firestorm

So they are similar in size, and you have already had that many spawns? Wow, how long did you have them before they decided to do the little deed?

Well Thank you everyone....I will be going to look them up on Ebay. I met someone who used one for his fish tanks but it was a very slow process as it didnt make enough water. When you have to do a 30% water change on a 90 gallon it could take a long time to get enough water!! Thanks again.... Frontsrock!! If you get a large enough fill container you won't need to worry about that since it will fill up the whole thing. If I were going to use mine for the aquariums, I will be getting a large garbage pail or something of similar size, for the water to fill in there. That is why it would be handy to get yourself a float valve as well, lol so you don't accidently over fill the container. For mine I believe werner and some others were saying you will need a 1/4" end on the float valve. Any more questions and we would love to answer them or go here which is the thread I started with all of my questions on purchasing an RO. http://albertaaquatica.com/index.php?showtopic=18177

I find it hard to ever see really nice jewels who are a really dark red, and to me they are more beautiful the darker they are. You must have 2 very nice jewels. If you get some of my fry you can do what is suggested and get a small group of them, and see which ones pair off. Apparently most people don't know what sexes their jewels are until you see them laying eggs, or until after the eggs have already hatched and are little wigglers. Have you tried looking at the store you got them from to see if they have anymore like yours? If they do you can also try buying a couple more and see what happens.

As sam said I would also go with the AC. We use them for all of our smaller tanks, and they do a great job. If the water is low enough in the tank, the output of the water hitting the water surface should agitate it enough to allow O2 intake. But if you see the fish kind of lurking near the top all of the time, you may want to add a small bubble wand or airstone. Sounds like a great set up, what kind of angel are you planning on? This is just my preference, but I would try to use at least 1/2" of substrate on the bottom. But if you put the bio max in the filter you should have quite a bit of beneficial bacteria build up. I would start with the 50% water changes once a week, then in about 3 months try for only changing about 30% of the water. Sounds like you will have a happy angel

great idea kevin, I never thought of that. Right now we have the temperature at 84, and I am hoping to get that other tank in the next couple of weeks. Today I saw the one come out of hiding a little more, so tonight I am going to try and soak the food in bloodworm juice, but if that doesn't work for now I will also try the garlic method. Maybe if I could find the NLS discus formula that would be better for them and they might like it better than the NLS cichlid formula.

Yeah we found with our green cabomba we had it seemed to fall apart rather easily. I would lower the temp a bit as stated above me, or you can try the red cabomba, we have found this to grow a little better in the warmer temps we have to keep for our discus.

At pisces here in calgary I saw some seachem black sand fluorite, very beautiful color. The bag we got was also seachem but it was the reddish brown type. I have heard alot of good things about natures corner in edmonton, so they might have the sand fluorite or other colors there too. And I also saw 2 different sizes at the stores here of laterite. But the smallest box cost about $20 and it wouldn't go very far in a 90 gallon, that's for sure. And you are very welcome

I just received my RO/DI system from aquasafe today. Looks a little tricky to put together, but that will be my weekend project. I paid a total of about $130 including shipping for my unit off ebay. I was looking and the system I got runs for about $180-190 retail, so I saved a good buck from purchasing off ebay. Look under aquasafe seller, and I would try to get the RO/DI systems, as werner has also told me that these are a little better, and heak they were only about $10 more expensive than the RO by itself. We might be using ours strictly for drinking water now, but I have not decided if we will be using it for the tank too. Mine has come with a 3 gallon holding tank, but you can set it up so that it will drain into a larger container, you may want to purchase a float valve too if doing so. Good luck and I hope this helps

Lol, yeah for some reason fish just love those water changes. Most will spawn after doing one. I know that is one trick also to help your fish to spawn. How big are your jewels ray?

Ok, i've edited the pic I have on mommy. Our male looks very similar, but a little larger and deeper red than her. Mommy is about 3.5" long and daddy is about 4.5". I noticed that dad has more blue speckles in his black circle on the side of his body than mom. Enjoy!!! Lol unless it is the other way around, but either way one is definitely male and 1 is female. Here is some info I got from aqualandpetsplus.com Hope this will help you in trying to breed yours. And I guess they are hard to sex so who knows, you may just have a couple of one sex. I think we got very lucky and it was a total fluke. They were the only 2 we bought and made sure to pick the brightest red ones in the store tank. Conditioning. Give your jewels a variety of foods to plump them up. “Ve vant to plump zem up!” Flakes and pellets first, then give them the right size frozen foods. Small earthworms contain secret secretions that puts a surge in their urge to merge. Ditto on mealworms snipped in half. You’ll see a change in color, belly size, and aggression level. If you see their breeding tubes appear, get ready to pass out cigars. Chances are, you’ll miss the whole process and find them protecting a patch of wigglers by the time you know what’s happening.

I was looking today and we must have at least 50 fry, they must have had a pretty big batch for their first time. I still cannot believe they were able to survive and hatch, especially this many. I have the sponge filter going on it now, and I try to feed them at least 4 times a day. Here is a picture from earlier today, I unplugged the airstone and most of them came to the top in a group. And yes I would love to save some for you. When they are decent size I will most likely be selling them for about $0.25 each. I don't care about getting a large profit, just a little to cover some of the costs for raising them. I am thinking in about a month they will be ready, but who knows how fast they will grow. I will probably be posting in the sell section and I will also PM you and let you know. But for now I will keep you updated. Oh and don't worry, ours took about 6 months before they mated, that is about how long we have had them for. Pics of parents coming up soon.

:welcome: That sounds great. Yeah, don't you just hate all the darn cords hanging around. I don't like them either. Good luck with that and there is alot of great info and professionals who can probably help you with any questions with your pond or tanks.

Thanks for the great news on the Rena. I never knew that since I have never owned one, but maybe for my next filter I will try one for myself. I like the eheim because it is very quiet too. Maybe some of the other models have a problem with the air bubbles. I have a 2250, and it has never done that. But yeah it is a huge, heavy thing that is quite awkward to clean. How much do the Rena XP's run for in $?

Ok so about a week and a half ago, I saw my red jewel cichlids clearing rocks and defending an area near the bottom of the tank. The female looked pretty fat, so then I knew she had to be doing something soon. So about a few hours later I looked and the female was laying eggs while the male fertilized them. What an experience, it was very neat to see it. I went back to work and came home about 5:15 to see our male auratus chasing them away (this never happens) while one of his females was eating the eggs. So what I did was grab a clean fish bucket, fill it with tank water, and got a net. Using the net I scooped up the eggs and some of the gravel, and carefully placed them in the bucket. Now I just left it there with a sponge filter and heater hooked up. Since this was my first experience trying to raise eggs myself, I did not know that you need to keep a current on it to imitate the fish fanning the eggs. So I took the sponge filter out and put an airstone right above them. Within a day or so, I noticed alot of the eggs were white, I tried to clean most of them out as possible. I figured that probably all of the eggs would go bad. But a couple days later when I was going to dump the bucket, I saw little swimmers in there. So I have kept them feeding them bbs and crushed up flakes, doing a water change every other day. I have been able to count around 30, but there are probably more. I just cannot believe the eggs managed to hatch. I am guessing they hatched about sunday. With looking at all the eggs, they had probably laid about 100. This was their first batch, and I didn't even know we had one male and one female lol, guess we got lucky. Here is a picture, the best I can get of the babies, and I will post some pictures soon of their mom and dad.

Just wanted to add a little to the wonderful advice you have already had. First off, after hearing someone was looking for laterite I was able to find some at petland, pet smart and pisces here in calgary....what are the odds of that. But the laterite you will be paying a bigger buck than for the fluorite. Don't know if I would trust cat litter. When I added the fluorite to my tank I just mixed it all in with the substrate since taking all the gravel from the 90 gallon would have been too much of a hassle. We like to use the fert sticks as well where you just stick them in by the roots of the plants. For DIY CO2 it can be done, or for your tank you can also go with the hagen natural plant system, we found them at pet smart for $25 each, they will do for up to 20 gallons. So if you use one of those and the excel I do believe you will have enough carbon, but werner may have a better idea. We don't use the packs of products for the canisters though, we always make our own yeast batch since it is much more cost efficient. Sounds like you will have a great planted tank, can't wait to see some pics when it's all done.

Yes I was thinking of doing that. Well one of our new discus has been eating, but only blood worms so I will try soaking their food tonight in blood worm juice. I am still worried about the other because he still hides alot and I have not seen him eat yet. What other suggestions would you have for getting him to eat? There are some good deals on buy and sell right now that I am going to make some phone calls tonight about their tanks. So I am hoping to pick up at least a 55 for all but the discus, rams, and ottos. The rest should do fine in the 55 I hope.

I have learned some very valuable info about discus from you guys and I cannot even say in words how much I appreciate the advice from people who know more about them than I. I think I will pick up a 55 gallon and move some of the fish over there. But would my 4 angels do well in the 55? It will probably be a 55 tall. Thanks.

And these will have the same effects as a bubble ladder? I just wanted to make sure the CO2 bubbles stay in the water long enough for them to partially dissolve in the water. Yeah I already have 2 hagen systems, but wanted a bit extra, because I cannot afford to buy the real pressurized system yet How much do the pressurized systems usually cost? I saw some that were a few hundred dollars and thought heck no, id rather buy another tank or eheim for that price right now.

I totally agree, or if you want to buy discus, they have them there quite often, and they are soooo much cheaper to buy there than anywhere else, and they grow their own live coral :shifty:

:boxed: Yeah i'd say maybe ten years from now for me, AFTER I buy my own house. But I guess for the size of tank, it is a good price. With a tank that size you wouldn't want anything to go wrong

Good advice werner, like always Yeah I think we paid about $30 for our bag of seachem fluorite we purchased from petland. It is probably more expensive there though, so I would check around, even look at the garden centers for it. We already had our tank set up and established, so we decided instead of trying to take all the gravel out to lay a layer on the bottom, we decided to just mix it in with our already existing substrate. I have noticed a slight difference in our plants, that they seem to be growing a little better. For plants here in calgary we mostly get ours from either pisces or river front. I have found the bigger chain stores to have very little selection with their plants. Pisces can be pretty pricey though. So your best bet would be to get them from the auction, or online here, like werner suggested, or spencer jacks recently got a shipment of plants in, you can check out his website, and I do trust him to have pretty good quality. http://cichlaholic.com/lists.html go to this link then enter your email address, and he will send you current lists of what he has in.

Today I decided to make my own CO2 system with a 2l pop bottle. What I did was cut a hole in the lid, and put an airline tube inside the hole, about 1/4 " in then I siliconed around it to create a seal. I really don't want to go out and buy a hagen bubble ladder, since they are about $20 each, so I was wondering if anyone has any helpful suggestions on making my own. We need more CO2 in our tank than our 2 nutrafin yeast systems are putting out, which is why I am making the third. Anyone ever done this themselves?

We are having the exact same problem as you are with the hair or bearded algae. We have read that by over dosing or double dosing with the flourish excel does help with getting rid of it, like werner suggested, as well you can also try taking a dropper full of the excel and eject it right on the algae, apparently this is supposed to kill the algae. You might have a problem with excess phosphates so also getting something to remove them would be useful. We found the seachem Phosguard which removes phosphates and silicates, which we are currently using and you can also get a product I believe called phos-X which is a little pad to put in your filter. Also there is a product called algae fix, which unfortunately you can only order from stores in the US because the product has not been approved by the FDA. We are trying all these methods out right now, and I think I will be trimming alot of my plants where the algae is the worst. As for decorations, just try scrubbing them really good to remove it from there. Hope this helps Edit: We have 5 ottos, and 2 siamese algae eaters (we only picked up yesterday), and there is also a fish called ameca splendens or something along those lines which are supposed to be very good for eating hair algae. But they are very hard to find, if you end up seeing any anywhere, I would love to pick some up for myself.

I can't speak for the renas, but I have mostly only heard good things about them from other people. I believe in eheim all the way, have had my eheim canister for about 7 years now and haven't had to replace a single part on it yet. As with fluvals, I do have a 104 currently, but am not impressed with the quality. The tubes used for them seem cheap, as well as many of the parts and I am sure I won't get more than 5 years out of it. I also like the aquaclears, have had them for years, are easy to change and clean, and make our water extra clear. Sometimes it is better to pay the price for an expensive filter, than to keep buying cheap ones that are unreliable. That is my 2 cents!!

I agree with kevin about the grouping by size. It is probably best to keep the little ones on their own until they get a bit larger. And for feeding them we have found that they are very difficult to get eating. One of our discus we didn't see eat for at least a couple of weeks, then when I started them on NLS he absolutely loved them. I also just got 2 new discus on friday, they haven't eaten yet until I fed them bloodworms last night. Try either soaking the food in garlic, or as was suggested to me, by I believe geleen or kevin, try and soak their food in blood worm juice for the first little while. My discus as well still hide out most of the time, but are starting to come out more often. I have to agree though that discus are some of the more difficult fish to adapt to your aquarium and are pickier than most. As for carbon in the filter, we never use it at all in any of our tanks except when we have new tanks, or after using medications. It is not necessary to leave in all the time. We just use the sponges, biological media, and filter floss (the white cottony stuff) in all of our filters. Plus anything else that we might need for certain things. Are they in a 230 gallons or liters?