. The 200L is going to raise my latest additions (more to come on those in the near future...) and the 75L is going to give me more space for fry. With some spare concrete blocks and a little bit of ply... TA DA! The space where the new set up is going (in need of a clean!) Stand assembled in roughly 45seconds :slfg: 75L in place and insulated (making the lid tonight!) Ready for the 200L All done and in place I brought the 75L forward for easier access My garage = MTS zone!

It's like... damn it I have to clean this filthy frick'n thing... oh wait a minute, what's that... three fish! Woo Hoo! SURPRISE!!

It's the damndest thing to watch! I have a group of 7 ice blues (5 F & 2 sub-dom M metriaclima greyshakei) that are schooling together like a bunch of freak'n neons! It's classic! They're swimming backwards and forwards, up & down the corners, mid level, top level... they're 7 peas in a pod! I've never seen mbuna school like this. It really makes a nice tank dynamic... long may it last! :slfg: Anyone else experience this?

I just removed a rather large bag of charcoal (maybe a kg or so) from one of the trays in my canister filter. It's been in there for well over 6mths, probably closer to a year, so my question is - how long does carbon remain effective? If you remove if from the filter and store it, does it become ineffective out of water, or will it recharge it? Does washing it help to renew it? Or is it more of a "oncer" product that you replace frequently? It just seems like a waste of a crap load of carbon to through it out :dunno:

I was cleaning out my canny filter last night and I found a wee surprise... or rather THREE surprises... 2 x 3cm demasoni and a 4cm yellow lab! Gosh knows how long they've been in there but it's been at least 3 mths since I last checked the filter maybe longer. At the size they are now, they couldn't fit through the filter guards, so they've definitely been doing some growing while chill'n in the filter. Now that's the "Kinda Surprise" of fishkeeping! :slfg:

PM'd :thup:

You are more than welcome! :thup: Your tank set up looks fantastic! I love the charcoal/grey rock and white substrate - it really sets off the colours of the fish nicely. I'm sure the fish are very happy with their new home

congrats on your new PB! That's a great time! I ran the huntly half a couple times and the legend marathon in titirangi before having a year off running. Just got back into it a month ago and plan to run the kouatunu bush to beach 22km trail run on april 21. Training is definitely time consuming!

In summer, I do 50% water changes weekly, siphoning out into 20L buckets (which go on the garden) then I fill up with the garden hose - no dechlorinator - I don't add anything. The water temp drops from 27 down to 23 but rises back to 27 within an hour or so. I use to be fussy with water changes, adding stress zyme and getting the water temp just right, but I have found all this extra effort to be unnecessary. Lugging 20L buckets of water around gets tedious quickly! Winter is a different story as the water temp out of the tap or hose is a few degrees colder. Because of this, I reduce my water changes to around 30% and increase their frequency. Oh, by the way, I keep africans and they are known to be hardy especially with temp changes so maybe not recommended on other fish families/species and I have yet to have a disease or stress related death.

I just built a 200L fish tank with tinted bottom, back and sides. Only the front, bracing and lids were made of clear. I really like the look of tinted glass and I agree with Lyndyloo, it gives more privacy and confidence to the fish. The only downside is less clear viewing angles for you to enjoy your aquarium so if it's a display tank, that might be a negative. My tank is going in the garage for breeding purposes so wasn't fussy Here's the link to the thread I posted for my tank build http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=56997

Happy Birthday Adrienne! Hope you get spoiled rotten!! :thup:

yeah not worth risking it I suppose. Again, thanks for the advice :thup:

OK thanks. Looks like I'll have to go single species at least for one of these breeds if not both and maybe have a male in the display tank for colour splash.

If I had these two species in a community tank, would they be likely to interbreed? I'm keen to add both these species to my 540L malawi tank, but if needed I could but one or the other in the 200L tank I just made. Recommendations please :spop:

Yeah they are mate. All bright yellow, no black markings. I was lucky to inherit a top notch breeding group when I bought my 6fter 8mths ago. These are the kids

Largest yellow I have in the tank is 5-6cm, definitely no adults yet so yeah, it was under age sex all round :slfg:

I just stripped a 4cm yellow lab! And she had the grand total of... [drum roll please] 3 fry!! Score!! I have very promiscuous fish!

I had double the numbers but I keep selling them! I will probably up the dems to at least 15 and will need to on sell one of my male ice blues as I have 5 males to 6 females and I think 4 & 6 would be pushing it! I have three more johanni in another tank (all females) with my adult male, so fingers crossed for some decent johanni fry. I was thinking of getting some taiwan reefs off of ryan and wouldn't mind some red empresses. Just like the added colour spectrum these fish add.

How true that is! :slfg:

11 red top ice blues 10 demasoni 6 johanni 22 approx electric yellows Want to add a couple more species. Any suggestions?

I have a big net and small net and go with the two net technique, but I guess I need to work on it a bit more :slfg:

yeah man and Otama beach has the nicest white sand. I call it "squeeky sand" cause it's so fine it squeeks when you walk on it. Stoked to live in the Coromandel bro! :happy1: