nudge

Dohhh!!

I agree with Ryan and Camtang on this one I have been stung a few times buying fish that are hybrids but have been advertised as somthing else, personally i'm not interested in keeping hybrids and to be sold fish that are hybrids is wrong unless stated. I learnt my lesson and now buy fish off breeders I trust such as Ryan. Just my opinion.

its a great size tank so in theory you could get away with pretty much anything. Do you want to stick with mbuna? Maybe some peacocks and haps. A group of venustus would look good. With what you have suggested you could prob add haps and peacocks to the mix as the yellows are pretty mellow as far as mbuna go. The dems at 20+ should stick to themselves and not cause to many probs. Have a look through some species profiles and post your ideas we can give opinions to help get ya stock selection right.

sounds good but your yellows and red zebras will likely cross breed, i'd go for 1 or the other and it can be hard finding good quality red zebras, yellows and dems together are a bit of a classic mix and look great as its an awesome colour mix, keep up the posts tanks comin together nicely

this is a great build thread cant wait to see it up and running any idea on a stock list?

cheers mate

Will do mate, by the looks of things i think i have 3 males and not to sure on the other 2 will see how things pan out but am happy to flick you 1 if i get a few

i'm crap at takin photos but i will see if i can get some worthy of posting

Tanks been runnin for about a year, dubs are 5-7cm and the calvus are 3-5cm. starting to get regular mouthfuls but none holding for more than a few days. Just got a new led light setup (same as davids) and still messin round with it to get the best colour out of the fish.

Havent posted an update for a while mainly cause i take rubbish photos so i gave in and took a vid instead, qualities not the best. 25 dubs and 5 black calvus

stunning mate, great colours

Nice Litho!!

agree with david, get your kh sorted and stable and your ph will be fine

nah i havent yet david, i was hoping with the aragonite sub and both filters with coral that would be enough to help keep things stable. I have filled a bucket with water that has a kh 10 and will test it through the week to see if it stays stable.

flow should be good its a 5ft tank with an fx5 at 1 end with the outlet pointing up to disturb the water

Yeah i read that this morn adrienne thanks, i would use the premade buffers but man they are so expensive here, i was hoping to get by with the homemade recipe but i'm not so sure about this now. I add salt to the buffer recipe because every recipe i have looked up on line says to use salt bi carb and epsom. I have no idea what would be absorbing it, with the other bufferring agents already in my tank i was hoping this would help to keep everything stable

From what i have read kh helps to keep the ph stable. I keep trophs and calvus the water out of the tap is soft so not suitable for tangs. I want to raise the kh to help keep the ph stable. Most troph sites recommend kh14+ and gh 16+. If i can sort the kh out the ph will sort itself out.

No idea mate like i said i'm new to this i am just quoting what i read

ok regardless of what does what, why is it dropping and not staying stable?

Instead of investing in these, there is a popular home remedy that works just as well. All the ingredients can be acquired at your local grocery store: Epsom salt, Salt, Baking Soda. Common bicarbonate of soda is effective at raising the pH, not to mention it�s very inexpensive. Epsom salts (i.e., magnesium sulfate) can be used to harden the water, raising the GH. And then you could also add salt to increase the general hardness of your water. I recommend using non-iodized table salt; however, others use Potassium Chloride or even Instant Ocean®. You can read more about the differences between these salts in my article on Aquarium Salts. For a few dollars, you can mix up enough Rift Lake Buffer to last you a year or more. Taken from cichlid forum and from what else i have read salt helps with kh.

crushed coral in both filters, aragonite substate. On tank (rain) water when i tested kh with my api kit it didnt even register and ph is low very low out of tap. I add 3/4 t bs 3/4t salt and 1 1/2 t of epsom salt in 15L water and that gives me a ph of 8.2 kh of 12. Can't work out why its dropping though. I'm not to worried about the GH its the kh that i"m trying to stabilise

cool found some stuff online, epsom=gh, salt=kh, baking soda=ph. If i add more salt to my recipe wont that just max out the kh? I guess my question is why is it dropping. I've been raising everything slowly over each wc and if i add more salt to my recipe and raise the kh by so much i'm worried it will be to much of a change. Is the kh dropping because my recipe is wrong? it seems weird that it was at 12 for 5 days then when i tested last night it dropped to 10. I'm new at buffering water so excuse all the questions :oops: . I get what each ingredient does but i don't get why its not staying stable

I'm in the middle of changing my kh in my troph tank. Aiming to get it up around 14. Last week my tank was at kh10 and i did a 40% wc, added new water with a kh of 12. Tested the water mid week and the tank was sitting at 12 tested last night and it had dropped back to 10. Is it my buffer recipe that needs tweaking? i use baking soda,salt and epsom salt, if its the buffer recipe what do i need to add more of to keep it steady?

agreed, there are some good breeders on there but there are alot of not so good breeders who don't breed in species tanks, i usually get fish shipped to me so i got stung a few times with fish arriving that didnt look like the pics they had posted, 1 of the drawbacks of not sighting the fish you are about to buy i guess

I got a chance to see davids lights they are awesome. Never really taken much effort with lighting but after seeing these i ordered some last night.