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ahh yes they do smokey, can't wait to see how they like my cookies lol.

As for the mixing I just pulled the grater and slipped on the mixing attachment then slowly poured in the gelatin as it was mixing. I set it in the cube trays right away and into the freezer. I found with grating the food, the pieces were bigger so less fell apart anyways but it needs to fall apart a bit atleast with cichlids or only one fish eats. One fish usually swims away with it anyways until another gets it atleast. I also found that letting it set up too long makes it freezer burn too easily. Anyways good luck, I can't wait to add some shrimp, mysis and blood worms to the mix as well and I was looking at this spirolina powder at the drug store maybe I'll try a little of that next time.

It happened by accident, well kind of. The problem started when I moved and found that the nearest petstore that carried any kind of frozen foods was in Regina that and realising that in my hurry to move I left my worm cultures in the nice cool dark spot where they always were. Hope the new owners are fishkeepers, especially since I left them 2- 90 gallon tanks 1- 33 gallon and 2- 10's so far they haven't complained about my leavings, as i underestimated my belongings and the space they would take up. At anyrate, I had to get my fish something other than flake, God how I miss my PE Mysis.... Instead I found many odds and ends around the house and began the process. I did use Knox gelatin with no ill effect as well. Here is what I had, Knox gelatin left over from raspberry freezer jam makins. can of baby clams, I think I'd use frozen or canned shrimp meat next time instead. 1 pollock fillet, dirt cheap got a lb bag for $5.00 Frozen peas and carrots about a cup 4 liquid garlic capsules, the scented kind 4 vitamin B12 capsules a handfull of vitaboost flake a teaspoon of naturose I mixed it together and used the food processor but instead of blending it I used the grater. Most food was frozen so it grates excellent. I added the knox gelatin after it all went through and filled up some mini ice cube trays once frozen I emptied the trays into smaller sealed bags but removed the air first. The cubes are about normal store bought cube size and I had alot there. To my suprise, My fish went nuts, it didn't cloud the tank and the pieces were good size unlike with blending. Due to both the vitaboost flake and the naturose this stuff is like blood it is the deepest of reds and after two days of feeding my rams are back to looking great in color I am also hoping that the Garlic and B12 help with the stress. Anyways just thought i'd share. Another good thing is that my daphnia culture which froze solid hatched yesterday I had one that didn't quite freeze solid going and growing strong in the all plant tank but the extra culture is always nice to have. Strange, I thought my mysis would go bad so I gave it away, little did I know it would be cold enough to freeze a bottle of water in that truck. Tomorrow we take possession of the store so I'll try to take lots of photos of set ups and stuff especially the wood tank display, I got some awesome marine clear coat which is safe and alot of it so i am leaving the backs of my tanks wood grain I have seen it done and it is so very cool, happy fish keeping all.

Those were discus I borrowed from Garhan, he spanwed my Cory sterbai and i spawned his discus. They spawned almost once a week but ate their fry in order to spawn again on around day 7. I had success raising a few of them for awhile but gave up due to the move. I believe Garhan still has the pair. If nothing else I did enjoy seeing them spawn in my tank. Swapping breeders was part of a group we had and it was a blast for sure.

Hey Francia, I just moved to Sask last week. We will be starting up a pet shop soon, although 3.5 hours drive away from you, I will be making runs down that way to buy juvies from time to time matbe some breeders too. Do you attend The aquarium society meetings? If so I may see you there next month. Anyways, hope to hear details of your 310 gallon tank, gotta love those big guys, what are the dimensions?

In that case, I opt for the geophagine study board, of course I will need to order a few research specimens from Gold's before hand.lol. You'll be hearing from albert.

For cichlids, I say mechanical beats biological any day, that is where marineland lacks. Sure the spinny wheel looks cute but it's hard to beat the gph, filter media compartment and raw reliability of an aquaclear. Sure hagen also makes fluval but here is my scu on that. For the price of a fluval 403 I can buy two AC500's and an air pump to add extra airation to my AC's Hmm almost 1,000 gph versus what 380GPH, the question with canisters is " is it working still? With AC's you always know. Oh and as for Marinelands clever biowheel, How much less effective is it in two weeks or less when the wheel stops spinning? A touchy subject on any board I have ever been on, but reliability scale, Aqua clear is a 9.5, Marineland scores a cool 5.5

This is known by any aquarist I am sure, that it is good clean water of quality and a healthy food choice along with plenty of room that allows any fish great growth. Peat filtering allows for two things for sure and that is better color and natural living cnditions which in turn should lead to a less stressfull life making the fish over all more healthy. The color of coarse being only nicer as with any South American which of coarse works opposite for African rift cichlids which seem to lose much of their color in low lighting. In My opinion, discus are kept in un-biotope conditions when placed as they usually are into heavily planted tanks with extreme lighting, when we look at where they come from in the wild. Mangrove swamps saturated with roots and branches and logs, and a dark blackwater in which few plants ever survive. The size and shape of a discus in this case would have to do with, proper feeding, clean water and lack of disease throughout the fish's life which may lead that fish to temporary starvation. Since my move I have placed my geophagines in a more natural root and rock tank with only a touch of floating plants for cover, they have colored up like never before and look healthier than ever even after the stress of the move. In closing, I think peat filtering or addition of black water extract makes for healthier discus only due to lack of stress over all and the aiding in making for perfect water conditions for the species. Feeding and waterchanges though on behalf of the fishkeeper can be more detrimental in over all fish health. Temp can also play a great part in growth, too hot can make fish grow faster but shorten their lifespan, too cold causes slow growth but extends the life of your fish in any species. This is why fishkeeping is an art but being an aquarist is a science.

ahhh yes where would we start with species sections??? Geophagus and then gymnogeophagus, then maybe acara then lets see, biotodoma, oh and then a microgeophagus section I suppose last but not least an apistogramma section. Nope better leave things as is after all. I think due to posts via trades etc people of same fish species keepers can meet and exchange ideas. few people actually use the breeders section to post actual accounts of spawning their species, this as we know leads to other interest in our favorite species. I'm not going to say which species of fish I adore the most but I will say that one only needs to own a pair to be hooked.

So tell us about the meet. we're all dying to hear about it.

hey J bud who let you out? long time no see man, can't wait to hear how the geos are doing. hope you'll be around for a day or two, i was ganna give you a call or send out the search party luckily now I can resort to step one. LOL

That is a beautiful tank, way to go. I love the contrast and it's very well blended. Also, the use of species, where you didn't overkill as some do by putting too many different varieties so it looks like a petshop display. I could learn a thing or two about organising my plants better, that is if i had any left, lol. I am sure you will put those plants in your low light tank to good use as well, most of them are very fast growers although most of the contrast in a low light tank is more light green to brownish red.

I have decided that our plant forum was short on help and the plant questions were too diverse for one person to answer them all, so who better to help out then a guy who won the ACE aquarium beautiful contest? I'm not really asking garhan but telling him. As a friend and a wealth of plant knowledge I see no one better for this position but still wonder why AndyL isn't already a mod here. anyways welcome aboard Garhan.

I can't tell if that is a largemouth bass or a smallmouth. lol

Problem with this all is the location for some and meeting with just the sake of meeting for others. I have held meetings of two people before and although they weren't all bad, truth is that fishkeeping is a solo sport. At the same time, people are saving up money for the auction, a trip to Calgary from Edmonton cuts into that money. Furthermore just to clear something up, it's A.C.E. Aquarium Club of Edmonton not ASE Aquarium Society of Edmonton. I read you loud and clear TC51 about the participation level and agree that although things sound good everyone waits for other people to join in first, it's the old jump off the bridge syndrome. Truth is that I would make the run regardless of participation because it benefits my store and the over all quality of my fish stock. I thought i would give people a chance to have a safe shipping method but I think in the end they will be happier with recieving frozen discus on demand as they are so much easier to care for. To the few who already volunteered I appreciate it and we all will benefit. Having two auctions on the same day wouldn't make a meeting on that day very good either since people would want to get involved in their own town's auction. I have seen gatherings completely fail from other groups so why should this one be any different? I say drop it all together, why waste the effort? If anyone knows about this stuff i do for sure. i have had two failed clubs and even when I try to give away stuff no one seems to come, I think 6 members from this board have ever taken me up on the offer, thanks to them I managed to clear out enough stuff so I didn't have to move it. Now considering how cheap the average aquarist is, the fact that free F1 and WC fish don't appeal to them and the time I wasted just writing up a detailled ad for giveaways, I say save your breath it ain't gonna happen. PS and that is the positive side of things.

Here are some of the juvies pulled later and sold from the tank they were born in. Note that there was very little place for the fry to hide even.

Never remove krib eggs!!! This only causes them to care for their fry less in the future. Even the wild nigerian kribs I had ate atleast the first 2 spawns after that they are amazing parents, beaten out by few other cichlids and almost as good as convicts. Let them eat their eggs for the first few runs, often those eggs were not fertile anyways so they just clean the site once the eggs start to rot. I have had kribs that ate their first 4 spawns raise 20 fry to maturity in a tank which I regularly fed fry to. Among their tankmates, Satanoperca leucosticta, 3 clown loaches, A pair of convicts, two salvini and 6 cichlasoma nicaraguense oh and a pair of bristlenose plecos. That is what I call busy defenders. And I forgot the 6 angelfish some of the better fry eaters.

I wonder maybe if sea world will set up a pool to get a whole school together? I guess they'd have to be far enough from the mammals though, don't want killer whales disappearing.

What a beauty, may be above and beyond even the best looking geophags of all time.new geophagine

I finally saw my first fish from the last great discovery in Venezuela. The fruit eating pirahna. Cool looking fish for sure if they weren't in PJ's I would have bought them. Mind you, regardless of where those medusa head catfish show up I am getting some and the tetras looked good too. And then I want this one for a 90 gallonMassive predator Fruit eating pirahna discovered The pirahna kinda looks like a red belly without the red and has yellow fins, still looked like some good teeth on him though but he was still young.

Dad's fishroom is the best, stick to the wild german blue, if you buy hifin, they have been tank bred for too many generations and trust me their fins fall off at an early age the more gens from wild they get. I use 1/2 tap and 1/2 R/O the temp is between 78 and 80 I keep it lower for my catfish. I don't filter through peat but have a peat substrate under my gravel. Waterchanges are usually 4-6 degrees cooler and usually around 20% every two weeks unless breeding and then I do a 10 gallon change consisting of 7 gallons of R/o and 3 gallons of snow, I top it up with tap later. I think it is the sulfuric acid or maybe the 10-12 degree waterchange that gets even the sterbai going. They eat alot of whiteworms during spawn time and spawn almost consistently on time every week unless I leave the eggs in and then they protect them for a day or two. Best is in a small ten or so and after fertillization takes place remove the female. One of the foods I used to get better colors was Vitaboost flake from Kensfish.com but now I get it at Trident wholesale still very cheap.Trident Anyways add some blackwater extract and lower your lights a bit for even better color. Once rams relax in a calm dark setting they really put on a show. PS I think Dads fishroom is still selling wilds for about $10-$12 and F1 for around $8. Even F1 would look pretty nice. Like other cichlids getting 6-8 ensures better pairs and i find even in a 20 gallon tank 2 pairs are better than 1. Great community fish, but of course, He's a geophagus micro or not.

Would it be cheaper to maybe switch from beer to whiskey say around stand completion time, we all want to save a little money,lol. That is quite a breakdown on price, thanks for the input. Maybe I will still run sea monkeys though, you can atleast kill them and replace them with no one knowing.

If someone picked the same manes as me it would be pretty scary, they may start banning labelling guns. As for the rams, I hope to get atleast 1 more good winter of breeding out of them, I am sure the demand for rams will grow quickly even in a small town.

just a small suggestion, as a man's tank is his own creation so to each their own but it looks like with an auction or two and a bit of aging your tank could blossom into something alright. Good work. My suggestion is though, and I couldn't tell too well if that java fern was planted because it appears to be due to it's health. If so attach it via rubberband nylonline to a log, stick or even your filter intake by the hard root and place it in the darkest area of your tank low is better as it will thrive much better in cooler water of your tank. If my eyes on the other hand have decieved me, My bad, carry on. To spruce up your java, chuck it in an unheated betta bowl or killibowl for a month or so in subdued light but steady light it will grow like mad. Just a tip thats all , We hope to see the rest of your tanks and fish...... as well as updates on the progress of this one. A plus is that I like the loach, minus is that your gravel hurts my eyes to look at him. Is he the only one in there or have you tried putting two of them together?

Thanks for the camera advice. Yeah most of the plants are crypts, I have usually good success moving them but it's the aponogeton's that I hate to move, they lose everything and it has taken along time to get one of my favorites back up to par after a huge drought of no leaves. It has just grown almost 4" yesterday alone and my fear is that it may be getting old and most of it's young I have long given away. The fear of interupting it before it blossoms completely bites although I will be getting a few into the store before Dec 15 when it opens, I just think that much like a dealer, it is better if you don't buy up all of the stuff you are suppose to be selling, it's just plain bad business. The E. Osirus's should be okay as they are just starting to come back from a root and leaf thinnning two months ago but my crypts especially the retrospirallis has root systems to every length of the tank as I can see them underneath, maybe I am best to just pull it all out and divide the plant before trimming back the roots, to give it a better start. I wish it could all be like tiger val and java fern, the less you care whether it lives or dies, the better and faster it grows.