Hi all,
My name is Paul and I am a Biology Teacher that has been keeping fish on and off for the past 20 years. At the age of 14, I bought my first 4 foot tank. Over the next few years I breed Axolotls, Oscars and Guppies. I had large cattle troughs with Koi, Gambesia and Guppies. Moving up to Perth for university, I shared a house with 3 guys, who all studied aquaculture at Fremantle Maritime Tafe. Our house was full of tanks and I remember Anglefish, Oscars, and Convicts all being bred. You could also find Yabbies in our bathtub.
Last year I spent a bit of money keeping a 600L community Discus tank. Eventually I bred a beautiful pair, but was unsuccessful at raising the fry. My favourite fish in the tank were the Red Torpedo Barbs.
This year I decided to try my luck with Frontosa and it just happened that Rob's Aquarium were selling David's Wild Caught 6 Bar Frontosa (Moba, Kipilli- Zaire Blue...). I originally set up 3, five foot fish tanks with sump which was around 950L all up. The pump I used, 15000L/hr I discovered was just too much flow for my Frontosa. There was also too much movement, light and noise for them where I had this set up, so I moved them into my garage. The Frontosa now can be found in a 750L, 6 foot tank with all blacked out sides. This was a good move, with one of my Fronts spawning, however no success with the fry, with the mother soon consuming them. I have been monitoring and adjusting the water chemistry, and the advice from David was to have the kH at 7 and gH at 22. My levels are still a bit lower then this.
I am also keeping a community of Tropheus Debosi and Red Moliro, Leleupi, Synodontis Petricola, Black Calvus, Haplochromis of some type and some chocolate Plecos. Another community tank contains Electric Yellow Labs, Lithobates and Pseudotropheus Williamsi. Another tank contains Auloncara Stuartgranti Blue Neons and Albino C Moorii which are looking really healthy. Oh and I have another 5 foot tank full of Black Snakeskin Guppies that I bred from a single pair imported last year.
My goal this year is to convert the sunroom of my old asbestos house into a Fish Room and take all the tanks out from my garage. Obviously I have to figure out how best to insulate the room. I currently have around 20 tanks and would love to hook them all into one or two sump systems to reduce the energy consumption and make the water changing process more automated. Lots to figure out but kind of cool to research others systems.
I'm really excited to finally join the Perth Cichlid Community after reading so many of posts over all these years!
Attached Files
Edited by Pchmb, 06 June 2016 - 08:11 AM.