Mbuna Ron

beautiful fish. Are they in your 100 gallon tank?

I find demasoni very interesting because of their fearlessness as well. They have each found a spot ...I made many caves/hiding spots from a rundle shale "wall" at the back of the 90 gallon aquarium. The weaker/lower on the pecking order demasoni's have secured a place where they have to wedge in and can observe the aggressive males. They also have an escape route. At times it looks like the tank is empty but put NLS pellets in and they are super quick to react. They are always watching. Demasoni and tropheus are my favourite.

Thanks. They are free swimming but no egg sack....look pretty fragile. Funny that already one is trying to exert "his" dominance and chasing the others... I will set up a 10 gallon grow out with hope that there will be more to come... Dwayne what are you raising? I have the last of your labs (10) and they are showing great colour. All survived and they are doing great.

Thanks for the advice. It will be fun raising them.

I have 6 juvenile demasoni in a 90 gallon aquarium. They have already started breeding. I rescued 5 fry and put them in a netted enclosure. Do you have any advice as to how best I can grow them and reintroduce them to the tank? So far I have crushed 2-3 pellets of NLS cichlid food and put them into the net. I will set up a 10 gallon grow out tank if they survive. Any advice would be appreciated.

I went through three of the Coralife T5 thin fixtures. I still have the last one sitting in the furnace room. They are junk and if Coralife was a reputable company they should have done a recall as they produced a faulty product. I will never buy a coralife product again.

I have a 29 gall. biocube that I use for a SW nano. The filtration system is adequate but not great. It is easily modifiable. There are some issues with the tank such as a weak ballast and fish jumping from the main tank into the back- all can be remedied. Your best bang for the buck is still through buying a tank and components separately. Having said that - after some mods the biocube has been fine. IMO it is better suited for a SW nano though - due to dimensions and possible mods.

I have 2 48"Coralife T5's and 2 36" T5's and have had issues with both sizes. I have a surge protector for the fixtures-however they are prone to problems during a spike and seem to have weak ballasts. I would not recommend them as a reliable product. In fact, nothing seems to be reliable any more-there is poor quality control in China

Given your experience in fishkeeping (extensive) I would go with a one-colony tropheus tank. Contrary to internet reports on bloat, they are very hardy if cared for properly and a very interesting cichlid. In a 50 gallon you should only have one species and begin with at least 10-12 in order to defer aggression. Another great cichlid that I enjoyed was demansoni-you would need to build a shale face. They are a very interesting fish and breed well.

I have had 8 eheim cannister filters and never had any problems. Pay a little more and in the long run it is more than worth it.

Within the 10 months have you replaced the fine filter? As well you should use siphoned water from the aquarium to rinse out the course filter as well as the efimech and efisubstrat. This should be done every 4-6 months or earlier depending on the amount of detrious which goes through your filter. You should also clean out the impeller-check your manual for details. :pff:

I like eheim cannisters. They are quiet, carry a large biological load and are very durable. If you combine a cannester with a aquaclear, you have the best of both. It is better to overfilter IMO.

I looked into them too. Apparently they have been inbred so much that it is really hard to find good stock.

I have 6 eheims including 3 Pro 2's. I have never had any problem whatsoever priming any of them. The Pro 2's have a self-priming (push-prime) system that is great. Failing that just suck on the intake tube and away it goes...then plug in once full. They are the best filters by far on the market in my opinion...although I do like my Rena XP3.