James

the fryri temp was at 29 as I keep both the tanks at the same, although they haven't got any colour yet their only about 2 months old brought them off trade me. do water changes every week, I've got lots of caves down one end the tank and its bare down the other, i'll try and put a photo up today some time.

their all in a 4ft tank with about 17 fish and a eheim filter that pumps about 1000litre/hr. I've got about 2 - 3 fish of the same species but because of casulties the ratios have evened out. I've also got about 5 fry of those electric blues with the orange bottom fin but I've forgotten the scientific name for them, but their nearly big enough to go in the 4ft tank now.

hi there, last night I lost my female kadango as she got beaten up by the male. would anyone have any help to offer about breeding malawi's. I've had my tank up for about 1 and 1/2 years and have had no success in breeding. First I lost my female zebra's and with them I tried putting the females into seperate tanks by themselves but this lead to them eating the eggs a few days later. I would leave the females in the main 4 foot tank untill they started getting picked on by the other various fish. I tried leaving the females in the main but this lead to them getting beaten up till they died, then I tried moving the male and female in together in a seperate but this lead to the female holding and then getting killed by the male which is what happened with the kadango. Apart from the aggresion when it comes to mating there is none in the tank. Does anyone have any ideas because I lost all but one female zebra and after the last beating she took she's taken a interest in the male again but I to afraid to leave her in the main tank, also girafe and dolphin haps and mandarins are all starting to get their dance on. what should I do?

hi Devon, just wondering what pet shop you saw those fish in as I've been looking for some to complement my one.

yeah I thought so but when I did that nothing came out and all I could see in her mouth were the pebbles. However, now she's had a good feed and now her mate is breeding with one of the males. Would it be possible that the female thought that the pebbles were her eggs?

BTW she has breed in past about 8 months ago which she successfully spat out about 20 odd eggs.

Hi I've currently been in the middle of trying to strip a female zebra, I followed the proceders in another post of using the paper clip. the fish is only about 3 inches, i put the paper clip about an inch into her mouth and but nothing came out. she's been holding for about 2 1/2 weeks. when nothing came out I put the paper clip inside her mouth again and I saw about half a dozen fruit salad pepples in her mouth, after getting one of the pepples out she started bleeding so I put her back in the tank and came here to ask the question.

does the paper clip go into the mouth or is there a point on the fish mouth that would make them spit? I have never had the oppurtunity to do so as I always lose the batch or the other fish hassle them so mush that they spit out the eggs and they get eaten.

I've seen them in Jansens Mt Eden and Botany Downs have one in their big display tank + also at Butterfly Creek out by the airport they have about a 20 foot malawi and tang tank. The first time I saw them at Mt Eden they were selling them for about $15 so I went back in 2 weeks later and they were $40 so I gave it a miss. I think their also known as brown haps.

I shall be puttig the male back into the 4 foot tank tonight when I get home from work, as opposed to putting the females in with him. Thanks.

I've got 5 females but I thought I might have better results if I kept the male alone with 1 female as the females were having their own domestics with two of them on the brink of death. I will try tonight when I get home and put them all into the one tank and see how they go. I've been a bit spectical about having the malawis in the tall hexagon tank as there isn/t much room going across the tank but a lot going up, would this type of tank suit malawis?

I've been trying to get my zebra's to breed, a few weeks ago I was having trouble with my females, this week I've got trouble with my male. I've tried moving the male into one of those hexegon tank thats about 4 feet tall, I've been putting single females in there with him two that have carried before, but when I put the females in there, the male beat them up the second one didn't last a day, but the first one was in there for about 2 weeks with baby a giraffe and a mandarin. The male is doing everything he would normally do such as building his nest, but he keeps on beating up the females. Would anyone know anything that I could do. I've also got a 4 foot tank with mainly haps in it, but I wanted to seperate the zebra's to ensure their was no cross breeding with a white zebra in there.

cleaned the tank and filter yesterday and all the fish are back to normal now. Stopped feeding them bread soon as I discovered it's bad for them so their back on spiralina flakes and pallets. Moved the rocks around and the aggression is gone, however, the fish that caused all the havoc looks as if it's holding. Should I put her in the hospital tank soon or wait a while for the eggs to hatch, cause everytime I seperate the mother early they always seem to loose their eggs after about 4-5 days?

personal reasons due to the health of my partner and having to pay big medical bills every week plus keep on top of everything else so the fish got bread, and it seems to work a charm.

there were all in a 4 foot tank with rocks and caves going almost right across tank. lately I've been feeding the sick fish white bread, could bread be bad for the sick fish in the long run cause I found that the fishes wounds heal almost overnight. Two of the fish looked as if they were about to lose there swimming bladder and were swimming fine the next morning, when I've had other fish in similar situations they always died and I've done nothing different apart from feeding them bread as opposed to spiralina flakes. I'm curious though if bread could have an effect on the malawis like meaty foods do on them?

my adult female zebras have all gone on a breeding spree and there has been a lot of fighting between my female zebras two nearly died from side wounds plus half their tail's were bitten of so it was only about 2cm long maximum. and the third has had it's tail completely biten off yesterday so it looked like a fleshly stump plus it was floating horizontal so I moved it into the hospital tank where it got attacked from the other zebra that was in a similar state when it moved in there but is healthier. So I put that zebra in my tank with the haps and was fine with them. next there was another zebra in the original tank and as soon as I took the tailless fish out the male and another female started beating up on the last zebra I had to move out so I put that in with the haps also. Now all the fish are fine, but I'm worried about the zebra with a stump as today it's healed up really well and will more than likely survive as she's swimming properly (for a fish with no tail) in the hospital tank, do their tails grow back and swim normal or are they stuffed.

Man domesticated dogs, so before they were domestic they were wild with natural instincts hunting and killing natural choosen prey. But although the dog is domestic it still has that instinct to kill a cat. It doesn't matter what we domesticate cause the instinct is still there the animal will still have the ability to do harm. When fish started being sold as pets thats when we imposed our will over the environment. But feeding a cultavated beta isn't causing any harm to the environment cause the beta never came from there cause you can't take away what was never there.

So whats the difference between a neon and a fighter, the only difference is that it's bigger and more beautiful, in your theory this is the reason why I should not feed a beta to malawis a neon still gonna have the same hardships as a beta does it still has to survive, I've got a tank full of neons just for the purpose of feeding my malawis, sure if you like betas you are gonna think thats its horrible but if someone likes neons - that a lot of people use as feeder fish their gonna think it's horrible too. Anyway I guess my point is betas have no more feelings than a neon, malawi, oscars etc there only reason for being is to breed and carry on the species not to have feelings of who they should or should not eat. But like I mentioned I've feed them just about anything I can get my hands on and my fish ain't complaining. the money thing - malawis are more expensive than a beta so they deserve better food . But it's not something I'm gona do all the time it was a experiment we all have to live and learn. I will keep on finding strange and beautiful creatures to feed my fish.

last night my partner and I decided to feed her male simese fighter to my malawi cichlids and it was awesome and gresome at the same time. I was wondering if anyone else has any other favourite large live food that they feed their africans as I will definitely be exploring more in that area. Have been through nearly every kind of insect we can get our hands on.

Sold the auretus and haven't lost a fish since and have also noticed a change in the shyer fish, coming out of their hiding places.

In the past 4 -5 weeks I've been having big trouble with my fish. First of all I brought 2 auretas females sorry for spelling. The older one turnedinto a male and as I've already got a male it quickly killed the newly turned male, now the second one taking on male colors but the male auretas is trying to mate with it, and was wondering if maybe the female is taking on the male colors to hid the fact that she's carrying although I've seen no evidence of her holding. A week after the first fish was murdered I found my johanni upside down behind a rock, then last week my Greshakei was dead. Although I have a feeling he only died as he lost the supremacy of the tank as the bumblebee that's in there has suddenly doubled in size and is now the new king of the tank and is stirring up quite a lot of trouble. All up I've lost about 5 fish as there was a couple of female zebras that were also killed. So it's been quite a hell of a month with the tank. Was also curious to know it the malawis have a special killing method as often I would feed the fish and then about half hour later the fish are dead and often there's no evidence of it been attacked as there are no nipped fins and no wounds on the fish although my lionhead has taken quite a beating and has a few fleshly marks on the side almost immediately as soon they healed. What fun!

there zebras, unfortunately when I got home home last night I checked up on the two females the one which fell pregnant first wasn't holding anymore and there were no babies in the tank that I could see. So I tried a little expiriment and put some food in there and she started eating, which made me a bit dissapointed as I came to the conclusion that she must have eaten her babies. I was wondering if this is possible seeing that I only put the second female in two days ago and thought she might have been threatened so she ate the babies, it is not possible that they are in there as the tank is quite small and would be very easy to see. the second one is still in the holding tank but even she barely looks like she is holding. I am doubtful that she ate her own babies as malawis are supposed to be very good parents, but evidence suggests that she has. Also how can I stop this from happening again as I'm sure she will fall preganant again in a few weeks?

there zebras, unfortunately when I got home home last night I checked up on the two females the one which fell pregnant first wasn't holding anymore and there were no babies in the tank that I could see. So I tried a little expiriment and put some food in there and she started eating, which made me a bit dissapointed as I came to the conclusion that she must have eaten her babies. I was wondering if this is possible seeing that I only put the second female in two days ago and thought she might have been threatened so she ate the babies, it is not possible that they are in there as the tank is quite small and would be very easy to see. the second one is still in the holding tank but even she barely looks like she is holding. I am doubtful that she ate her own babies as malawis are supposed to be very good parents, but evidence suggests that she has. Also how can I stop this from happening again as I'm sure she will fall preganant again in a few weeks?

Recently two of my malawi females have started holding one which i'm expecting to release any day now. I've known that the males have egg spots on the fins to attract females and so on, but the two females in the holding tank have also got a small amount of egg spots aswell, which has now completely thrown me off track to what I had previously read about. Would anybody know why these two females have egg spots. BTW I am 100% sure they are holding as I've managed to catch a glimpse of the eggs in the mouth and the one that is further along the babies have hatched and can be seen swimming around in the mother mouth.

Hi after getting home last night and feeding the fish (malawi's) I noticed that one of my females was swimming vertical up the top of the tank with her lips just above the water, when I tried to catch her she started swimming normally to the bottom among the rocks, I brought her off trade me in about Jan, with a white zebra, she is very simialr to the white one although her colouration is off just a little from deing a pure white (a tiny touch of yellow-brown) I thought this could be the female version of the white as I noticed them in a mating dance about a month ago. Apart from her fins being nibbled at a little she is fine and now have her in a fry tank which she seems to be doing fine although she still hasn't eaten for probably about 3-4 days although only noticed the eating part last night. while in the fry tank she has been staying among some rocks at the bottom and seems to be fine in there although still abit shy. Would anyone have any clues. BTW i haven't noticed that her mouth has dropped but could babies still be a possibility. I just don't know?????