Muttley

Was only 10 of us but this was great, allowed a very casual atmosphere with plenty of laughs. Also made the raffles cut throat, pretty sure ash had the fight his way back to his car with all those goodies ;-P

Hey everyone, 

I've decided to start a little journal for myself so I can look back later and enjoy how far I've come. I've only been a member of PCS for about 9 monthes and although I've kept a tank or two before they were simple little tanks (in my 18-22yr old range) or a golfish tank as a kid. It's always something I wanted to get into more heavily and since buying my own house and the wife deciding she wanted to get into keep tanks as well the hobby kind of exploded for me.

The wife mentioned we were looking at it to some friends of hers and BAM we were given a 4*18*18 with stand as they had gotten out of keeping fish (sold all bar one of their tanks) after they lost a bunch and their 13yr old sailfin pleco (George) died. They're now into reptiles. Setting up this tank in our lounge room gave us the chance to see if we really did want to get into the hobby or if we were only interested on the surface (also saved us a lot of $$). This tank was setup (with plenty of mistakes) as a planted community tank with cories, tetra's and BN's. Although there is heaps we would change about it (and will at some point in the future) it got us hooked. 

Dec/Jan I brought a 3*2*2 with sump and stand from gumtree that got setup in my office. Then followed a three tier rack purchased from bunnings (the rack-it 1000kg stuff) with 3 tanks on the rack at 90cm*60cm*40cm (Cheers for these Mattia). Now we have four tanks all running in my office each being used to breed one species. I had to give up one of the rack tanks to the missus who wants to try breeding the black corydoras she loves. However the other two rack tanks are Caudopuntatus (from the Feb auction) on the top and Gold Occies (mostly from the feb auction with some extra females from Aquotix) on the bottom. Then the gumtree tank has the Cyprichromis Leptosoma Utinta's (feb auction as well with some extra females from Aqoutix) that already have the largest female holding.

Here is a photo of the new Occie tank that they moved into tonight even though they are all hiding due to being freaked out from the move (they were sharing a home with the Cyps until this tank was setup but with a Cyp now holding I couldn't leave the Occies in there to eat the fry).

I'll take some photo's of all the tanks for this journal in the near future. We're not planning on getting anymore tanks until we finish some more renovations on our house at which point we're planning on setting up a fish room in the store room that is built onto my games room (except setting up a tank for my wife's office for her purple moscow guppies which I got an unused medium sized tank from gumtree. The bloke had bought it and then his wife got pregnant with their fourth kid so it never got used but sat in his garage for 2 years. Still have the stuff that came with it taped inside it lol). The future fish room is 24.5ft long and about 8-10ft wide with electiricty/water/drainage already, so it should allow us to have a nice setup we can potter around in together ;-).

It's Windelov Java Fern which i've seen in Aquotix and Vebas however if you want a bargain it's quite often sold in the PCS auctions (next one is July wink wink).

The biggest male and biggest female of the juvie cyprichromis leptosoma utinta's I bought at the February auction decided to do their little dance today. Me and the missus were writing out a shopping list in the office when we noticed the male chase everyone away from a centre point in the tank. Then they proceeded to do the drop and catch circle routine with her eggs and now she's holding. We're pretty excited as they are the first cichlids we've managed to get spawn so far. They're young still and it's their first spawn so we're keeping our hopes low but it was still awesome to be able to sit and watch the whole spawning. 

He's the male

Female holding

Photo Comp - May 2018 - Breeding and Fry. 

This months topic is Breeding and Fry, your photo can be any style as long as it focuses on breeding or fry.

Your photos must be anonymous (don't put a name or watermark on your photo).

Send your entries to Muttley (Ben) via PM before 7 PM on Monday 28th May 2018, late submissions will not be accepted.

Voting closes 7pm on Monday 4th June 2018, late votes will not be accepted.

Reminder: the photo must be your own, however, what your taking the photo of can be anyone's and anywhere.

You MUST be a PCS Club Member to enter the competition, so please support a fantastic club and sign up for membership.

Winners will be announced after voting has finished on the PCS forums and at the following club meeting. Prizes will be awarded at that club meeting.

Points awarded will contribute to your annual total for the chance to win a prize pack from our Premium Sponsors.

Note: Please do not comment on an individual photo until voting is closed, we like to give everyone a fair chance. DO NOT tell others to vote for you. This may result in a ban from the photo competition.

Take a look at our fantastic prizes this month:

First Prize  - Watch this space

Second Prize - Watch this space

Happy Snaps!

Checkout the facebook page, Mike has uploaded a couple of vid's from the trip.

Just a reminder to everyone that this month's photo competition topic is Malawi Cichlids. Even if you don't keep them yourself you just need to find a way to get yourself and your camera near one. If only there was a PCS talk and possible show table with malawi's to photo 

Sorry easter is cancelled, the easter bunny was being kept in a very wierd hutch in the gumtree off the wall section of the forum and died. 

either that or a rabbit had a very short lived crappy life lol

I started with a store bought zucchini from Woolworths which I washed and than blanched before putting into the tank (I let it cool after the blanche). It was maybe on sale in the Woolworths Specials catalogue.
 The BN's loved it and ate the flesh but didn't touch the skin at all. Then I bought an organic zucchini from Malibu Fresh down near me which I put through the same treatment before going into the tank. The BN's behaved very differently with the organic version though. This time they ate the skin first, and with a real need to munch on it real quick. Every bit of skin except the bit's they couldn't get to through the vege clip was gone really quickly. Then they started on the flesh. Really makes you wonder about what the non organic skin has absorbed in the way or pesticides etc.

Yep it's all working fine now

Yeah ditto to what Westie posted. Two tickets purchased for me and my wife.

Nandopsis tetracanthus (Cuban Cichlid), Does it come with free brake fluid?

Great night everyone, I was totally expecting a mostly boring night waiting for the lots I was interested in but instead it was a bunch of laughs the whole way through. Very happy with the lots I brought and you know you've got a good wife when she's happy I didn't go over $500, only spent $428 ;-P. So thanks to all the breeders for the fish and thanks to the committee for putting it on.

Cheers all, now back to acclimatising fish.

I'm sure things go in cycles to some degree as well. I was just having a laugh.

There certainly is some nice tropheus lots already, but you can all keep yah dirty hands off, they're mine ;-P