nudge

wow awesomes setup, planted tanks arent my thing but this one is a stunner, nice work

so there mr smarty pants

The background is a piece of cardbrd with a roll of brown paper over it. Got it from the warehouse, its kinda like newsprint. I used poster paint from the $2 shop. I have painted rocks in each corner that go to the top of the background to help the filter plumbing blend in a bit more and a few in the middle then painted the rest of the background blue. When the paint drys it leaves a warp in the paper which gives it the shimmer look when the lights are on. If that makes sense. Once the paint drys it puts a ripple in the paper, i actually taped the top of the background along the length of the tank to stop water getting between the tank and background

Had my original black background from my malawi tank on at 1st but it was hard to see them, alright when you sit right infront of the tank but you couldnt see any fish when i'm longin on the couch, decided to try the blue

Black background with black fish and black rocks makes for a lot of blackness. Cheers guys tried to get some pics of the fish but they are to quick for my tired old reactions, will keep at it though gotta get a good shot sooner or later

i mean shots

Well I moved outta malawis and into tangs. 24 juvie dubs and 5 black calvus. Tank is 1500Lx500wx450H. Marble chip substrate, with crushed coral in filters, not 100% on ph but I am thinking in the high 7's. 2 canisters, 1 x fx5 and a cf1200. I know ya can't see the fish but their in there and the pics i took were rubbish so all I can offer up at the moment is what looks like a lotta empty tank shops.

agreed, lotsa air and some salt

Do you have the tanks you listed setup as peacock breeding tanks? or just males.

Right didnt click you had breeding groups, my bad, not paying attention, nice peacocks dude.

nice dude, how do you find the dragonbloods? do they tolerate each other. I had major dramas with my lwanda, albino eureka, and orange dragonblood they hated each other, much aggression in the tank, i am assuming they are all in the 1 tank?

I agree with smidey. The taiwans will get to big for that tank same with the dolphins, both these guys get well over 15cm. Even if you have a 1m to 4f group thats still potentially gonna be 10 or so 15cm+ fish with a breeding group of taiwans and dolphins. I reckon you would be better off picking 1 of these 2. Overstocking is a good idea if your tank is big enough 4ft maybe a bit small for these guys once they mature.If you wanna stock heavy in your current tank aim for fish that don't get bigger than 15cm. A 4x2x2 tank may work better but your current tank is to narrow (front to back) , the dolphins although slow growing can get as big as 20cm+. I wouldnt thin out your dem colony either if anything add a few more, they are hyper aggressive amongst themselves so the more targets they have to chase helps to spread out the aggro. If you take a few out now you may find that 1 of the males will kill off the rest of them.

I agree with the rest of them, tank looks cool, love the rocks, how many auratus do you have in there

cool they have some for cheap at the local and my aqua1 just decided to stop

anyone used these heaters, are they any good?

any chance of some pics, whats their temperament like?

I'm happy with my wc i feel bad enough keeping them in a glass box least i can do is give them good water. But, if 2 smaller wc is gonna be better than 1 big and 1 small, as far as keeping the water conditions stable then i will start doing that

I do 50% mon and 20% on fri worked for the malawis. Now I'm confused as most sites say trophs are more picky about clean water than malawis. I take it there is more chance of ph swings with larger wc's with the water parameters i have, which would make sense to buffer the water when doin large water changes. I don't have the luxury of changing water when i want these are my wc days. The misses runs a tight ship. Would i be better doing 2x30% wc a week than 1 big 1 then a smaller 1?

Thats what i want to know, does it create a healthier more colourful fish if you replicate lake cond? I mean these guys have never set foot in the lake

Thats what i was kinda thinking. If they were WC/F1 I can see why people buffer but if they are tank raised on similar cond to mine why mess with it. Its just that seems to go against pretty much all the troph sites which generally say to buffer the water to have a high KH.

how did i know you were gonna say that smidey

Never bothered buffering my water for malawis but now with trophs and tangs, should I. KH and GH are low. KH is 107.4 ppm and gh is 125.3 ppm on my API kit. Ph is mid 7's in the tank and outta the tap. Coral in both filters and aragonite substrate. Now low KH means unstable PH, correct?. This can mean Ph swings during wc's which is bad, am i on the right track? Now with the coral and aragonite helping to buffer the water where it's at now would it be ok to leave it alone, or would you guys start buffering. I change 50%, 150ish L on the mon then about 20% on fri. Hose connected to shower and dechlor as it fills. How do i go about adding the buffer? and what is a good recipe for my KH and GH readings. Can i add it as the tank fills, I'm guessing it would need to be lifted slowly on every mon wc over a few weeks to bring the KH up slowly. Any recommendations?

I'm in 2nd ave, think its transformer maintenance, got my dates mixed up its wed the 19th. Tank has a few fish but they are all juvies bar 1 dem. 5 calvus @ 3-4cm and 24 dubs at a similar size. 90g tank with an fx5 and cf1200. I do my wc on mon so i will clean out the filters on the mon. Might do the cf1200 tomo and the fx5 next mon.

Just been informed that our power is gonna be off for 3 or so hrs next wed. I 'm guessing everything should be ok with my tank. How long do they benefical bacteria stay alive for in my filters without the filters being on? anything i should be concerned about? i have 24 troph juvies arriving on tues so they will be in the tank with 6 juvie calvus which have just been added as well.

Cool thanks, none of the stores up here carry anything that big instock, i don't really want to ask them to order me 1 up then find it doesnt work and have to take it back. Cheer , cheers might be a tight squeeze but hopefully they'll be ok.