v.c.h.

Hello Alan, I finally have got it right about you now. You are a male and use the name Alan in this forum. Thank you for explaining.. I thought your last comment was a bit harsh on Australian men, I think I rather stay out of that one.. I don!t want to get into trouble. :lol:

Hi Caryl, Just writing to thank you for explaining who Cees is and his part.. I was hoping The Aquarium World Magazine, was freely available and similar to the American T.F.H. magazine. Never mind and thank you for the reply

Hi Warren, Thank you for the welcome. Unfortunately I don!t see myself as having a vigorous start on this site, when all I am doing is replying to those who show an interest into knowing me and I certainly don!t see myself as robust or forceful in any case. Perhaps you ment I am having (a pretty active start), or a similar meaning. Please correct me if I!m wrong. I use the word (vigorous) to my aggressive cichlids. (Unless you happen to be a Red Devil ).

Hi treehugga, Thank you for replying to confirm exactly what you have, I certainly enjoy chatting with you and anyone else in this forum. I feel that I should explain in detail why I stated (they bug me and can!t wait for their trend to end). I wrote that statement because too many new comers are being had by these hybrids including flowerhorns. And in most pet stores often these fish are heavily colour fed to make them appear bright red, and it’s the new comers who get lumbered with them, soon after they become attached to their pet cichlids and start asking questions and research how they can breed them, and discover they purchased a deformed hybrid fish, and it breaks their heart knowing they been stooged. It appears to me they are getting the wrong message that hobbyist involved with fish have this approach, they seem to continue this trend. In other words they think to own fish its dog eat dog......Take care

Hi Jude. Oh, I see what you mean about your introduction, you ask all your questions first and tell everyone about you later, (I am kidding Jude :lol: ). I just read you article on your fish tank, and seen all your photos, seven of them to be exact, you sure wrote every little detail. That’s a very nice display is it still going? You not only build an excellent set up, you done a good job with your pics to, I think you can ad more fish Jude with all those beautiful plants. Are all your plants real, because they look so perfect and healthy, very hard to tell? … Well done ..I certainly like heavily planted tanks any day with a few fish swimming around, What is good with your set up, you be able to keep your cats and alga eaters and change some of your fish later on and make you display look different so you not always looking at the same fish. 20 Red Neons or Cardinal Tetras, these tetras look great in a shoal among plants like yours, but sill is very nice already as it is ….Well Done

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi Caryl, Speaking of the devil, and you showed up. I just have been told about you havening the most posts in this forum.(congratulation and well done) I think you have an army of fish doing the typing for you.(possibly Guppies :lol: ). Well done Caryl if it wasn!t for all those involved as yourself there be no forums as this one, you also involved with the Federation of NZ Aquatic society plus the N.Z. Aquarium world magazine. How do you keep up with it all?(do you sleep? ).Who is Cee? (Cees sounds like the big fish to me). I see what you mean with a large filter volume of bacteria, doing all that for your fish means you be able to house those species that can!t tolerate nitrite like marines. Hey going back to N.Z. Aqua. World mag…I have never read that mag before, is it available in Australia? and how often does it get published? …Thanks for your time Caryl.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi Treehugga, Thank you for the welcome and I look forward in getting to know more about you regardless what we both think at the end of the day, I apologize for hurting your feelings with my personal statement on (Red Parrot Fish), you obviously are very fond of your pet fish, I imagine they would be a delightful fish to own as a pet being breed from any cichlid strain. As I stated in my intro the reason I am against them being supported and sold, is because of their deformed appearance, I personally have never seen one with a normal good mouth, they also have a deformed spine and a hunched back. I believe this problem is coursed because of the two different species they are bred from as they evolved entirely different from one another. I just checked your intro file before, and to my surprise you listed the species you currently have, I noticed you have parrot written down in your 6ft tank list. you didn!t write Red Parrot unless you own both types and left your Red Parrot out the intro list. I have a strong feeling you are misunderstanding the hybrid (Red Parrot ) I wrote about in my intro, with the pure bred specie sold under the common name Parrot cichlid, scientific name ( Hypsopherys Nicaraguense ).This is a good example we all should only use scientific names. Please, correct me if I am wrong and let me know if you do have both types of parrots. Red Parrots Hybrids are Tangerine in colour to Red…I look forward to hear from you.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi Jude, Thank you for the welcome, I noticed you just recently put in an intro about yourself , or is that another Jude? Have you got any fish? I only have a few Malawis at this stage and it feels great to have a short break from the bubble sounds. Some of my tanks started to fall apart from old age and was loosing good fish, Also got sick of repairing them rough and ready to keep them going, I decided to start again and at the same time have a break from feeding fish and throwing water out, lots of tanks empty for repair, now I am wondering if they are worth the time to repair them …Take care

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi Livebearer_breeder, Thank you for the welcome, and asking me to join in the chat room and I will do that one of these night, but I can only do this about 9pm my time, in other words around 11pm your time, because of the work I do. However I will some how or another, I did try in the past and I kept getting a pop up asking to let some program being installed in my computer, and often these pop up programs are full of spy ware. I live central Victoria in a town called Taradale with my wife and daughter, been here for 19 years now, and before that lived in a suburb close to Melbourne, I might ad for those who don!t know where Taradale is, it!s about one hour and ten minute drive from the city of Victoria (Melbourne). Gees Livebearer_breeder or shall I call you Shae, you mentioned you liked reptiles, and frogs. Blue tongues skinks, and Crimson rosellas, we have all those here running wild on our property, there is 3 species of frogs here, 2 dwarves and another medium size frog, and during Spring its awesome at night will all the crocking noise they do in their hundreds, Blue Tongues we have 2 types the common brown and blotched, we also have them crossed with each other, most live around our house and next to our door step we even feed them dog chum to breed their numbers up, we encourage this to keep the snakes numbers down, the idea seems to be working, because snakes numbers have been cutting down lately, when we first moved here I use to get rid of between five and eight snakes annually , these days we average one or two a year, on our property we mostly get Copper Heads, big Browns and the occasion Tiger , Only once got a Red Belly Black ,they seem to love eating frogs, at our swampy area .Crimson Rosellas eat all our apple every year so we don!t bother with our fruit tree any more, one pair breeds on same large gum tree every year , Galahs and Yellow Crested breed on our gum trees also, I think you would like central Victoria Shae. Once I was fishing not far from my place at a local reservoir (Lake Eppalock) and I saw a rare tiger snake it was bright yellow striped, it looked so pretty and bright, and I asked about it. Was told they do exist but very rare. I better not forget this is a fish forum …..Take care

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi Caryl, Thank you for the welcome, you all sound like you are very nice people. I like Malawi species also, especially Protomelas,Lithobates and Aulonocara species. You sound like you are hooked Caryl, and about to go mad on them, soon you start buying small tanks for your fry. You mentioned that you are going to use your 4ft tank for sump, what is that? And why do you need a tank as a sump. Correct me if I am wrong, but is a sump a place to age your water for later use?……Take care

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi Pegasus, Thank you for the nice welcome, and pasting out the direct sites to upload photos, I shall try these when the time comes to put photos in, I was looking to see where to click and how other members uploaded their photos and couldn!t find how, I will chase you if I find this difficult. I!m not exactly sure what you meant when you mentioned about myself being a visitor from Victoria Cichlids to this forum. (and I didn!t take it the wrong way either ), because word can sound different sometimes when written down and not heard, I am not a member of any fish or cichlids clubs at this moment of time, however I do know few local people involved with fish within Australia, so I suppose you can count me as one of them. I am looking forward to knowing you …….Take care

"MysticVampyre" I have a very large Moasic Cichlid, -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi MysticVampyre, Thank you to for the great warm welcome you gave me. I like convicts to, both colours we have only the white and black striped here in Australia, I use to cross mine with white male and a black female, I use a black female because the metallic green and bronze on their stomach, although white females are very pretty also with their pink colour, I wish we had the blue and marbled convict available as overseas. Do you have other colours available other then white and black striped in New Zealand? Mystic you probably already know we have wild convicts here in Victoria, about this time last year I caught about fifteen wild, and they behave just like as if been in a fish tank all their life, they eat flake and cichlid pellets by the next day and often breed within the first two or three weeks we also cross them with our tamed ones for new blood. However the wild ones never seem to grow bigger then about 8 cm, and same fish in tanks, male reach double that size with females smaller. From the same place we catch other wild cichlid species to. You mentioned you have Moasic cichlid, is that a Vieja Fenestratus. If it is I like all those types myself and are very hardy group the Vieja family, They are common in Australia at the moment those Vieja Fenestratus, I had some last year and couldn’t sell them because there were heaps available. It’s a shame because Flowerhorns hybrids have been taking place instead of the nice pure breeds. Mystic what time do most of you stop chatting in here? I don!t get on the net till late, but I will try to chat when I can make it to suite your time……Take care

Hi Allan, Thank you for replying to my intro, I am very glad I found this site, I don!t know the meaning of Moderator, I gather its means you are part of this site and in charge, or does it mean something else? I also noticed that some members have stars brighter then others under their names, is this to do with how long a member been a part of this site or am I wrong? (I am curious to know, if you don’t mind explaining). I do like killie species and they are available in Australia, their trend seems to come and go as most other types of fish, somehow they don’t become popular. I did have a couple of species years ago and what I didn’t like is that they had to reach breeding size before I could do anything with them, and to be able to grow them this size most males use to often kill each other, unless I heavily planted their tanks, and that only temporally slowed them down, their behaviour seem to be similar to Siamese fighting fish, very hard to keep male together without damaging each other, but I can see why some people keep them as first preference, their differences in colours never ends. Have you got many species? I do have a friend who has a few……..Take care

Hi to all the staff and members. I am writing this down to tell you about myself. I am still getting use to your impressive website, and have no idea how to upload photos at this stage. I am a 48 year old male situated in Victoria/Australia, been interested in all species of cichlids and other fresh water fish for most of my life, I also like some catfish and Australian/New Guinea natives. My first choice would be species from Lake Malawi and all the mouth brooders from Lake Tanganyika, followed with Lake George and Victoria. I like all American cichlids species for their size and colours, especially Geophagus types. They look a lot better with filtered sunlight shining on them, the latest developed shapes and colours of Discus and Angle fish are great, although they have been hybridised within their own kind to achieve this, I say well done to all those who been involved into developing these new colour morphs that are available these days, I reckon they are awesome. As a child I started with a tank full of live bearers, I had Mollies, Platies, Swordtails and of course Guppies. Haven!t they come a long way , I was amazed with all the different colours and shapes I been seeing lately, not sure if your importers are getting some of the same colours as in Australia , but I certainly do like them and I don!t care if they are hybrids because they look great. I like these Micalief Guppies to that are often available. I am glad the trend with Flowerhorns and Red Parrots is dying out within Australia, now those are crosses that bug me, especially the one they call Red Parrot, it amazes me how people purchase a fish with a hunch back and nine of ten with a deformed mouth, I can!t wait for there trend to disappear off the market. And those dam Flowerhorns, most are mules and sterile like Red Parrots, may be those that like breeding them should only cross within the Vieja group cichlids. I also like collecting CDs, books and magazines on all fresh and brackish water fish from all over the world, I like swapping live fish and CDs in case anyone is interested, although swapping fish will be impossible unless we get someone with a quarantine licence, plus species have to be added to our import lists. At the moment I am having a little break from owning fish and I haven!t got many, I only have a few of Malawi cichlids. Will get back into it in a few more months because of renovating my fish shed, or build a new one. My fish tanks been falling apart and leaking a lot from old age, silicone glue seems to loose its grip after 22 to 26 years. I Don!t know what else to tell you all, so please feel free to ask me any questions about myself, and I look forward to making some new friends, and by the way my wife is from New Zealand , the North Island , Tamranui.