nudge

From memory your tank is see through so can be viewed from both sides? this might be spooking them a bit as well. They will be seeing movement / reflections from all angles, being that they are still small i would say these two factors could be whats causing them to hide. I agree with the others and add some more fish, prob hap or peacock as another mbuna won't help( they like the rocks). I would def pass on the arautus, check out the net for all the horror stories of arautus killing all other tank mates, these guys get super aggro and need big num and a lot of space. I would look at a few male peacocks and/or haps. Or you may be able to have 1 breeding group of peacocks and 1 breeding group of haps.

Nice mate. Lookin really good. I love dem/yellow tanks its a great colour combination. Keep the updates comin. Congrats on the baby to.

Totally agree. Really like mine no complaints. Saw davids on his tank and was sold. Would like to get the double ramp timer unit but what little reading I have done about them it seems they won't work with the satellite unit. I run mine on the cloud setting, used to run them with a preset blend but for some reason it would become dimmer the longer they were on, not a major as you just need to press the preset button to get the colour back. Running the 4ft unit on my 5ft tank and they are plenty bright enough, highly recommend.

For me, if you are breeding in mixed highly populated tanks you can't really say with 100% confidence that your fry are pure. I get where you are coming from that with large mixed breeding groups you would think they would keep to themselves but can you be 100% certain they havent crossed. Especially if you have a mix of different peacock breeding groups. Then if these fry are on sold as pure........

It depends what your ph is as far as quantities go. My ph outta the tap is 6.8-7 so i use 2tsp of epsom salt and 3/4 tsp of bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) per 15L and that turns my water to a ph 8 and kh 12 and gh 20. Have been using it for about a year now and it seems pretty stable. Best bet is to fill a bucket of water and try different quantities till you get it right. Leave it for a couple of days and re test the bucket to see if it has stayed the same. From what info i have found on the net the bicarb won't get you much higher than that ph wise even if you add more and i don't know if it as stable as the seachem stuff. I have noticed the kh will drop to 11 sometimes but my ph never drops under 8. Bicarb and epsom salts you can get from the supermarket and its cheap, bout $5 for both. Just make sure the bicarb has nothing else added to it. How long does your seachem cichlid salt last you? would you get 10 water changes out of a 250g bottle?

Sweet tank, looks really good, love the aquascape. I'm interested in ya buffer routine. How much of the seachem cichlid salt do you use per water change. I use a homemade buffer, bicarb and epsom salts and my ph sits around 8 kh of 12. I'm on rain water so not the best for tangs. I have been thinking about trying some of the seachem stuff but at $26 for 250g i'm thinking its gonna be to expensive to maintain and the bi carb seems to be keeping pretty stable. I am interested to see if the cichlid salt with all the trace elements will help to improve the colour of my dubs which is why i want to know how much you go through per water change.

awesome tanks mate

tanks looking awesome david nice work. really like the look of the black silicone

Love the aquascape those rocks are awesome, nice natural looking setup gonna look great when you get ya fish in. No probs with the filter hosing by the looks. Try forum member "mycoolmc" he may have some yellows, was selling them a while back

Bring everything. It will be a lot cheaper than replacing itwhen you get here.

Perhaps if you offered to put pink substrate in and a rainbow or a fairy princess castle you might get her interested in wee fish. Yes, I am being serious.

Yeah i agree, not my call though she's pretty chuffed with bubbles but i will try and sway her with a few pics of some tropicals. What could i stock in there? it's 730Lx380Wx380H. Was thinking some cardinals or rummy nose what else could i put in and how many. Goldfish just dont do it for me.

Substrate was gonna be my suggestion, there was a lot in there and it was fairly coarse good for hiding crud, must have been a prick to gravel vac. I think the sand will be much better

Yeah thats what i figured, Think i will try one of the sunsuns it will be a bit quieter than the box filter. I have an airstone running at the moment and its pretty noisy. Cheers for the info guys.

I have aqua one canister filters on my troph tank and I really rate them its not as good as my fx5 but for the money they are great. Trying to keep the cost down as its my little girls tank and cant really afford to shell out heaps for a filtef if a couple of months down the track she loses interest. Missus will not be happy. Just after a cheapy that does a reasonable job. I will do an extra wc and vac to keep on top of the water quality.

Nice one thanks mate those were the ones i was looking at. Not sure how long she will keep her enthusiasm for bubbles so will try these out incase she loses interest.

It's a 100l tank but its not full prob more like 80-90l with a single goldfish that is 4cm and hopefully i can get her to rehome him soon as I'm trying to drum into her that goldfish don't like little tanks and need to be in a pond. So.....will look at turning it into a little tetra tropical tank, surely there is an internal filter that will be suitable, anyone use any of the aquaone or sunsun internals before.....

i have aragonite substrate and coral in 2 canister filters and I buffer my water with bi carb and epsom in my tank and i still find my ph and kh drops a bit as it gets close to my wc day. If yours is dropping that much i am not sure if a bit of coral in a canister is gonna stop that. I am surprised it is dropping that much especislly as you are using a premade buffer which I would have thought would keep your kh rock solid. That is fairly heavy stocking in a 3ft tank, but your nitates are ok. How long does it take for your ph to drop after a wc?

how many fish in the tank? whats ya nitrate readings

After an internal filter for my little girls 100L goldfish tank ( hoping to swap it to a tropical tetra tank in the not to distant future), anyone have any recommendations, something fairly quiet and I'm not after a top of the line like a fluval , just a middle of the road filter like an aqua one or sunsun i guess?

Why have u stopped using the malawi buffer?

as far as them coming out more you will find they will become more adventurous as they get bigger, i found with growing out juvies they were pretty skittish and hid a lot, this all changed as they got bigger

spray bars are a good option and it will help lessen the strength depending on how big you make your holes. It can distribute the flow across the whole tank, depending on how you set it up. If you make one to go across 1 end of the tank you can angle it up or down and have the current run from 1 end to the other.

got a feeling this is gonna be a stupid question but will a seeded filter from my african tank work on my girls goldfish tank. i imagine the temp change would kill off tyhe bacteria in the filter?

queenstown aint to bad either mate