jjm66smokey

Yeah right, and I'm writing something for the Festival of Queensland to win the Val Vallis poetry award too...

http://www.queenslan...s-poetry-award/

When searching out Caridina shrimp

Take Stormfyre along as your gimp

This was wrote without malice:

He’s obsessed by my Vallis

When not wet it’s exceedingly limp.

Thanks to Stormfyre...

Hi Tony

If you're siphoning out the water for your water changes, if you can raise the rock a little bit, it does give a chance to suck out a bit more of the fish poo that accumulates around it and probably has sand put on top of it in the course of "Cichlid-scaping" (that's where they play their game of moving things around to dig up dig out dig under).

I don't make a point of pulling the rocks out of my tank as this does disturb it heaps.

Keep a regular check on your ammonia/nitrite/nitrate levels, do frequent and regular water changes (and siphon out the poos), don't overfeed, and you should be ok without having to uproot all your holey rocks. 

As they're out of my tanks/ponds I can honestly claim it's personal use only.

Sure looks like Andinoacara pulcher to me

http://www.gumtree.c...high/1003787382

Something to consider asking Ad about on the 28th ...

http://www.nyasatime...awi-in-karonga/

(could our Mbuna become extinct in the wild?)

Apparently upstream there's Kayerekera Uranium Mine which was allegedly dumping radioactive waste into the lake... or perhaps had an "accidental spill"

http://www.nyasatime...own-mine-spill/

"The company had previously announced it planned a controlled release of surplus water into the local river system early this year, during the monsoonal wet season."

Apparently "government scientists" said the cause is ozygen depletion and higher than normal H2S/CO2 levels

"Prior to 1999, the fish kills were reported to have occurred some 40 to 50 year back, but since 1999, the fish kills have occurred lake-wide in the periods 2005-2006, 2010-2011 and in August 2014 and recently in December 2014 as well.."

Oh, and there's also oil prospecting in Lake Malawi...

"There could be oil and also gas both inside and outside the Lake Malawi as United Arab Emirates’ Hamra Oil Holdings Limited (HOHL) has hinted after  its oil exploration using a full tensor gravity gradiometry (FTG) survey."

http://www.nyasatime...analysing-data/

So if on the one hand, we don't have Fisheries preventing cichlid imports post March-2016

There's the very real risk that we won't have any cichlids to import 

(single) malt whiskey works best

Here's one I prepared earlier...

I went to a very large hardware store (doesn't matter is it's B. or M.) and found a piece of ply the height of my tank and they cut it free of charge to the length of my tank.  Then I went to the aisle that has large vinyl (lino) floor tiles and found two I liked that looked like slate, which I stuck on the ply then trimmed the tiles to fit.  Looks great and perfectly blocks out the natural light that otherwise shines into my 3ft!

Hi Chocky

As far as a community goes, are you thinking tropical, native or cichlids?

Once you decide what type of fish, you can decide whether or not you want it planted.

Plants often need a lot of light, a good substrate (layers of soil/sand/gravel) and do better with regular fertiliser treatments.

As for KH, if you want it higher for African cichlids, you can use limestone in the tank, plus a handful of rock salt and bicarb soda on water changes.

If you want it lower for American cichlids, you can use driftwood in the tank, peat moss as a media in the canister filter.

What filtration are you thinking? Canister, internals or sponges?

Ideally, 20% water changes per week are good and the water out of the tank is great for the garden.

As you are in Leeming, maybe go into both Vebas and Aquotix and have a look at the fish - see what you like best and ask questions!!

L numbers... used to differentiate between the different catfish .... http://www.planetcat...ode=l&thumbs=16

Most BN's are shy... especially if they have somewhere dark to hide where they can nummm nummmm nummmm on a nice piece of wood!!

What's wrong with a good old fashioned HOB... stick some fine mesh or a piece of stocking over the inlet?  

Oh, and maybe if you extend the length of the inlet pipe to bring the inlet closer to the bottom of the tank it will provide better circulation.

I bet it wouldn't get that much at our next auction. 

How many did you bring back, Michael?  

Perhaps if you came to the Ad Konings and Juan Miguel talk on the 28th Feb you could ask Juan as he's an expert on American cichlids.

And who knows, you might win the tank in the raffle so then you could have one fish living in each tank... problem solved  

Maybe put the driftwood in the middle as a partial barrier, chuck a heap of Vallis in the middle as a curtain and weight it down and feed each fish at a different end of the tank for a while and see what happens.