henward

I have spread the feeding out to small meals 4 times a day. 10am, 5pm, one by me about 7 to 8pm. and one tiny portion around 3am in the morning. so i feed what i would feed in a day total - but spread out through otu the day. (Maybe slightly more in total, but very slightly)

will do when they are more comfortable the 20 are larger ones, they h ide all day most of the time unless its feeding time, they are only starting to come out. maybe couple to few more weeks, they will be back to their old selves. the small ones are schooling, 40 to 45. I will get a vid when they start to get mroe comfy too.

yeah true, but aussies get hermos dont they? all countries get them im sure:D

as david said also, fast flowing rivers, i find that they like to hang where the filter outlet sprays against the tank wall and there is a flow downward, they try to swim against the current. they definately feel comfortable with fast flow.

yeah you get the odd TM auction that has one thats old. i managed to get a big one from a TM auction, and it had a massive growth spurt of literally 3 to 4 cm in 18 months! that comes from feeding massively! The bigger they are, the more time they need to settle in i find. the small ones are schooling! awesome sight, the big ones are just hiding and comes out to get food and hides immediately. CLicks too lol never heard it before, weird. wonder why they do it. yeah, the tank is big, the school of 60 is in the 8footer 1200Litres. no shortage of space to swim! Main plan is to eventually have 88 or 100 in a 2000 to 3000 litre tank, with a high grade red aro. lots of hiding spaces, wood.

thanks mark :oops: yeah, i dont have room for splitting, i have now 60 in total. 35 of which is small, 5 are medium, the rest are medium/large to xl large. I find that there is no shortage of food. wtih my feeding regime - they all get fat bellies. Very fat bellies, i was weary of that, but the big ones are not coming out yet and may take time to settle. i ensure there is plenty of food for them to feast on:D come on, thsi is me we are talking about!!! 8) they love the beef/shrimp/fish mince paste discus mix i made! they get really fat on that!

hahah thanks david i will try that:P

haha ok i will have to settle for delayed gratification:D jsut making sure there isnt some secret clown loach trick

i read that they are hard to train to pellets is this true? or does google lie to me today have you personally seen them eat pellets? how quickly from intro did they eat pelletS?

haha yes of course but i mean in the best of my ability:D if i can grow them faster, why not!

Will they eat sinking food pelleted food?

Ok aros, 1inch a month is a good growth rate. With clown loachs, what is a good growth rate. Also tips on how to grow them fast and hard? I have purchased a school of 20 small clowns, started to school with 5 medium clowns. the smallone are currently 3 to 4 cms MAX, mediums are 6 to 8 max. Currently, the water params are as follows: 28 to 29c nitrates never higher than 20ppm *(thats at the peak) 90% of the time its on 10 to 12. After very heavy feeds goes up. Tank is 1200Litres. has an auto drip change system hence the constant nitrate levels and low levels. Temps never fluctuate more than 1c EVER due to ambient temps. that also fluctuates slowly. FEEDING: NLS Thera 1 as a staple and Beefheart/shrimp/fish paste mix was intended for discus, no more discus so now they eat it. They love it, bellies are always full. I had the school of small ones for 1 month now, in that time they grew about 1cm on average with heavy feeding and heavy filtrationa nd WC regime. Any ideas on how to grow them faster? what sort of growth rate is good?

i use extremely fine sand. silica sand you hav to ensure you have enough movement at the botom to stir it up though. but looks great, white sand makes the tank look bright. under the same lighting, compared to any other substrate - it makes the tank look bright and colours come out!

$ vs per ml use vs per ml treated prime is UNBEATABLE treating big set ups its a breeze. i dont use it anymore, but i used to treat the water nwo i dont. but i dont beleive they have a shelflife. They are a chemical cocktail designed to react to specific thigns in the water. SO, if you dont give them the chance to react and get spent so to speak, i dont believe they expire so easily. to memory, 5ml, cap full will treat 200 litres of water!!! our water is never that heavily chlorinated if at all, 5 ml is plenty enough. that is bang for yoru buck!!! good product. I have personally seen fish saved wtih this product in emergencies. I myself have used this to save large fish in emergencies.

maybe its Semenya 8)

I hd a system for this situation, where youc an flick a switch, and no lugging buckets, no spills. It worked very well. Extremely well before i had my auto water changer Here is goes: Its a simple rudementary system, but works well. In teht ank you have your inlets for filter. Take note of the level of that. then go to your lfs, buy a Submersible internal pump, Via aqua makes good cheap and very reliable pumps, impeller needs replacing after 2 to 3 years, costing only 19 dollars. OR you can splash out on eheim and never replace anything:D up to you. Just a small one, but a big one would mean it will cut down your water change time. Then you use suction cups, mount the pump just where your "%" line is, so say you wanna do 2x 20% water change a week, put the pump just at teh 20% line..... take a fitting that points up, and attacha hols out the top, maybe out a window or something, the house can be as long as possible. Then when youw anna do a water change just flickt he pump switch, it will drain quickly and the water will automatically go out the window or somehwer you take teh hose out to, this is a permanent fixture in your tank. Then whent he water is drained to where you want it - so you jsut leave it pumping for 10 mins. then you just take a hose straight into the tank! done!

saw fish few days back, looks cool very hungry and keen for food! my black aro is not as keep for food as this jar:(

hahaha if you win lotto, a free one wouldnt matter:D

lol i love those dels i swear, beef heart - pellets and a massive turn over of waterchange...... i fed them on massivores too for 4 months straight, nothign else but massivores when they were little. i got them from David actually! fed them massivores exclusively for 3 to 4 months, then switched to beef heart when they got big.

yes true lol

yeah, giving up would be bad i went through a phase of 'i wanna seel up and give the hobby up' sold my faty albino bichir and ornate to living art..... and most ofm y fish then had major major regrets lol bought new ones again in a week!!! there are two types of fish keepers. ONe who keeps fish for life and other as a phase

well, any options to other types of high grade aros are welcome to present themselves. I have been looking for importers of high grade aros - and only found him. steve also, but he is shy on importing more expensive ones due to demand. this dude tends to market direct to the market itself and thats how he sells them.

the only importer in nz, really i believe is 007. and he imports a handfull a year. someone has to buyt hem - these guys dont go on forums some of them im sure buy a few at a time. there aer a few out there, they just keep silent. which is kinda boring lol

you should get a few more. maybe keep a school of 6 plus. they do much better with 6 plus.

YEAH, SAD its ok, i will wait more:D they will get there, more and more are coming out now. an extra 2 to 4 are coming out now.