sammyswife

Beautiful fish!

Thanks for the update RD, your fish are looking great! It is so nice to see how awesome the fish are doing. Sorry again for the state of the fish when they arrived; I knew they would come around again Amy PS-Anyone else that purchased some of our beauties I would love an update!

Oh no, I don't want any part of starving a beautiful Calvus!!! Sorry Jvision...listen to RD I would have to say dietary needs are his expertise. Amy

IME, with mbuna (<-which was maybe six months) and then with Hap/Peacock tank (which we had for over two years maybe three), we had no issues with tangs ever. It was like the fish totally ignored the tangs. I have seen quite a few malawi tanks with tangs however, mostly they were hap/peacock. My opinoin is there isn't aggression towards the tangs because they look so different compared to the cichlids. We had almost the same tangs as you do except instead of a calvus we had a sexafaciatus. The only problem we ever had was when the bicharsis bred and took over the 90gallon. Of course this was my fault because I thought the birchardis would look so cute if we had two :heart: I would suggest you try it out and see if there is any aggression towards the tangs and let us know. Hope this helps, Amy

What other fish do you have in the tank with these? IME, it won't be long before the birchardi take over the tank and are willing to fight for their babies. Don't let their size fool you. When we had birchardis that bred we had a daffodil as well that ganged up with the bichardis to fight off all other fish in the tank from getting near the babies. Amazing to watch though the fry are like a little cloud and when the mom says they go down all at once. Very interesting to watch. I hope all your fish survive Good Luck! Amy

We just recently sold off all the fish from our all male show tank. We had a mix of Peacocks/Haps, a couple of tangs, some catfish and bristlenose pleco. There was definatly a pecking order but for the most part with the exception of a couple peacocks all fish coloured up beautifully. When we first got into the hobby we started with mbuna and slowly added more peacocks and got fewer and fewer mbuna... We (ok maybe just me) could not stand how violent the mbuna were to the peacocks and Haps. Eventually we were down to what a coincidence, Borleyi and Socolofi and had to eventually give them back to the pet store. Mbuna IME are a more violent type of fish and do not do well in a mixed all male show tank. I would say if Mbunas (with the exception of Yellow Labs) were dogs they would be pitbulls and Haps are more like Labs where if they attack a lab will generally not kill you. A pitbull on the otherhand....well I wouldn't want to find out really. But, it is hard to say your fish could have been different than our fish and if you do want to add some more Haps I would suggest a Yellow Chin and Azuras. Haps grow faily fast so they are a good fish for a show tank and very colourful. As with any show tank adding new fish can be a blood bath. I would suggest adding more than one fish at a time. Hope this helps. Amy

Nice fish.... Thanks for taking some pictures. The Azuras should be back to his stunning self in a week or so

Your fish and pictures are absolutly stunning. Please post more Amy

Hi Degrassi, Thanks for the info. These fish are 4" - 5" and just didn't quite look right. They all have stripes sometimes but clearly are not phenos.... These fish have been returned to the lfs I think they originally came from. Amy

Hi Gina, Nice fish Your lithobate looks identical to ours. I see the taiwan reef is doing well. Amy

Hi Seajays, The blue peacock is probably a nice way of saying hybrid, most people selling fish at the auction would list the latin name if it was a pure line. Of course I could be wrong it could be someone that just didn't know the name. As for the firefin these are a hybrid as well however, these are bred purposely to achieve the nice colour of the firefin and IMO they are one beautiful fish Hope this helps, Amy

I think the right terminology for these fish would be selectively bred not as harsh sounding as hybrid.

I believe they have some acei at big als right now.

What a looker!! I have to agree with Val that in Edmonton the ruby's are all orange. I will be looking to take one of the offspring home if they look anything like the daddy. Sammy might wear the pants in this family....but, I tell him which ones to put on :P

Well, I think you should add more africans but, I wouldn't suggest acei if you have a tank full of peacocks. We have had an acei in a peackock/hap tank and we soon had to take the acei out once he grew up. Our fish come out everytime someone walks by. Africans usually beg for food if they are healthy (of course you can't feed them everytime they beg). We have all our tanks in the basement and when I go to get up from my chair in all 6 tanks they come swimming to the front. Who says fish are dumb?? Sometimes I tease them by standing up and then sitting down again (this is a great thing to show company ). Oh yeah, I don't even feed the fish so they just come out to say hello. You could always try getting some acei and seeing how it works out they are a nice colour fish that love to swim about. As for how many I guess that would depend if you want females and you don't mind breeding fish? Good luck, Amy

What type of cichlids do you keep in the tank?

Wandj, Sorry to hear about your blue JDs they are really awesome looking fish when they are healthy. I was in Big Al's the other day and they have a handful left of the blue JDs and most of them have popeye from what I could see. I would see if you could maybe get some credit or an exchange for something else since the store itself can't clear up the popeye. Or, try doing lot's of water changes with a little salt. I know we have brought fish back from deaths door with good water conditions and tlc . You could also call Big Al's and see if anyone has had any luck with a medicine you haven't tryed. It sounds like you will have a few good ones out of the bunch. Hope this helps, Amy

Red Empress for sure...we have some that we have grown out since they were fry and they look identical. Here is a link to one colouring up...I hope ours end up looking this nice http://www.cichlid-forum.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=68286 Amy

Good to hear fishdude! Let us know how easy/hard it is to make and then if you could, post some pics of the results Amy

Hi Fishdude, You can purchase the lights at a computer shop, BCOM should carry these. Here is a link to their website they have some locations in Calgary and in Edmonton. http://www.bcom.ab.ca/ Amy

Hi fishdude, I believe in the article it says that a computer power supply made the lights too bright as well as the fan on the power supply made too much noise. They recommend using a 9v adapter. I am not sure where you would get the lights. In the past we have used a 'coral' flourescent bulb and it gives off a nice blue glow on the tank. If this is what you are looking to achieve without having to take on this DIY prject. Good luck, please let us know how it goes. Amy

Beautiful fish! Amy

Welcome to AA Cidley69! I think I know the blacklight you are talking about for lighting a fish tank. The light gives a blueish sort of blacklight hue to the fish tank. These are called coral light bulbs (at least that's what the one we purchased was called). They give the best results in a fixture with two bulbs so you can add a regular light and a coral light otherwise, the coral light IME is too dark on it's own. This has a blacklight effect and will show all the colours beautifully in your fish..... no need to have dyed fish. Hope this answers some of your questions. Amy

This sand comes from 'tahiti and other parts of the world' (is what the bag reads). I don't know of any place it is sold in bulk if you want it as far as I know you need to pay the big bucks...I haven't seen a comparable substitute you could find in bulk...that I know of... HTH, Amy

Sorry to hear about your luck with these little guys! I have done a little reading on these as we have never kept them and from what I have read they can be kept together wtih no aggression in a colony or in pairs. I have also read they are a very slow growing fish and need at least two years to reach sexual maturity. They also don't do well with fast moving fish so maybe your fry are a little to active and it is stressing them out.? They also are not the fastest fish and from the info I have read you have to keep a close eye on them to make sure they are recieving enough food, perhaps they were not able to get enough food with the competition of the fryeri fry? Do you have any hiding spots for these guys as they like to go through rocks hunting for food (eggs and fry) and such in the wild so maybe they need a little shelter? Here are a couple of links for more information. http://www.ohiexchange.com/armke/fishpages...calvus_blk.html http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/a_calvus.php HTH, Amy