aer0

ah all good man, hope you find her a suitable mate. The female I had has gone to someone else to look after for a while... ive only got 8 fry left from that first batch they had. Im interested to know peoples thoughts on Fred, his colouring and marking does he seem to be of good bloodline or not really?

I would but not keen to ship him really... well.... i dunno we could do some kinda trade if you have some fry maybe? He is pretty well fed, a nice selection of pallets, flakes and blood-worms every second day. He is currently almost alone in a 400litre tank im building... its just him and my Albino oscar

I have a pair of sunsun's and have no problems, i cut the crappy plug off the end and fitted it with a good old Kiwi plug

you could make a rock overhang type of thing have it glued to the back of the tank and if you managed to find small treetruck/driftwood you could use that to support the overhang lip if you get what i mean

Everyone meet Fred: He is my first ever Cichlid, a male convict.. around 4 years old according to the guy I bought him from I know its not the best photo and it is in his old tank.. but any thoughts on him?

I would most defiantly be separating out the fish that appear to be healthy still, taking them out with none of their existing water (as little as possible) and putting them into a separate tank if you can. what are the rest of your tank levels like Ammonia, nitrite, nitrite and PH? are you getting fluctuation in PH level between morning, midday and evening?

I wonder how mine compare bloodline/quality wise. I bought them as my first ever Cichlids... as a pair male and female... they had one lot then the female has gone to another tank, the fry are in my growout tank at the moment and are looking good. The male is in my new enclosure im building up as a nice display tank 400l bowlfront, its going to be a mixed tank i dont know how well its going to work, i hope to build it as natural as i can, lots of caves/hiding spots both small and large and will be stocking it with my male convict, a bunch of electric yellows, blue's and demisoni's maybe a couple of JD's and potentially... depending on how it behaves one Albino Tiger Oscar... i picked this fish up last week because it was so beatuiful! currently living solo in a 150l tank and im not too sure if it will mix well with my other fish... what are your thoughts? also thinking of adding a couple of nice plecos but not sure?

i love the little wiskers

you could always put black paper around the filter or similar

Im jealous of how nice this looks!

fish a few out with a cup or net and take a photo for us

with that stocking list you ideally want to set aside 30 mins once a wee, spend this time doing a quick water change10-15% once you get those nitrates under control, scrape the sides for algae.then onece every second week give one of your filters a clean.... so maintenance over 4 weeks should look like this Week 1: 15% water change and glass clean Week 2: 15% water change, glass clean and clean filter 1 ( rinse all sponges in water removed from tank) Week 3: 15% water change and glass clean Week 4: 15% water change, glass clean and clean filter 2 ( rinse all sponges in water removed from tank) you probably dont need to touch the media in the bottom basket much unless there is a lot of gunk buildup on it... maybe rinse each one in tank water once every few months but ideally thats where all your good bacteria is hanging out... Have you been feeding any veg based stuff i.e. my plecs love cucumber! do you have any plants or completely unplanted? they will help control the nitrate

Yes you are off to a good start by doing a water change, make it a fairly big one 30-40% every two days till your Nitrate comes down to near zero. I doubt there will be any in your tap water? Also if you have not tested in a while, whats the expiry on your test kit and what brand is it? You wont need to buy new media, just rinse your new filter with fresh water then rinse that off with tank water as you do a water change... then throw 25% of your media balls from old filter into new filter and put some of the ones than come with the new filter into the old filter, this will act as a seeding process for the media. You can probaby add new spongefilters in the new filter though that wont matter too much.. if the existing ones are still good then dont worry about it... just rinse with tank water. by chance is that the CF1200 that sold on trademe in the last few days?

even 400l might be a bit small for a fish of that size.... more ammo for me to go bigger when i show the wife that my fish are too big for my tank

yup and by the time its grown a wee bit my 400l will be setup

ok so Ive got a 600l/h in the mail on its way it should arrive tomorrow. I also added some livestock yesterday, my first Coral and fish. The Zoa is just small covering a bit of rock but ive placed it in there under good light The Clown is a Clarkii, around 3.5 cm long so still small

He has colored up nicely since I took that photo

If you are going to be heating the whole room consider getting thermal backed curtains to keep the heat in, maybe consider getting up into the roof space and adding an extra layer of insulation in there too. i'd also get one of those draft stoppers for the door to seal the gap along the bottom. A good heater and de-humidifier will keep the room warm and dry but as mentioned earlier you want good glass lids on all the tanks to keep the moisture in the tank not the room. LED lighting will have less current draw than MH or tube's so will be nicer on the powerbill over time.

ok thanks dude

I have a waterflow question. Currently I have a small power head in the tank, its the pump end of a small filter and is rated at 200l/h this is just shy of 10x the tank volume every hour. from reading online we really want a minimum of 10x the tank volume per hour to better simulate the natural environment. Ive recently got my mitts on a sunsun waver 2000, this is "rated" at 2000l/h so that works out to exactly 83.3 times the tank volume every hour. Is this too much and going to cause unwanted damage to the coral and fish that will call my tank home?

Alright, tank has been running for 2 weeks now, I think im in the middle of a minicycle... ammonia is 0 but small trace of nitrite and nitrate. Im loosing a small amount of water to evap, around 100ml/week and my SG went up to about 1026 but adding RO water and its back to 1025. Apisasia seems to have come back so the LR will be coming back out this week for some more gas burner action.

Dont ask.. just to it... once its setup and they see how awesome it looks and how amazing the fish are they wont care! Just make sure you do your maintenance and stuff outside normal working hours so they cant have a go at you for wasting their time feeding/waterchanging your pets

I am a person that suffers from MTS, i even have tanks at work That's a quick video of my Cichlid juvies im raising at work before taking them home for the 600l Cichlid tank im building. Who else has tanks at work (working in a petshop doesnt count)

A couple of quick macro shots... My friend turbosnail... I actually discovered two of these not one like I thought... bonus! And some pretty rock

This experience has made me think twice about exactly how I heat my tanks, im considering an external temp controller as another safety measure. So this would be an extra probe at the other end of the tank that will monitor tank temp, once within the range will turn on the heater but if the heaters thermostat decides its still too warm it wont turn on... also if the heaters thermostat sticks on the temp controller will just shut off power to the heater. I know there are already items out there that do this so I might be making a few purchases for my tanks, i'd hate to loose some of my pets to a faulty $50 heater!