African_Fever

No idea as to age (he's wild caught). I had heard the same thing about them losing colour as they age, but this one's at least 14" and I would've thought he'd be much duller by that size. I think his colour has actually improved since I brought him in.

Has anyone ever found a way to remove scratches in their glass aquariums? I recently picked up a used tank, and it's not in the best shape. It's still sitting empty, so I thought know would be the best time to attempt to remove any scratches rather than drain it and try later (it'll never happen then!).

Rena would be a good bang for the buck judging by how well people on this forum seem to like them, but my preference is the Cadillac - Eheim's that'll last 20 years +.

Some updated pics of my two flower rays, and a single pic of one of my B. tigrinum. Not the best, but I'll try to get a couple more later today. First, the female. Definitely my favourite ray! The bright lights wash out her black a bit, but she's still got a ways to go as far as getting darker. She was called a 'Trebol' flower by the exporter, and from what I can tell is the reason she's darker than the male. I'd guess she's about a 10" disc, while the male is 8" across. And the male. Much lighter than the female, but he does occasionally get a bit darker. He's got more of a brown base to his colour rather than her black base. The best pic I could get of one of my 4 B. tigrinum in this tank. They're all over 8" now, with the largest about 10" with a 6" streamer off the top and maybe 4" off the bottom of his tail. They always hang out towards the very back of the tank, and in a 26" wide tank it's not the easiest to focus that deep through the water. But the lights had them all agitated, so it was just a matter of taking a ton of them moving and hoping one was in focus enough to look half decent.

Here's a couple pics I took the other day of my black arowana (for sale). I had never seen one in person before, and never knew they had so much colour throughout their entire body! Pics are taken with a simple Sony cybershot, flash off, and only a 105W 6' T5 Helios on the tank. I usually have the tank quite dimly lit for the rays and cats, and they were all noticeably agitated by the new bright light. Full body A couple tail shots to show the full extent of the colour.

Great looking setup. Any updated full tank shots? I love the 30" wide tank; I just picked up a 24" wide 230 and wish there were some way to flip it on it's side to have it 30" wide rather than tall.

Charcoal/carbon has a limited life before it actually starts leeching everything back into the water that you put it in there to remove. I don't remember exactly what the time frame is, but I believe it's somewhere around 6 weeks. I personally haven't used it in years; I use water changes to remove medications because I'm pretty sure I'd forget to remove the charcoal!

It appears to be a relatively new variant coming out Tanzania, which is why it didn't ring a bell for me at all. Great little Cyno!

Great looking Cyno, just wondering where you got the 'chimate' name from?

Wholesale prices on Tenecor tanks are NOT cheap (I became a 'distributor' a while back when looking at business ideas). Then add shipping, and pretty sure it would be more economical to get a tank locally made, as long as they're willing and able to warranty their tanks.

Or look at ordering acrylic from somewhere. I'm sure there's enough of us who are 'Tenecor distributors' who could help you out too. And getting a group order might be possible then too.

Amazing pictures as usual Patrick! Your camera skills never cease to amaze me! I think you should be taking over the photo section and helping us newbs out with pics.

The only rare cichlids from Malawi or Tanganyika are those that usually aren't really in demand. I have two groups of Rhamphochromis, and besides those who have fry from me, I honestly don't think there's many (if any) others in Canada with them. They're not flashy, and that's probably why no-one wants them. Their Tanganyikian counterpart are the Bathybates species - again not the most colourful fish, but they're also supposedly very fragile and don't ship well. I have seen them on lists, but very few people have every actually kept them. roypark - do you have any pics' of your Metriaclima? I'd guess it was miss-identified.

24" give or take

I know you're feeling the 33 is a great size sump, but I think in the future if you decide to go with more fish or different fish, you'll end up wishing you had gone larger. It just gives that much more total volume and stability to the entire system (especially if you go salt, I know we all want to whether we've taken the plunge or not). You could've gone with the shelves on just one side and had a 4' sump instead (75 gallons or more I'd think would be easily possible). Why would you cheap out on the heater? The longer I'm in the hobby the more I realize you get what you pay for; I used to be hooked on the Aqua Euro titanium heaters, but after going through 4 in the last couple weeks (two that I had went on me, and neither of the brand new replacements worked at all), I'm getting something better and more reliable (biotherm with separate thermostat/controller). To lose a bunch of fish due to cheaping out on a heater is not something I want to do. But, depending on how warm your pump actually runs, you might not need a heater at all. I've heard of a number of people who don't need any heaters and have more problems with cooling their tanks due to the heat output of the pumps. Great project and awesome write up of the whole ordeal. At first I was thinking all the extra 'prep' work you were doing to the wood was just too much, but the more I look at your pics the more I can see the difference between what I'd call a professional job (yours) and 99% of the other DIY stands out there - great work! I'm looking forward to seeing your tank completed!

I had both the Ameca and Congo's in a different planted tank before, and never noticed any kind of grazing on the plants going on, just the complete removal of any and all hair algae. And Anubias is about the only plant species that wasn't in the other tank. I'm actually leaning towards the congos now that someone else had the same problem, because there is 8 of them versus the 3 Ameca, and the amount of damage and how quickly it occurred leads me to believe it could be them.

I just re-did my planted tank, and I appear to have some fish that relish Anubias (and some of my other plants). Some of the new Anubias leaves have been chewed down to nothing, and I'd like to remove the culprits before they move on to the rest of the plants. Fish are: Congo tetras Ameca splendens (what I'm thinking is the most likely culprit right now) Odessa barbs 7-bar devario (think giant danio with bars on a silver background) 1 Tiger barb Julidochromis transcriptus (I know it's not them)

Very cool to see that on a giant val. I've had corkscrew vals flower numerous times in the past, but the 15+ years I've been keeping giant vals, I've never seen them flower. I wonder if I somehow have all males then?

Even under optimal conditions many will eat their eggs/fry the first time. I've had some species that just didn't seem to ever keep any eggs more than a few days, no matter how many times they spawned.

Great looking stand! Good luck with that fish mix; I've never heard of it working long-term but different things work for different people.

From what I've seen with others, you want fast growing plants. I've been toying with the idea for a while too, and would probably end up using hornwort or vals. I think there wouldn't really be much point in dosing with excel because there should theoretically be enough waste etc. produced by the fish in the main tank to supply the plants. It would be counterproductive IMO to dose for extra plant growth.

I'd guess they were lunch. Killies being what they are have pretty strong instincts towards attacking anything that might be food.

It's definitely a form of 'lock jaw'. I've only seen it in calvus/comp's, and it is fairly common (I have heard of it occurring in cyps as well, though never seen it myself). It first occurs when the fish extends it's 'lips' for food, and they don't correctly go back in place. It happens in them more often that other species because of how extrudable their lips are, there aren't too many other cichlids that have the reach or suction that the Alto's have. You can also tell because in the pictures the lips almost look half extended as well, and they aren't as upward pointing as they should be. If they've been around for a couple of years then there's definitely no reason to worry. It just doesn't look good in some people's opinions (I've heard of people catching them and helping to put the jaw back in place).

I'm glad she made the trip safe and sound! I know she's in good hands.

Sounds like their jaw popped out of place. It won't usually effect them too much, but sometimes they do have trouble eating. For some it pops in and out on their own, for others, once it's out it doesn't go back in. Guessing if they were at the auction like that they were being sold because their jaw hasn't popped back on its own.