Albertan

Without regurgitating the gory details of my university biochemistry courses or competitive bodybuilding days, I'll just say variety is the spice of life when it comes to amino acids and leave it at that.

Like what? I can't ask if I don't know. I'm thinking about a tank with a sump, althugh that's new to me. Last time I did my shopping based on what was on display. Thanks for the heads up.

SIL?

Shaweeet!!! :smokey:

I picked up a 150 gallon tank from them between Chistmas and New Years for what I thought was a very good deal. I'm wondering if anyone knows if they still have their tanks marked with sale prices as they did at that time or if there is another place in Edmonton that I should be looking also. I'm looking to pick up another on the Family Day weekend that is at least as large, possibly bigger. Thanks.

I'm going to be in Edmonton over the Family Day weekend to pick up another tank. Can anyone tell me where I could find some sand cheap, preferably at a place that will be open on Saturday? Thanks.

Indeed. You'll have fun plunking a chair down and just watching them all for hours on end.

I'm running a Fluval 404 and an AC 50 on my 58 with good success. But if I could go back and do it again, a slightly larger HOB would be nice. The canister is great and does most of the work anyways IMO.

I'd love to go on that trip but prior commmitments won't allow it.

I don't just toss them in with force. I roll them in my fingers underwater. I have quite a lot of current in my 150 due to the filtration and the NLS gets carries everywhere, on top or in the water. Anyways, it's a great food and I like to alternate the NLS and Hikari as they each have different protein sources (krill & herring vs. salmon milt meal). I'll have to look into the pellets in Grande Prairie, I haven't seen them before. I bought mine in Red Deer a couple of weeks ago and the only two sizes were the 1mm and some that looked like 5-7mm as I recall. My 5" Escondido is a pain anyways. She pouts until I cave and break out the frozen krill.

I feed my smaller fish NLS cichlid formula and Hikari Cichlid Complete. Both are excellent products with significantly different ingredients. I would say the fish slightly prefer the Hikari, and I personally greatly prefer the Hikari. The reason for both is the same...the sink rate. The Hikari is flat on one side and convex on the other, and the sink rate is slow enough to give the fish plently of time to move to eat it. The NLS has a hard time breaking the surface tension of the water and tends to spread all over before it starts sinking, often resulting on more food on the substrate than I would like. Even if I roll it between my fingers underwater first, the NLS still doesn't sink as well as the Hikari and tends to spread all over. This is not necessarily a problem if the fish are actively feeding. But I am powerfeeding some 2" dovii right now and when they are not going full bore I have to either feed the NLS almost one at a time or be prepared to clean up the leftovers. With the Hikari I pretty much drop it in as fast as they can eat it. And boy can they eat for their size. HTH. BTW, I got my NLS at Petland in Red Deer. I'm not sure if the other locations carry it. And perhaps someone can tell me if their is an intermediate size of the NLS Cichlid Formula pellets. The larger ones are too big still for my 5" Escondido and she looks at the small ones with complete disinterest as they pass by her on the way to the convicts. Thanks.

I think mine are too young to sex yet. What are your thoughts? They all looked the same in Petland other than a small range of size. I have one thats larger than the others. I'm suspecting it's a male, but will wait to name him "BMF". :boxer: Hopefully one of the others is a female, although a breeding pair may be short lived anyways.

Well I guess they are sorta the same general shape as firemouths. Mine is more tolerant of convicts than FMs and they say cichlids are more aggressive towards similarly-shaped tankmates. At any rate, that pearlscale will hold its own just fine with the others it is housed with.

Yup. Looks similar to the one in my avatar. I got mine from PetSmart too last summer. There are more pics of her in my signature. They are very nice fish, but do become more aggressive than the typical convicts/FMs/JDs typically found at that chain. Not so bad as the RDs they peddle though. :boxed: BTW, what was it sold as? My guess is H. cyanoguttatus, the true Texas Cichlid, as that's what mine was tagged as.

I'll put my tanks and their stockings in a signature. The dovii and the young escondido are Rapps fish. The others are big chain specials since I generally refuse to buy fish from the Petland up here on principle, so I've just grabbed some more common species at the box stores on the West End of Edmonton on my way out of town.

Well, if mine turns out to be a male I think I am set. If not then I have a small problem on my hands.

Ahhh. I am not very good at venting fish. I just go by the other morphological variations between the sexes. Hopefully the little one is a male because the larger one is my favorite fish and I would hate to have to choose between them down the road if the search for a male continues.

Sump? That avatar looks familiar. At any rate, please keep me in mind if you want to get rid of any later on. The dovii all look pretty much the same at the moment. Its hard to tell any differences in the spotting along the midline. I'll be happy when they darken up in a few inches. They look like something I would put on the end of my hook at Slave Lake at the moment.

What makes you think the little Escondido is a female? The only way I am aware of to sex them is by the black spot on the base of the dorsal. This one doesn't show it, but I am assuming it is still too young to sex. The 5"er is definitely a female and looking for love as of late. And yeah I am psychotic and looking for a pair of dovii. I was gonna get six, but one is considerably larger than the others. Assuming it is a male that gives me a 87.5% chance at least one of the other three is a female. Also, I will likely have to cull the extras as Petland and the LFS up here are not much use when it comes to returning fish. So I tried to keep them to a minimum. Last weekend I was originally supposed to stay home and was going to have Golds fly up six grammodes or friedrichsthalii. But I couldn't resist the chance to pick up these Rapp's dovii. I'm thinking about grabbing them anyways and tossing them in the 150 with the dovii for now. I figure I'd have until May or so (about 5" for the dovii) before all Hell breaks loose. We'll see.

This definition courtesy of Pei on cichlid-forum.com Escondido is variant of carpintis that is collected in the Escondido area. I've found that this fish is more aggressive than regular carpintis. It also grows a bit bigger than regular carpintis...almost the full size of Texas cichlid (cyanoguttatus). Escondido is also very colorful. The differences between regular carpintis and escondido is their facial marking. Carpintis has blotches while escondido has worm like markings. Escondido is also very colorful...more than other texas cichlids. My girl also has absolutely stunning irridescence, which is considered another Escondido hallmark.

Hi. Last weekend I bought the last Escondido at Petland in Red Deer while down from Grande Prairie for a daughter's hockey tournament. I wouldn't mind trying to get a pair for my own personal satisfaction, and was hoping if anyone bought a group of juvies to get a pair they would keep me in mind for their extras down the road. This is a pic of mine below. He/she made the trip home twelve hours to Grande Prairie unscathed along with four dovii's as well. And this is a picture of my 5" carpinitis I also suspect is an Escondido, although she does not have the lineage of a Rapp's fish. I welcome any opinions agreeing or disagreeing that it is an Escondido.

I've dropped by this site before, but decided to become more active on it since struggling to find any decent fish in Grande Prairie. Through information on this forum I was able to procure some Rapp's cichlids from the Red Deer Petland this past weekend. That was all the prodding I needed to register :thumbs: I kept fish very actively through high school and my first university degree, but then put the hobby on the backburner in favor of other pursuits and family life. I am just recently returning. I currently have 150g, 58g, and 21g tanks. All house CA cichlids and dithers, and I plan to acquire a few more larger tanks when I move into my new home with its fish room in the basement this Fall. I think that about covers it. Cheers.