livebearer_breeder

Very inovative Nymox, im keen to try it! whats the white thing on top?

are those just like sticks/twigs? Ive been wanted to get something cool like that in my new tank jst don't know where/what trees i could use

mmmmmm just watch those cherrys! there usually well behaved in a school but barbs are biters! With the rams try get pairs, ive often seen odd numbers of rams like 3 and the odd one out get really picked on. I only mentioned livebearers as they will supply your cichlids with livefood as well as being very active dither fish. I wouldnt have barbs and tetras together, but thats just me

wow i did not know that about brichardi! that really makes me want to keep some!

Unfortunatly if you want to have fast growing fast breeding fish, tempreture can be the key! Convicts are the true rabbit of the aqaurium hobby without a doubt! and they will do fine at 22c and can be left to there own devices, provide plenty of hidey holes, some plant and heaps of live or frozen food and you will have a terribly good success rate with these fish, they do come in the white and albino colour morph as well which is quite pretty when in breeding colours. I have a feeling your kribs would be a bit slugish and unhappy in that temp tho However platys/swordtails/guppys will cope in these conditions fine aslong as the tank never gets colder than 20c you'll have happy fish. Mollies are a bit more tempremental, i wouldn't advise keeping them in unheated conditions. And if you where to colonies these fish i would deffinatly suggest salting. The last thing you need is for velvet to rip through your breeders If you want feeder fish faster, convicts would be the way to go, but if you planted the tank out or just had heaps of floating water sprite then you could leave the livbearers to there devices, however it will take some time to start a colony, you will need many stater mature fish. ALL livebearers will eat there fry just so you know, however you keep your fish well fed and provide plenty of plant in your tank and they will hold little interest in the fry, the fry are also quite zippy, fed on BBS regularly and you should have semi adult/breedable fish at around 2 months. Livefood will increase the amount of fry females drop! Livebearers thrive in a tank that has plenty of water changes, this will also increase there growth rate and the growth rate of any other fish. Wish i had a 1200l! makes my new 800 seem small

Remember also that these a DWARF cichlids, they do not grow very big

Id prolly go 4 ram 4 apistos 6 corys and a bunch of livebearers Overstocking can be done very easily and safely as long as your filtration is very good and you regulate your water changes to frequent.

IMO loose the neons and the bolivians and add all those fish, including ALL the cichlids you mentioned, 160l will be sweet, just make sure you have plenty of water changes and maybe add some livebearers as dither fish, pack it full of plants and make some hidy holes useing river rocks etc Also it would be better to add all the cichlids at once, not one by one, otherwise you will have some establishing there own space which could cause some agression towards newer fish.

Can pick up a stone age desktop that would do the job for prolly $100 from somewhere, i Just got a new laptop 2.3ghz, 4gig ddr3, dvd writer, 1 gig graphics, 500gig HD 15" display, nothing super great, but sweet for my studies for $500, brand new, all you really need is something along the lines of a p2 even a pentium classic could do the trick haha, just remember a pc is going to add heat, go to jaykar and pick a thermostat to install in your pc, last time i was there they were about $30 then you just need an app that tells ur pc to notify you of tempretures through email to your phone, lol of course ive never done this before and im sure if i did i would run into some kind of snags Thats a pretty sweet deal, I started building straight out of 7th form, i was 17. I do a bit of subing now, thats how you make the real money! but have gone back to tech recently to study for the next year or so and sussed a very high paying part time job doing security 2 days a week haha so im just cruising atm, only really doing building when family or friends needs it, or if a decent job comes up, to hard to be a full time builder and a full time studier! was never keen to open my BCITO books after a day at work ae if its h3 you don't hafto paint it, but i guess it'd look a lot nicer, your doing a great job, maybe just slighty over enginered, but better to be safe than sorry when it comes to our pets! It wouldn't be to hard to put in a skylight, have you done flashings before? infact its better that it is on a pitch because you will have run off, rather than water sitting around causeing problems, plenty of silicone! what are you going to use for roofing?

maybe a thermostat attached to a pc that texts your phone when the room is getting too hot this is something i would do lol Natural lighting is gonna save you on artificial lighting and just make the rooms brighter and your creatures happier in general, i think for the price (depending on building recyclers in your area), and considering it looks like you know what your doing, a sky light could be key!

ply is probably the cheapest way to go! are you just going to paint it or seal it? will you be having any windows other than maybe a sky light? IS the extractor going to be setup to a thermostat to automatically run when too hot? If not i probably wouldnt bother, an open door can have the same effect, if its just going to be on a switch when your there to turn it on then it woud be cheaper just to open the door and let in some breeze, maybe just a single ossilating fan installed in a top corner to keep tempretures even through the room/rooms? This thread has made me seriously consider building a new fishroom! would have to wait till after december when i move anyway, but may start planning

I think i remember reading that most shell degration in aquarium kept larger snails like apples, is caused from a lack of calcium in there diet and/or a natural vitimin they get from the sun, as well as they can contract a velvet like sickness that slowly eats and/or discolours the shell of the snail. I kept apples for a time and never experienced this though, but i have seen other snails in bad condition re: shells

And with your cladding are you gonna go with a hardy backer system? or weather boards? brick maybe...

Sky light? double glazed would help insulate and provide extra natural light, can sometimes find fitted joinery ready to go from building recyclers second hand, slightly raised and a couple flashing's and your off, it looks great! Id be proud of my work if i were you. keep up the pics

Time to pack up and move to wellington, bring all your fish with you

*Removes Air stones, goes searching for more Co2*

150l will be sweet for 6 angels and dither fish!

You should get two more angels of similair size if the tank permits and some dither fish in there, livebearers will do, plenty of spots they can hide or breed on, plenty of plants, water changes and live foods or whatever is handy. Adding more angels will help balance the agression, as well as dither fish, which move fast and are bright etc, helps distract aggresive fish. This way you may end up with more pairs, but are garunteed atleast one pair. When one pair is succesful, remove remaining fish and find out if they have the stuff it takes to be good parents!

If its out in the open during the daytime its usually a bad sign unless theyve gotten stuck

surely that's not a Moscow? looks like a blonde pengu ish type? second is defiantly h/b blue

Really? From where? I haven't seen one for 5 years

So i recently gave my friend a 400l tank and upgraded to an 800l for my lounge, im Loving the space, first BIG tank ive ever had, seriously considered marine but instead went for a far cheaper option of south American cichlids, hard to do and afford a marine when your studying and working (but i see this as a "in the future.." thing) its looking great so far, haven't even been able to completely cover the bottom in gravel yet, have some malerii sp? on the way too, YAY! Anyways, my mate who has this 400l tank doesn't like the idea of setting up a little ecosystems for dwarf cichlids and smaller fish like me, he wants ONE BIG FISH. As the only large fish i ever kept was a pacu (and i understand you cant get these anymore?) i was wondering if you guys have some ideas for what the coolest readily available bigger fish I could obtain for him would be? preferably welly ways but will ship if i absolutely have to! Any feed back would be great, Gonna post some pics of some DIY stuff i did and the new lounge tank soon!! Cheers LB

can i ask what products you used, where you got them from and how much? I'm getting a large tank soon and would love to do this with plants and south American cichlids, but am worried about the water parameters? Cheers

Should have doubled up the external frame, would make it easier to fix wall frames too, depending on the depth you want your walls but id assume you'd want enough space to have some decent insulation if your going to the trouble of expol? are you going to use ply for the floor?

This is so common with NZ guppy's that i have next to given up on them. I still have plenty, i just care less about them now and it seems to have helped them survive lol I still do heaps of water changes and feed mainly BBS and I still find a small portion of every generation die off on the same way ( occasional clamped fins, looking a bit skinny, maybe swimming a bit funny, but always end up dead ) I only keep the strongest healthiest fish now, hoping that eventually this will no longer be a problem, but they seem to have become generationally very sensitive to change, this is most likely a result of inbreeding but it is hard to say. perfect example is, guppy's breeding by the hundreds, happy as in both mine and my mates fish tanks, so we decided to swap a few fish, this was about a year ago, no issues with either of our original fish, but of the ten we traded to each other i ended up with two left and he was left with one. these are both well established tanks, and then about 2 months ago we traded about 10ish fish each again and so far no problems, not one death yet. Very wierd..... so this is why i don't care as much anymore because you never seem to know if the guppy's are going to do well or not. Sorry to hear about your deaths, its never fun