mitsukuni

Got 6 little l.multis. Would've missed the last two (wasn't paying attention) except I heard my name, and Christian staring at me (apparently I've been bugging him for shellies for a while) so I "had" to bid... :blush: Didn't see them till the day after I put their shell in the tank.. LOL Also got my wife a small filter for her seahorse baby tank. Had a great time, and got to see my buddies Connie and Sandy. Sat next to big Dave near the front, and enjoyed the antics of the auctioneers till we had to run along. Thanks to all - great day! Phil

Yay! Redhump fry are soooo cute... way to go Connie!

VERY nice!! Beauties!

I'm with Frank: I don't prefilter any tank either unless there's fry-guys. On my fry tank I simply used an AC150 sponge with a slit in through one side. Unless your intake is right down on the bottom, I don't think there's much risk of sand ingestion. Even my geo tank doesn't get sand in the filters - and there are a lot of big lips sifting through the sand in that tank!

I've overflowed my tanks so many times its really quite pathetic. Once upon a time (a LONG time ago) I worked in a petstore (not locally, this was back on the east coast). I was doing a water change on the top row of tanks (triple stack). The phone rang, and the customer wanted some advice... must've been on the phone 15 minutes (it was a slow night). After I had helped the customer, I put down the phone, picked up the broom, and started sweeping the floor. Got to the tanks (indoor outdoor carpet in the tank section - yes, bad idea), and noticed that the carpet looked darket than usual. It was then that I heard the water, and looked up to see the upper row had filled, spilled down to the middle row, and now the bottom row was spilling onto the floor... Let's just say the shopvac got a good workout, and the store owner wondered why the floor looked extra clean and shiny the next day! :shifty: Since then, I've overflowed almost every tank I've owned at least once. Finally, last year I bought a water alarm. I use it for every water change, on every tank we have. I guess I'm easily distracted. Phil

What about temp? Did you unplug the heater during the w/c? Did you dump in cold for the make up water? Still agree with the above - nitrite or ammonia spike, but trying to cover all bases here...

They're beauties Connie. I was visiting them last Sunday, and again today. Resisted both times. Hard to believe eh? Keep us updated with pics, but I'll try not to look - I need another geo like I need hole-in-the-head... (little black geo comedy there! :shifty: ). Every time I'm there Kevin gets a net ready to get me some... How close are they in coloration/shape to your heckelli, now that they're settled away at home?

Here are a couple of shots of the babies, macro: Its funny: they're fully formed, perfect imitations of the adults, except that they're teeny tiny. If you're familiar with a livebearer breeding trap, then you can get a good idea by comparing the size of the bottom slots with the little ponies. So far this morn there are still many swimming. Hopefully we'll find some kind of food source for them today. Here are the happy parents:

Thanks for the support - we've been reading a bit today, and apparently baby seahorses are very hard to raise - the bbs aren't going to give them enough nutrition - we need a fine algae - Wifey's gonna get some advice from Albert tomorrow on what to do next... We weren't ready for this one... :shock: Let's not start taking orders yet... They'll live off their yolk sacs for the first 24 or so, after that its up to us... I got a few pics of the breeding trap, I'll throw em on here in a bit. BTW, they're black seahorses, whose latin name escapes me at the moment...

My wife went to feed the 'horses this morn, when all of a sudden she started calling me to come quick! Little tiny, fully formed seahorses were swimming around the tank, and the proud papa was letting them out of his pouch as we watched... we carefully herded them into two small plastic livebearer breeding traps, floating at the top, and I've been giving them frozen baby brine shrimp every little while since then. Way cool! I still love my fw tanks, but I have to admit, marine aquariums are way cool. Phil

The PennPlax Cascade line is also good value for the money. Lots of media room, easy start up, double-isolating valves, etc. They have a few different sizes, depending on how much flow/media you need. I'm running a Cascade 1000 on my 60. On my tanks in the basement I run a Magnum HOT, a Magnum 350, various combinations of Aquaclears and Emperor biowheels, but my absolute fave filter is the Eheim 2217 I have here in my office... not known to be super "affordable", but I'd say good value for the long haul.... As with any canister, maintenance is greatly reduced if you also run a HOB to catch the coarse particulates. Unless its a smaller tank (<30 gallons or so), my opinion is you're always better off with two filters, unless its a planted tank.

Got em yesterday, and my wife is VERY excited. All four seahorses are doing very well so far, and are eating and playing in the light outflow from the skimmer. This is a 40gal column tank, specifically set up for the horses. We have lots of live rock, two hermit crabs and two brittle stars in there, along with a seafan skeleton and some fake plants for them to hang out on. No substrate. So far things are looking pretty good. Those horses are fun to watch.... ..but I thought I caught my discus leering at me from across the room when we were sitting in front of the seahorse tank... :shifty: Maybe its my imagination but the blue diamonds were looking a little green... :grr:

VERY nice!! Not enough of those little guys and gals around here...

Just bought a used 2217 from everybody's favorite buy/sell chickie - of course I'm talking about finaddict. Well I have had a few canister filters in my time: magnum 350s, HOT magnums, vortex diatom, fluval, cascade, etc. NEVER had an Eheim, and always kind of thought people were a bit stuck up when they talked about their "Mercedes of filters", etc... Well, I am now a believer. Primed it as per instructions, and it instantly started. No leaks. No airlocks. No noise. None. Massive media container. NO NOISE. Beautiful. Thanks again Connie. But no thanks, since I now want another. :thumbs: Phil

:welcome: Lots of us here from Calgary, or close by it.

Great shots! Beautiful fish - love that pic of the fry! Congrats on the new additions!

Went out today to brave the Boxing Day madness, and got two beautiful Lamprologus compressiceps "gold head". They're wild-caught, and rather large compared to the rest of the inhabitants of this 55gal. Here's the male, just after release: Here are a few of the other inhabitants, whom I hope don't turn into a late Christmas dinner: Calvus: Brichardi: And here's a view of half the tank, after my bro-in law helped me rearrange it, on Christmas day (sorry about the reflections, there's a big window at my back, and even with the blinds closed its hard to photograph this tank unless its dark outside) Tank also has some juli's, ocellatus, multi's, congo tetras (at least they're from the same continent), and a couple of synos.

Thank you! Festivums moved their eggs to the back of the pipe, so I can no longer see em, but I know they're still there, 'cause mama Festie won't leave the back corner.

So I've got a tank full of redhump fry in a 15gal, about 3 weeks old, and growing nicely. Last week I separated my 2nd female into the 10gal below, since she had a mouthful of eggs. I looked in the 77 tonight where all this action was happening, and female number three is chewing on eggs! (I coulda sworn my one male was smiling too, behind that lipstick). BUT, here's where it gets funny: I noticed everyone else was close to the front (@$$'ted geo's, angels), and that's when I noticed that there's also a massive clutch of eggs on the upright for my overflow, at the back, and one of my festivums is pretty adamant that no-one is going near! I was gone most of the day, but apparently there was no lack of activity in my fishroom! Cue the music: Love is in the air... :heart: :heart: :heart: Phil

Love those pikes! That's a beauty...

Thanks for the headsup! I got two of them this past weekend. Here's a crappy out-of-focus pic of them, as they make a mess of the mysis shrimp in the feeder: I guess I didn't exactly say where I was putting them, did I... well, time for me to fess up. I've been wanting these guys for my ....discus tank...yes, discus tank, for quite a while. And that's where they went. Might be controversial to some, but according to my research, they like the higher temps, and they are very peaceful, so... here's a sneak peek: My living room 60g now sports three discus, a pair of rams, the 2 s.leucos', half dozen rummynose, and a queen arabesque (sp?) pleco. The first 24 hours saw a cloudy tank, as the leucos' sifted the bottom, but once they had completed their rounds it was pretty much back to normal. During feeding time, the male ram rules, but otherwise, everybody is quite amicable. Thanks again for the input on these - they are as cool as I had hoped they would be! :thumbs: (my obesession with "geos" continues... :blush: ) Phil

Jay, there were dots on the face, extending back over the operculum, and along the fishes' sides... I guess that should have clued me in: my bro-in-law has an older jurupari, and it looks nothing like these guys. And yeah, now that you mention it, his jurupari does have lines along the face... RD, I think the second pic you posted is the fish: I've seen leucostica for sale, but never as grown out as these were - they certainly improve as they get older, as do most of the South American cichlids, IMHO. Question solved I think! I'm gonna sneak a pic tomorrow if I'm there, and post it for confirmation, but from memory it does appear to be leucostica. Thanks a lot, both of you. Phil

Thanks! The redhump that is usually seen is known by other names, but according to the latest literature, geophagus steindachneri is the correct one, at least for my fish. Its a SA eartheater, and the female is an excellent mouthbrooder. I got some wild caught fish, 3 females and a male, last spring. My four redhumps live in a pretty well stocked 77, and I can regularly get fry if I have the room to separate mama once she starts holding... Don't have any from the latest batch, but here are a couple of pics from the first batch: Mama scooping babies when she sees me coming: Here's an older pic of the goofy male, whom my wife calls the "drag queen" cause she says he has lipstick on: He's grown since this pic, and has even nicer colors - I'll have to get some more shots. And maybe I'll actually clean the glass this time? Maybe...

Female number two is now in the nursery tank, holding eggs. If they grow fast enough, I can combine them with the fry in the tank above them from female number 1 (see post above). I sure hope female number three stays away from that goofy red-lipped stud muffin for a while - running out of room!

Don't think I can say the name of the store, but they have two large showtanks in their west wall. In the farthest one to the left, they have two large geophagines, along with a huge heckeli and a few others... (they're not for sale) My question is, has anybody else seen them, and what would you classify them as? An employee thought they were Jurupari, but I'm not sure. They have a lot of bright spangling on them, but maybe its just a product of their age that they don't look to me like Jurupari... anybody else seen them, and care to comment? They're beautiful fish, and if I could be sure of what they were I'd get a few younger ones to grow out in what's turning into my geo-juvie-grow-op. :shifty: Phil