Evolution

Are not many freshwater herbivorous inverts mostly dependant on diet to supply them with proper requirements of Ca? ie. calcium rich algae and plant matter.

Facinating. I wonder if they knew that the degree of toxicity of the ammonia was dependant on pH? Is Innes the author?

No, he likes his shrimp to mold!

I hope these are appropriate? If not, please just edit out the ones that cross the line. In this tank are plants I have acquired from MarkN, fishclubgirl and Cgy_Betta_Guy.

I buy my black GE construction 1200 series at Calgary Fasteners.

L129 is not a herbivore, stays small and can be bred in aquaria. L199 is a Hypancistrus and they are not herbivores and stay small too. both are very attractive.

Absolutely! They also can be adjusted to bang on with a little patience.

That turkey vulture photo is awesome!

Eheim Jager is my choice. They're accurate, reliable, fully submersible and do not need to be unplugged when changing the water. The outer glass tube is made of a material similar to pyrex and the glass will not break when exposed to one extreme temperature to another.

The title actually scared the heck out of me and I couldn't click the link! Very cute.

Thanks for taking all the time Neil to help me understand. I'm pretty sure what you're saying is sound and I am walking away from this post with a much better understanding. Thanks again.

No worries Morph, you only hurt half of my one feeling!

Sorry about that, I could have swore it said that you emailed a dealer across the boarder... But it appears not.

and Just go buy the stuff locally and support the Canadian economy.

Thank you, this has been a very informative thread thanks to you. Ok, one last time... ALL koks are developed through breeding and none are developed by injections of any kind. Some FH koks are a development of a hard tissue and some are just fluid, and even though these are two completely different forms of matter for the same anatomical part of the body in the same "variety" of fish, this is only do to breeding and has no other explaination. It never has anything to do with injections by unscrupulous, greedy producers in countries that pump out millions of tattooed, dyed and geneticly crossed fish that can only be created in a test tube. I will take your word for this, but I think that it is suspicious and boardering on BS in some cases. Not saying you are BSing, I believe you believe what you think and have been told.

The white cloud is not red listed at all in any way that I could find. It is a "new population" that is threatened and that threat has nothing to do with the hobby. Rarely does the hobby threaten wild populations. Most often wild populations become extinct or threatened because of habitat loss or destruction. When we see that a species has been compromised because of over fishing or because of poor fishing practices resulting from local fishermen trying to meet the demand of the hobby, we are lead to believe that in most cases the hobby is causing the decline in all species the world over, and simply it is not. Our hobby protects a great deal of species from total extinction. Our hobby does more good than harm. The red tail black shark (Ephalzorynchus bicolor) has been extinct in the wild for years and that was do to habitat loss. If it was not for the hobby this fish would be gone forever. If the RTBS was not a popular aquarium fish it would be extinct completely just like so many livebearers and other North American Cypriformes that were not blessed with pretty colours to entice this hobbies vanity. The zebra pleco was being over fish and it was a dangerous task of catching these beauties, but they certainly could have been a sustainable resource for Brazil, but the real threat of the zebra pleco is not the hobby at all, but a damn that threatens to completely dry out their area and threatens them with extinction. If this is going to happen, then when the water level drops they all need to be collected a distributed around the world into breeding programs to prevent it from going completely extinct. Without this hobby so many fishes would be gone or soon gone forever, such as the several popular aquarium species of rainbow fishes of Indonesia, the Victorian Lake cichlids and the many mollies, guppies, swords, and platies of North America.

My reasoning for this post was to discover if any kind of injection is administered to increase the size of the "kok". The fish that origionally sparked this question was in a dealers tank. This fish is about 6-7 inches, which I know is not even half grown. The kok on this fish is bigger that anything I've seen on any adult Central America cichlid two to three times it's size.

So where was the part about not using salt with Corys? I read it, and couldn't find that part anywhere.... Third paragraph.

That makes sense, thanks.

I mentioned that species earlier in this thread and wonder if it plays a roll in the development of the FH. Crossing African cichlids with Central American for kok deveopment. Developing a CA body structure with a west African kok. I wonder if they'd have to splice DNA to pull such a thing off.

I know the flower horn is a hybrid, but are not all humps in true species made of the same substance? It just doesn't make sence that one hump is flesh and another is fluid. I'm sure you understand my confusion. Also, no central american cichlid develops such humps at such an early age. Both these things lead me to believe it's possible that there is an injection done on the fish.

How is it possible for part of a fishes anatomy be made up of two very different substances from one fish to another of the same var.? I'm seeing 5-6 inch flower horns with large humps and this isn't normal for true species. Generally the males are much larger before they develop such exagerations.

It's not about size, it's about power. Phalics are symbols of power. Ferrari is a symbol of power. For example, there is no greater power at the hand of man than the power of the word. To further that, it is not the size of your pencil that matters, but how you write your name!

Same. Puffers, peas included, can be waspish, are always ungry and love to nip at fins.

Sounds like a black ghost knife.