ace99

Hello everyone, I haven't bought from Fairdeal (Harold) in a couple years. I tried to message him a couple times 2 weeks ago and he hasn't gotten back to me. Does anyone know if he still in business or know if he is on holidays? What is the best way to get a hold of him? I have always loved his great prices and quality of fish. Thanks. Peter

Thanks guys.

I just came back from Atlantis in Nassau and I was inspired by the 3 million gallon tank that they had there. Even though my 80 gallon will pale in comparison, I want to update my tank with a 3D background. I know that you can make one of your own but I'm too lazy/busy to do that. I would rather buy it. Can anyone help point me in the right direction in terms of where I can buy 3D backgrounds locally and also online. Thank-you in advance.

lukeS, Very nice fish. Have you bred the albino eureka reds successfully? They can be hard to breed. For some reason, these fish have been hard to come by recently. Where did you buy yours, if you don't mind me asking.

These red OB's do not "breed true" like the yellow/blue OB's. This is why the offspring will sometimes be orange or yellow in color instead. Possibly, the female is a yellow/blue variety when I bought them together one year ago. There is no way of knowing after the fact, I suppose. The next generation should be more red with a little line breeding.

These are the OB peacocks that I own. The father is a red OB that I've had for a year. The largest offspring male is more of an orange color. The other sub-dominant males may develop to be more red (hopefully). They are 2.5-3.5 inches in size. Father Offspring1 Offspring2

Update #1 The ruby red is starting to show more red down the tail and more blue on the face. He spends the whole day chasing the females around in the tank. He's definately acting like he's the alpha male. I'm surprised with how fast he's starting to color up. :thumbs:

I just picked up this male ruby red at Golds the other day. He was pretty beat-up and contantly harassed by the other fish.....but I saw potential in him. He has a deep orange / red coloration in the shoulders which I hope will extend down the full length of the body. He is now in a breeding tank with some females along with some sub-dominant smaller males. I'm feeding him NLS and Cyclop-eeze. This way, I hope that he will color up nicely. It would be interesting to see how he develops over time. If people are interested, I can post updated pictures every month. I do have a question. I notice that he has a very dark grey-brown base color....darker than any aulonocara species that I've kept before. How would this eventually affect the overall color as he develops? Will the red appear more red or will the darker base color make the red not show up as well? We will soon find out I suppose.

prodogg02, Your male ruby red is quite nice. Do you have a better picture of him?

This is my albino ruby red. He has some nice coloring considering his small size.

I was at Golds the other day and found out that their breeder ruby red male was recently sold. Who is this lucky guy / girl ? I'm a little sad because every time I visit Golds, I have always stopped to admire the beauty of this fish. Its rare to find a ruby red of this quality since most are orange at best....even with a good quality fish food. Since there is so much variability out there it would be fun for ruby red owners to showcase their fish to see how each one compares to each other. The picture below is the one from Golds. I'll post my newly aquired albino ruby red in a few days.

I was searching the web today and I came across these "Malawi Firefish". All the websites seem to be of German origin. I've never heard of this term before but these fish seem to be some type of red hybrid pseudo-albino. I believe it may be what is known in North America as Golden Peacocks or Sunburst Peacocks, but much more red. Even the females show a lot of red. Beautiful fish. Can anyone read German? Check out http://www.malawi-firefish.de/

All that I want to do is to raise awareness regarding the matter of fish that are sold are not always as advertised. I do think that he is an irresponsible breeder because being a responsible breeder not only involves the breeding itself but the fair and honest distribution of the fish produced. Can we honestly believe that ALL of his fish had "wild caught" fathers. Don't you think that its wrong to "use the same auction format for all his auctions and not changing some minor details" even though the information is not true for all the fish. For serious breeders out there, there is a huge difference between an F1 fish and "any old" fish....definately not a minor detail. I just don't think that it is right to mislead potential buyers because I'm sure that many of us have purchased juvies only to find out later on that they are not as promised or worse yet....a hybrid. If it was an honest mistake, his rude response to my email sure did not convince me of his honest mistake.

The captain of the boat only kept the yellow snappers, groupers, and barracudas. We threw back the trigger fish.

These pictures are from a recent trip to Mexico. Enjoy

There was an online auction for "albino eureka reds" yesterday with the following description.... "The pic. is of the Wild Caught Father and is almost an exact replica of what the males will look like...Some males are already showing tints of blue in face and body." (This is the description for all of his many fish up for auctioning) We all know that this cannot be true because eureka reds are man-made and albinos don't have any blue coloring. When I emailed him about being more careful and honest about the fish descriptions, this is his response to me: " Hey F*** YOU guys I use the same auction format for all my auctions and did not change some minor details. I have been breeding for 27 years and know what I am doing and talking about. Yes I know they are not in the wild and like I said I listed all these in the same format (description)." This really gets my blood boiling because it gives all responsible breeders a bad name. As we all know...buyer beware! He only added an amendment to the ebay description after I had emailed him. What do you guys think about this issue?

Did you shoot the macro bee shot with a ring flash or did you use natural lighting? Was a tripod used? I find that my handheld macro shots are not as sharp as they can be....and when I use a tripod, I've already missed the shot because the bee or butterfly has flown away. Very nice shots.

Nice job, Froggie! Did you use neutral density grads to get the proper exposure for the sky or was that corrected in photoshop?

Ichthyosporidium, A tripod was used for the shots involving longer exposures. Manfrotto 055PROB with a 322RC2 head. The yellowheaded blackbird shot was taken with a nikkor 300mm f4 lens on a Nikon D200 body. This is my first SLR camera which I've had for a few months. I really like the flexibility of an SLR camera but its very heavy to lug around for hiking/fishing trips. THe fall colors of the leaves are looking really good right now in and around Calgary. Taking Autumn pictures is my next project. Thank-you for everyone's comments. These are some of my first attempts at outdoor/landscape photos with an SLR camera. For those who's into landscape photography, I've recently discovered that using a polarizing filter and/or graduated neutral density filters can do wonders to the outcome of the photos.

Molino, The big dipper night shot was shot at ISO 100, 20s and at F1.8. The picture was taken at Emerald Lake lodge from the balcony. The trees in the forground were lit from the front from the lamps/lights outside the cabin.

Here are a few pictures from this summer. Most were taken during flyfishing trips. I find that some of the best pictures taken during fishing excursions don't necessarily involve fish.

Wow. He's very nice. Did you breed the original male OB with a female Ruby Red to get more of the red color?

OB peacocks don't get a lot of respect because they are hybrids but I've always loved them. Lets all share pictures of our OB's. I'm currently breeding a red variety. This is the dominant male. I'm amazed with how red he has become. Usually they are blue and yellow.

Supposedly, when the carbon becomes inactive...the toxins and contaminants begin to leach out into the water again. I don't know if I buy this theory. The carbon probably ends up becoming a media where filtrates collect and thus increasing nitrate levels.

In addition to what Rudy said...do you think that having some macroalgae in the reef set-up and having a deep sandbed would help to lower the nitrates enough? I read a good article about the cons of using canister filters for reef set-ups but I can't find it again. I believe it was on Reef Central or CanReef.