Go4Long

cool gotta wait till they get big enough to survive in my big tank though...the three little guys in with the crayfish right now don't look like they'll make it for long :P

I have seen yours in the flesh, he's gorgeous...and most certainly didn't look like mine in any way, looked like a text book case to me...

ah well, it happens, I found him a home alone with the female that came with him in a 48 gallon tank, I'm sure the guy will end up putting some other cichlids in with him, but at least for now he'll be alone for a while. He came from someone local, and I've let him know that it is a hybrid. Some of the people(the guy that has the fish now included) think I'm being silly by taking such a nice looking fish out of the tank, but I want the most striking fish in the tank to be something that is what it's supposed to be. and jvision, he was not from the auction and I don't know the lot number of the red empress.

ok, so I have pretty much settled on the idea that the big guy that was supposed to be a red empress is probably not(although it's still possible), now I showed a picture of my electric blue to the guys at golds and immediately they say he's a hybrid too(I actually already found him a new home because I was literally that upset about this whole thing)...he's a gorgeous fish...but if he is a hybrid then he limits what else I can put in the tank with him, and that's not so good for me...so here's the pics and let's see what kind of guesses you guys can come up with

try the burnco yard there at glenmore and deerfoot for slate...they usually have some nice big pieces. I have some in my tank that are over a foot long and two inches thick.

very cool lookin tank...I'm thinkin maybe at the next auction I might try to pick up some plants...

no...I didn't keep the bag it was labled as a Protomelas taeniolatus for sure, the tag was hand written not one of those typed up ones...beyond that I can't remember if I had the auction listing I could probably pick him out...and if you kept track of what everything went for he went for $36

I'm so confused :S

could be that fish, the black spots along the base of the dorsal fin matched up pretty close to exact when I did a quick and dirty job of overlaying your pictures onto mine with photoshop and the head shape is also quite similar(keeping in mind that correctly accounting for point of view was slightly difficult). Wouldn't bet my life savings on it being that fish, but I will say that I'm a lot more positive on the posibilities of it being as listed than I was 30 minutes ago. Hopefully he calms down sooner rather than later. I'll work with the camera and see how it goes...

I got upset about him not being as listed and went out and bought a bicolor trio today...my tank is a little crowded at the moment, but I have a few fish headin out tomorrow, and some more on the weekend, so it should be back to a reasonable stocking level by sunday...hope everyone survives till then and with one of the females(and a taiwan reef being a cheeky bastard and gettin in there too)

sorry for the not so great shots, I'm really just learning my new camera still, and it has a LOT of buttons...here's a couple more shots of him, I tried to turn the flash off and the shutter speed up so I could still get him...he still shows more red in pictures even without the flash, I can't figure that out :S and he's hangin out right under the spray bar for the filter hence the bubbles :P

I've got a couple of fish that rearrange the gravel fairly regularly, two of them did it to the point where they actually pulled a bunch of the gravel out from under some of the slate...just glad it didn't collapse on the little daredevils...

what are you thinking he might be? he doesn't seem to have any spots that I can see, he hides a lot so it's hard to tell for sure(I'm in a rush to get out the door to work at the moment), and no he's not as yellow as that picture appears, he is a little yellow though for sure. he was less yellow yesterday at the auction, but a 4 hour car trip home and a new home for him probably hasn't helped his mood much

I really don't know what to expect out of that red empress...I would assume he'll be quite colorful right? I'm kind of new to this dominance thing, but I just can't see how any other fish in the tank could be the dominant male with him in there, he's litterally over triple every thing elses size

got the fish back from the auction, did a water change(so if you see stuff floating in some of the pics, that'd be why) moved the slate around and decided I should take some pics...so here goes: 1. These guys just won't stop hangin out 2. My new Red Empress(thanks to the auction) 3 & 4. The current dominant male of the tank, my electric blue(stupid NLS pellet got in the way on the first shot) 5. Just for fun, same fish a week and a half ago 6 & 7. New melanochromis cyaneorhabdos 8. Picked this guy up from golds a while ago Pseudocrenilabrus Nicholsi he just wants to mate someone, doesn't even seem to care who 9. Last but not least my O. Lithobates, he was coloring up quite a bit, but he doesn't appear to like the new red empress much, so he's faded a bit

here's the red empress I picked up...he's still a little stressed from the trip obviously, and to make matters worse I did a water change and rearranged the slate today(sorry big guy), I'm assuming he'll color up nice though as I can't picture him not being the dominant male in the tank given that he's nearly triple the size of every other fish... also here's the Melanochromis I picked up

lol, I can honestly say I don't know if what I came home with were "good" fish or not :P I picked up: 3 1"-1.5" Copadichromis azureus $16(I hope they survive long enough to meet my dominant male) 3 4-5" blue peacock breeding group $11(personally thought it was my best deal, but sold em to a friend) 1 3.5" Male Melanochromis cyaneorhabdos $11(girlfriend thought he was such a pretty fish :P ) 2 2.5-3" Male 2 Pseudotropheus Saulosi $5 (meh, the bidding stalled, I ended up with em) 3 1-1.5" Sciaenochromis fryeri $15(thought my buddy might take em, didn't so now they're in with the crayfish) 1 6.5" Male Red Empress $36(I was so upset about the cost of the two other bigger fish that I wanted getting so hi that I was actually ok with this price) I tried for a group of 3 larger Sciaenochromis fryeri but it went higher than I wanted, also had my hand up on some other things here and there, my girlfriend wanted the little 20 gallon on the dark wood stand with lights and all that so she could have a little salt tank, but it went up more than we wanted to pay for it... personally I was just really happy that we didn't lose a single fish on the trip back to calgary including stopping in town for a couple minutes to pick up another couple fish that I had been trying to get in to pick up for over a week...

nother thread already in the water cooler section :P

lol...ok...I'll keep my eyes open...

Hey, I've never met anyone on the board really except fatpuffer and trooper(and christian too)...but I'll be up there for the auction, come over and say hi if you notice me, I'm 25, about 6'4" and I'll be carrying my rebel XT with me probably, and bidding to much money for anything blue :P

anyone know of anyone that might be selling some larger Copadichromis azureus at the auction? both me and a guy I work with are lookin for one or two...

my plecos shoot up to the surface and back down again all the time, but I'm yet to have them jump out of the tank on me. I think my crayfish might get in fights in the middle of the night though cus every now and then we hear a weird splooshing sound coming from their tank in the middle of the night...maybe they're gettin ready to do a tandem jump :P

could someone post directions for us not from edmonton...cus I'll be in town for it, but I have no idea where that is...

well since I really got my 96 up and hummin I've tried to switch over to exclusively NLS for the last week. Problem is that I've noticed some of the fish getting significantly skinnier and some of the fish not being overly interested at feeding time, so last night I dropped some of the old tropical flake food in the tank after the nls and it was a whole different picture, I closed the lid on the tank cus I thought one of em was gonna jump right out of the water. The fish that really don't seem interested in the NLS are my electric yellows and the red empress, but basically all of them get pretty pumped about the flake food. Just wondering if there's a way to get them interested in the NLS, or if I should just keep feeding them a combination of NLS and some flakes for the guys that like them more.

bet ya the guys at pisces were thrilled with that one...