earlyriser

I've been keeping and breeding fish for years, mostly south and central american cichlids. But at the last auction I picked up some Frontosa. So I'm planning to put them into a seventy five gallon tank with rockwork, but I was wondering about tankmates. I like a lot of the peacocks. Any other suggestions?

I just noticed my own error a few posts back. On my three shelf rack I have a ninety and a fifty-five, about 150 gallons not pounds!

I recently picked up the racking from the west edmonton mall P.J's pet centre. The store was being relocated to another spot, and no longer need the racking. I got eight feet, with four possible shelves (I only use three). On the middle tank I have more than a hundred fifty pounds.. But think of a pet store.. it's what they use and it works.

Henry, Those look a hell of a lot like cichlids that might grow bigger than a couple inches. You feelin' ok? Are finally coming to the dark side, with big tanks and big fish?!?!?

---G&G was a great store! Right back to the era of Noah's Pet's and The 2 locations of Tropical Fish Gallery. ---I didn't even know this store (Evolution of Pets) ever existed. It might be worth it to try and find out what happened to the racking, tanks, filters etc. I got some great deals when PJ's Pets changed their location in West Ed.

Wainright is probably not gonna dly, anbd she wants to do it pretty soon.. Somebody out there must know about a spectacular fishroom or massive show tank!

Hey I have friend in the media (Television reporter) and she wants to do a profile on the hobby in Edmonton, and more specifically feature someone with a huge fish room, or massive showtank.. Something that would make non fish-keepers say Holy poop, Would you look at that!!! Any Ideas???

I bought a pair that had spawned in the shop tank. Took them home and they spawned in a day or two. She handled the fry rearing on her own. They laid the eggs in a flowerpot in the bank of the tank so I couldn't get a good look. I only ever saw one or two. About that time the male gave the female the beating of a lifetime. I seperated them but I left on holidays the next day. When I got back they both had died!

If any Edmonton fishkeepers haven't been to Trident Wholesale yet, do yourself a favour and check it out. Hikari foods are a fraction of the price of any other store. They have lods of high quality stuff (Sera etc) and it's all cheap, cheap cheap.

Speaking of R/O water... I have serious humidity issues in my house. I have between eight and twelve tanks running at any given time. So I'm getting a dehumidifier which can pull 30 pints of water from the air per day. My question. Wouldn't the water collected by the dehumidifier be pure water? Meaning the same as distilled, zero hardness?

Started with guppies and swords. Returned to the hobby after a lengthy absence and started with cichlid obsession. Bred Firemouths, Blue Rams, Salivini, Jags, Festae, Angels... and Gold snails. Right now, I'm Breeding Angels, Some real nice Swords, and Blue Rams. I've also set up a tank with Bristlenose Plecs (no luck yet).

-----Are there any experts in fish disase. I lost a white pear scale angel recently... It was like one day she was fine... the next she could only sit in the middle of a sword plant. Then a few days later she moved up to the top of the tank, and hung below the surface refusing to eat, and eventually dying. -----Throughout the whole illness, sher belly grew. By the time she died it looked like she had swallowed a fair sixe marble. She had a huge abdomen!

If I remember correctly, you don't have to be a mamber to attend or bid and buy. But you do have to a member if you want to sell anything.

A few years ago I thought two little Clown Loaches (inch or two) I had must have been eaten. Couldn't see them anywhere. The next time I did some cleaning, I popped open a Fluval 303 (The old round blue kind), and sure enough there they were, swimming in the bottom of it. They both did fine!

Very Cool! I keep New World Cichlids almost exclusively, and this guy is legendary!

Hey Fatpuffer Just noticed you're surfing the site too. Got any specs on the tank. I'm thinking about starrting into salt myself, and your set-up is awesome. I'm guessing FOWLR? How much LR etc??

I'm with wandj. I have few discus in straight tap water. pH probably around 7.6. Fairly hard. The fish are doing just fine, for the most part. The two blue diamonds I have never seem to be all that healthy.. quite dark, and smaller than the rest. But I don;t seem to have luck with blue diamonds. If you do lot's of water changes and keep it nice and warm. You should be fine. AS for buying discus. Henry (Nature's Corner) always had nice discus in his old location. Sherwood park does carry discus (not always the healthiest looking). And Big Als always has a pretty good selection, same as Aquagiant.

I've bred Rams before and I know at that time, anyway, the eggs wouldn't hatch unless the water hardness was under 80ppm. I kept the pairs in a R/O-tapwater mix and things worked well. Now I'm keeping rams in my discus tank and the hardness is standard Edmonton tapwater (about 150ppm). Here's the question: If the eggs are laid in the tapwater, can I move them into a container of R/O water for hatching? Or do they have to be laid in the soft water?

Reza Nice fish! Where did you get those Gold Severum, I had a pair that looked just like the two in your pix. I traded them to Big Als a few months ago. You're right they are beautiful fish!

There are six of them, all about 3" or 4". I haven't had them all that long, they were eating primarily brine shrimp (Obviously almost zero nutritional value), some mysis, they'd poke at beef heart and maybe ate a bit of it. Also tried to fee Tetra Color Bits, and Flake. Neither worked.

I've jumped onto the NLS bandwagon. A few weeks ago I picked up some wafers for feeding angel fry. It worked O.K. I think. Baby swords like to graze on the wafers too. So I got a jar of grow, community formula and thera a, or whatever it's called. My problem is, my festae fry don;t want anything to do with it, and as I kind of expected, neither do my discus. Anyone have any tips on getting fish, especially discus to get started on NLS???

Even for a long fin albino oscar those are some ridiculously long fins! I grew out six of them before unloading them because they wouldn't pair up, and none of them had fins even close to that long. As oscars go they are kinda cool!

I had the same sort of trouble the first time I kept discus. I used the water softening pillows, I bought r/o water from supermarkets, I filtered through peat, everything. It was a huge pain, the fish never flourished, and ultimately they died, and I swore I'd never keep discus again. I started discus again only about 6 weeks ago. NowI fill an extra tank with tap water, heat it to 85, aerate it with an airstone, treat it with Prime, and then do large scale water changes every 2 or 3 days. The fish seem O.K. The blue diamonds don't have great color, but the marlboro red, the red tourquoise, and the two blue tourquoise seem just fine. The fish get frequent water changes, with aged, and aerated water, but the ph is high about 7.8 or so (Epcor says it's 7.5 out of the tap, but aerating bumps it up). From what I've been told by millions of people, give them stabl, warm water and they'll be fine. (Unless you're planing to bred them, then you need a degree in water chemistry)

Thanks for the reply. I'm still unclear about whythe live rock is needed. I keep several freshwater tanks, some of them heavily stocked. (Festae pair 12' & 9" in a ninety gallon) Water changes and a couple of HOB's and it's all good. What's the difference with saltwater systems? One more question. I'll be getting this rock brought back to Edmonton with a family member (I plan to get it from J & L Aquatics in Burnaby.) We can keep it submerged for the drive. Staff at J & L said that would result in very little if any die off. They also said the normal shipping method (Wet newspaper) causes some die off. When I asked about curing they suggested I let this small amount of curing take place in the tank. Sound right to you? Again thanks, I have tons of questions and they're all probably pretty basic, but I want to do this right! It's costs a hell of a lot of dough!

I'm doing a lot of research in preparation for my first saltwater setup. I've picked up two books, The Conscientious Aquarist, and The Simple Guide to Marine Aquariums (Jeffrey Kurtz). Based on them, and lots of questions I'm a little confused about live rock. A local aquarist who I really trust, said a 55 gallon FOWLR needed about 20 - 25 pounds of rock minimum. I was in Vancouver last week, and the staff at J & L Aquatics recommended 35 - 40 pounds. The guys at King Ed's said 40 or 50, a couple of guys on this site said one pound per gallon. The simple guide says live rock is largely unneccesary in a fish only system (I am using the largest Filstar cannister as well). So far I plan to go with a fifty pound box from J & L. Sound right??