nudge

I'm with smidey on this one, evolution or not. We have such a small amount of species to choose from, and a lot of what we do have compared to other countries is questionable in purity. We are lucky there are a few breeders around who do their best to breed good quality fish from a market that has a saturation of cross bred fish, it is pretty hard to garuntee the purity of zebras for example. I have nothing against hybrids themselves if you plan to hold onto them, on the other hand i disagree with fish being bred in multiple species tanks and then on sold as a pure fish and given a scientific name. You can never garuntee 100% that the fish is what you say it is if it has been bred in a tank where there are chances of crossbreeding.

i have one i got from ryan, cool fish. Not really red, kinda orangey red. Think ryan has some for sale. If you have a look for an older post from ryan on here there are some pics of his haps and peacocks he has suggested, will give you an idea. I think your rusties and yellows will be fine with the peacocks, not so sure bout those afras as i stated before. I think the post is called "bored so took some pics", not sure how to setup a link to it

Yeah all male peacock tanks are cool. I think you'd be ok with any kinda peacock in your setup, they can get pretty snotty and would work fine with your mbuna. From what i have read the afras can get pretty aggro so i would think they would be the only problem u might have.

A couple of peacocks would work to. are you planning on just males, or breeding groups?

Depends on the size of your tank. What are the dimensions? I have a taiwan reef, azureus,lithobate, malawi dolphins and a venustus in with a colony of labs and rusties and they seem to work well. Most of the haps we have available in nz grow to a pretty hefty size so you would need at least a 5ft tank, unless you buy them as juvies and rehome them as they get bigger if you have a smaller tank. Not sure how they would go with the afra, are they fairly aggressive?. I had a colony of dems in with some peacocks and haps at one stage and this seemed to work well as the dems were more interested in fighting amongst themselves. I think the haps work well with the milder mbuna.

i think it depends what cichlids you keep. My girraffe ate everything. I had some java fern but couldn't get the stuff to grow. I have offically retired as an aquatic plant grower, will stick to fish as i am having a better success rate

Think i will try and trim the edges with a razor blade hopefully that'll get rid of any tatty ends so he can't get his chompers onto any stray bits. I'll take him out for a meal and book him into phychiatrist, def some unresolved issues

Yeah me too. I'm worried about the tank more than the mentally challanged fish. At the moment its just the edges. I'm hoping the bead is to thick to pull off the closer into the corner, but if he does mamage to get more off the edges will it compromise the strength of the silicone.. Outta interest, is there a silicone you can use that will bond over the existing bead or do you have to scrape it all off and redo from scratch?

I don't think so i think he is just being a prick. He's pulled most of the edges off on all 4 sides Youu can sorta see the back corner as well where he has been nibbling at it, he must be suicidal cause if he keeps this up his house is gonna fall down around him. Think i might have to rehome him. If he keeps going will he do any damage to the tank.

I just watched him pick at the silicone now. I think you maybe onto something ira he's definately a bit mad. Might have to get someone to kidnap him from my tank, before i don't have a tank!

This may be a bit random but, I'm sure my venustus is pulling off the silicone beads in each corner of my tank. It seems to be disappearing and its only started since i put him in the tank and i've noticed him poking round in the corners every now and then. Anyone else come across this? On a more important note will it start to effect the tank, last thing i need is a corner giving way and emptying my tank all over the floor?

i use crushed marble in my tank, its kinda expensive but it looks good. I got mine through trademe. Not hard to keep it looking good. I do a water change once a week with a decent gravel vac and it seems to work for me. Silica sand is nice to its really white and not to expensive.

I do a 50% water change once a week and do a gravel vac every water change. I give it a really good vac, that should stop it from turning green. I try and give it a good stir up to help move all the crud to the surface and can get it out with the vac as well. What kinda substrate do you have?

cheers still got a bit of work to do but its gettin there. Like i said it pretty basic, but does the trick. Bit of cardbrd cut to lngth. I couldnt find any 1500 long so just joined to bits together(think it was an old washing machine box)then cut it to size. I made it as high as the lip of the tank. I got a roll of brown news print from the warehouse, its in the art section. Think it was about $4 or so. Couple pots of poster paint from the $2 shop (water based paint for kids). I got a black and a white. Rolled out the news print and penciled out the different rock shapes i was after, then used the black paint to do the outline of the rocks. left it to dry for a coupla hrs then mixed the black and white together till i got the colour i was after and coloured in the rock shapes that i outlined with the black previously. Left it to dry overnight and the next day i mixed up some more paint slightly darker than before and used a small sponge and dabbed it over the rock shapes to give it a kinda textured look. On some i covered the whole rock shape and on some i just did a corner here and there. Thats what gives the different colored rocks on the BG if u can see that in the photo. The paint does dry a bit lighter than when you put it on and yiu can go over the outline of the rocks again with the black if needed. I think the paper is 550 wide so once it dryed i cut it to length and knicked each corner put the paper on the cardbrd and folded it over and taped it to the back of the cardbrd. Its just taped at each end against the back of the tank. I really need to run a length of tape across the top as well. Sometimes the fish flick water out and it gets between the back of the tank and the BG but i think that would fix it. Hope all that makes sence. It looked a little rough and i had my doubts but it looks pretty good (once you get it behind the tank) for a BG that is less than $10

pretty low tech. A piece of cardbrd with some paper over it and a coupla tins of poster paint. Came out pretty good though and managed to find some rocks that match the colour of the BG, helps it blend in a bit i guess

Cheers, it used to be an all male peacock/hap setup but that didn't work so had to move about 11 haps and peacocks on and start from scratch. Tank is 1500L x 500W x 450H bout 340L Smidey they destroyed the lot. Damn giraffes.I got them to stop pulling them out but once i got them secured to the bottom they picked them off 1 after another. With in a week or so they destroyed the lot!

Sorry pic quality isn't to good, i struggle to get a nice shot with my camera, 1x protomelas taiwan reef 1x copadichromis azureus 1x otopharynx lithobate 1x maleri red peacock 3x crytocara moori 1x venustus 6x rusties 9x yellow labs would like to add a couple more peacocks. Any thoughts, suggestions

I currently use the api test strips to test my water every couple of weeks for my own peace of mind. I think they are kinda rubbish and hard to read. So i need to upgrade, was looking at the api master test kits that do ammonia, ph, nitrite and nitrate. Am wondering if i would be better off getting a gh/kh test kit and a nitate test kit instead. From what i understand gh/kh help to balance the ph and nitrate will tell me will tell me what condition the water is in. What does everyone else use?

Wow, beautiful fish!

I need a new tube for my light. The LFS has a couple of aqua one tubes. 1 a "tropical" and one is a "sunlight". I think the tropical is around 15,000k and I'm guessing the sunlight is prob a higher K rating. Just wondering what kinda tubes you guys are running on your cichlid tanks. My current tube is a 30W 18,0000k.

Thanks frenchy, I am thinking i will take the mbuna approach. I have 6 rusties and 3 dophins growing out. I think i will take out the kadango, electra. brownae, and fryeri and put in the rusties dolphins and a colony of 8 or so yellows. I'll leave the steveni and maleri in the tank with the azureus as i have found these guys to be the most mellow and let the mbuna put on a bit of size. Then i may add a few more haps and peacocks and see how things go. Hopefully the extra mbuna will create a few more distractions. With the limited amount of haps and peacocks available in nz it is kinda hard finding fish that arent similar looking

Cheers for the replys and advice. If I can source some bigger fish I would like to give them a go and see if it helps, prob is its hard to find bigger haps/peacocks, theres alot of fry about but no adult males floating around. like i said no ones been beat up yet but there are a few fish cowering in the corner and the chasing is non stop, maybe I am over thinking this?

All #%$& has broken loose in my male hap/peacock tank. It has been pretty calm for a year or so, but all that has changed within a week. It is a 5ft tank, 500mm wide and 450 high about 90g. 1xredfin kadango14cm 1xprotomelas steveni taiwan 10+cm 1xplachidochromis electra 10cm 1xfryeri9cm 1xcopadichromis azureus 8cm 1xhaplachromis brownae 6+cm 1xmaleri red peacock 6cm 1xal baeneschi hybrid 8+cm 1xdragonsblood peacock 8cm 1xalbino auratus 1xdemasoni Where do i start. There hasn't been any real fighting, no damaged fish a few with fin rips but no one has been beatup yet. There is alot of aggression and constant chasing and i am at a loss as to who to remove. The kadango is constantly chasing the steveni. The electea is constantly chasing everyone. The brown gets pretty aggro but he just flares up doesnt really chase anyone that much, i think hes just all show. My fryeri and electra are giving the azureus heaps every morning he is up in the corner of the tank. After i feed them he comes out and swims about a bit but he looks uncomfortable and is pretty timid. Right the peacocks. The baeneschi has decided he doesnt like anyone but has singled out the maleri. He chases him constantly and the maleri kinda just hangs out in the corner or at one end of the tank. I removed the baeneschi on the weekend but that just caused the dragonsblood to flare up and he started to fight with the maleri for dominance. I was hoping by removing the baeneschi it would give the other 2 peacocks some time to recover but it just caused more probs for the maleri. I have put the baeneschi back in as the maleri was copping a lot of grief from the dragonsblood. My tank has gone into meltdown. It seems whenever i remove a fish another one just steps up and causes havoc. I rearranged the rocks but that made things worse the baeneschi had the whole tank backed into a corner. I am thinking i will have to pull out the fryeri the electera the kadango the brownae and 2 of the peacocks the auratus and the dem. That leaves me with 1 peacock the azureus the steveni and i have a growout tank with 3 small crytocara moori and 6 rusties. Any thoughts? Quite a lot to take in but i am at aloss and would value some input. I have posted on cichlidforumn and have a few people say the tank is to small for these haps and i just recently upgraded, so a bigger tank is not really an option. Hoping i Don't have to can them all and start again but i am thinking this is my best option. Don't really wanna leave them to it as i don't see how this will help, i'll have a whole lot of dead fish and the survivors will be super stressed and may get sick

that litho is awesome, how big is he? breed him, breed him. Your maleri red is stunning to

yeah i think your right, i think i will hold off till the rustys are big enough and introduce both groups together