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Post by corycatwoman on Jul 21, 2009 21:58:33 GMT -5
thanks murdock i think you got confused i have the gourami in the 10 gallon tank, my cichlids are alot bigger and would tear it up really fast specially the bumblee it seems to patrol the upper half of the tank.
aswell as the gourami the ghost catfish are also in the 10 gallon they have survived through soo many tank mates im very happy with them since everyone thats ever kept them has told me they are very very tough to keep healthy and alive.
im hoping to add some more live plants to the 10 gallon tank and eliminate decors in it hense why i transferd all decor from 10 gallon to 30 gallon. im hoping within the next month another one of my bulbs will sprout.
thank you for reading up on me. hope your all doing as well as us.
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Post by stix0504 on Jul 22, 2009 6:16:01 GMT -5
Your fish are beautiful. I personally like the bumble bee. That one is so unique. Thanks for sharing the photos.
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Post by Carl on Jul 22, 2009 9:11:15 GMT -5
Thanks for the update.
Your Yellow Labidochromis seems to like to pose in front of the monkeys.
Carl
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Post by babygeige on Jul 22, 2009 10:02:29 GMT -5
Tank looks great! I love the monkeys! I think it's so cute when fish hang out in caves and peek out like that.
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Post by corycatwoman on Aug 4, 2009 21:44:44 GMT -5
hello everyone heres a quick update. the guppies have now all been sold we were debating on keeping a few males but decided against it. we have also sold our gourami. and as you have seen in the new crowntail betta section we have a betta now i have transferd him to the 10 gallon tank today hes no longer in his play mansion lol. but gaylord will be fine none the less! i also picked up a little tank from my friend i think its a 5 or a 7 gallon tank. i have a rigged filter in it i dont know what cartridge to get so i just put one of my new cartridges for my 10 gallon tank just the sleeve folded in half in the cartridge area its an odd filter ill take a picture of that and show you. also moved a bubbler stone into it and some jewels and random pebbles and rocks my friend had in the tank i sorted through all of it and picked out the few i wanted and disposed of the rest in a dumpster and rinsed everything off throughly and put it in the bottom filled it up half of it with already cycled water the other half with tap water and conditioner and prime. put a few plastic plants and rocks from other tanks for the bacteria media to help cycle it if it even needed it. and purchased 1 little iddy biddy cute cichlid out of an assorted tank. will move him to the 29 soon. as for the 29 gallon tank i will be purchasing a quad of c. afra cobue (cobwe) and selling the rest of my cichlids in there. have been studying up on them and looking into other aquarists that have breed and have had them for long periods of time in there tanks have said they have had them in 20 gallon high tanks which is a little smaller of footprint then my 29 bow. im sure that is the best and safest route to go in the long run. pictures pictures pictures. here you go!
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Post by corycatwoman on Oct 18, 2009 20:22:21 GMT -5
all has been going well in our tanks we have had a few speedbumps of course its always expected. UPDATE! our betta has died of dropsy we have replaced him with a gold gourami will need to get him a larger home in the future. and all of our cichlids have grown up and turned into amazing little fellers. weve had 3 succesfull breedings and were able to sell the parents and the fry. as for that tank now its inhabitants are monsters i know your all going to be extremely frustrated with the combo but its not near as bad as it was when we first started. currently we have 1 female kenyi she is about 2 and half inches long looking for a male to mate with but shes the largest fish in there and has no other mature males to breed with she was the cute little cichlid i got in previous post for my friends tank he gave me. i got a positive identification on her from my friend she was too small to tell when we got her also her best friend which is weighing in at about 1 and half inches long we call him oddball but i think ive ID'd him as a Socolofi but ill make it positive after he grows out a bit more and his bars start to fade and stay hidden. i found a twin to my kenyi recently and added it to the tank aswell same size as oddball at 1 and half inches long will have to grow it out aswell to tell if its male or female if its male im taking it back immediately and last but not least for the cichlids is Lanas prized jewel the Jewel cichlid. i was very hesitant in buying it because it apeard to be ugly at the store but after studying it and seeing its full colors in images i decided i would see if i could get one to color up in my tank. the only worry i have with my tank at this moment is if since the jewel cichlid is found in the african rivers and the mbuna are found in the lakes and both kenyi and jewel are known for there territorial behavior if this may cause issues later. pretty sure they will if so i will remove the jewel to its own tank because shes in love with its colors as for now all juveniles and a mature female they are all living peacefully with our pleco. as for the C afra. Cobue we had much success with the quad the 1 male breed with all 3 females and 2 outs the 3 actually had fry we had 10 from first female and 7 from the 2nd and the 3rd one i believe abandoned. we sold them all for a nice pretty penny about twice we payed for them and thus we decided to start this experiment. big speedbump most recently is my mature female kenyi picked up a disease. our first official disease in the cichlid tank. i identified it as mouth fungus and started treating it with melafix and it cleard up after 2 weeks and is no longer affecting its eating behavior and her colors are starting to show again finally she turned albino for a whole week. our reason for getting the disease was new fish... and bad water.. i let my nitrates get up over 40ppm and had to do 3 water changes to get it back down to 20ppm all is well now and the pleco has been helping alot with eliminating all the algae on the glass and rocks to help lower the waste collection aswell. my question is because the mouth fungus has been in my tank and the only fish that was affected was the only original fish in the tank do i still need to continue treatment to prevent the other 3 from catching it during its final battle with its own infection? the infection itself started above the lips and she began to fade to white and lost apetite and hid and never came out. i finally got a glimpse of her after the 3rd day of being infected and i noticed the growth and began treating. it didnt seem to help at all the first 3 days.. just to clarify were on day 6 of infection now. so i did a water change gravel cleaning and removed the filter and put a new one in. then retreated the tank with double the dosage.. well actually it was recomended dosage but twice daily instead of once daily so actually being a double dose. after the first day of new treatment schedule i started to see improvement. now were at 2 weeks 1 day since infection and the mouth is back to normal a lil red and sore but the growth has traveled its no longer on the mouth but on the upper eye lids im guessing since the problem accured with bad water quality that its not the same infection but something new i havent had a chance to catch since shes been hiding and not coming up to eat. she ate and i noticed the eyes i believe the mouth fungus is treated but she also must have suffered from minor eye cloud or possibly fungus spread to top of eye lids. im out of my melafix bottle and was wondering if i should get a bacterial treatment or just stick with melafix?
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Post by Carl on Oct 19, 2009 11:25:57 GMT -5
I have to wonder if either this was not a true fungus or mold (Saprolegnia) or even more likely that your water changes, filter cleaning took care of the fungus problem since fungus/saprolegnia infections are opportunistic and often more common where decomposing material is present. Melafix (Melaleuca leucadendron) has not been shown in controlled studies to be effective for rue fungal/Saprolegnia infections (in fact a U of F study shows that some fungii actually attack Melaleuca leucadendron) Please see these articles: Aquarium Medications; Melafix (TTO, Tea tree oil), Pimafix, Usnea Identification and Treatment of FUNGUS (Saprolegnia)Carl
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Post by corycatwoman on Oct 19, 2009 12:42:56 GMT -5
thanks carl. ya im not sure what it is. im familiar with ich and saprolegnia i had a few cases of both with my oscars in the past but this doesnt look like either 1 of them. but she definately showed all the symptoms for mouth fungus. but im never going to let my tank get that dirty again. i think we accidently had mis communications during the day and they ended up getting over fed for about a week with about 3 times what they normaly should have gotten. causing all sorts of balence to get messed up.
and it was definately strange that it cleared up a day or 2 after the water changes. it may not have been a melafix that cured it. but i definately used my whole bottle in the last 2 weeks from what everyone on here has told me in the past about melafix is its wide spectrum of different cures for all sorts of issues with the external parts of the fish.
the strangest part to me is my female was only fish in the tank and was perfectly healthy she was isolated by herself from the time i baught her up until 3 weeks ago when i sold the rest of the cobues i then moved her in the bigger tank and went to the store to get her some friends. and after i added the 3 other assorted cichlids in the tank she was only one that had any symptoms of anything. her health went down infront of my eyes. thats when i decided to test my water.
it came out with 0 ammonia 40 ppm nitrate and 0 nitrite and the gh was high as usual and the kh was off the chart as always. the rocks i have in my tank have lowerd my ph a bit instead of being at 8.6 -9.0 its around 7.4 - 8.2.
thats when the immediate 20 percent waterchanges occured to get the toxic level of nitrates down to 20 ppm.
and from the story above it seemed to solve the issue along with the melafix treatments but the tiny grey growth above the eyelids is whats worrying me now. what would be the best treatment something similar to what im describing?
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Post by Carl on Oct 19, 2009 16:40:01 GMT -5
Since you may have had success with Melafix which is primarily gram positive (most aquatic diseases are gram negative), this may be a more resilient gram positive disease such as Streptococcus, for which a stronger medication such as Erythromycin may help with. Of coarse keeping the water clean, healthy mineral levels, balanced Redox all help considerably as I think you experienced. Read the warnings about Erythromycin here Aquarium Medications 2; antibioticsCarl
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Post by murdock6701 on Oct 19, 2009 19:13:28 GMT -5
female kenyis are blue - the males stay yellow
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Post by corycatwoman on Oct 20, 2009 14:48:47 GMT -5
thanks murdock. ya mines about 3 inches long and still blue but has an egg spot ive heard of some being late changers but im sure is past the point of turning since its the most dominant fish in the tank if it was a male logic makes me think it has no reason to hide its true colors. so im sure its female.
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Post by corycatwoman on Nov 25, 2009 23:41:49 GMT -5
big update will have lots of pictures soon
28 bow... currently single species malawaiin mbuna ps. socolofi colony all juvenile will hopefully sex them in less than 6 months
and in the 10 gallon we have the solo yellow labidochromis
and in our 7 gallon we have our adult male golden gourami
everyone is extremely happy, im actually starting to see some breeding dances from the dominant male in the mbuna tank although i dont think the other 3 fish are female or mature enough to breed but still very interesting to watch.
considering a small school of neons as dither just because i dont think there is anything i can do with this tank other then a dither school for the next 6 years atleast opinions would be nice of positives and negatives of having a dither school with your mbuna colony i got the idea from murdock in the past with his yellow labs.
as for any other questions i have i was wondering if my gourami is safe in its tight quarters. its a bigger tank then the tank i baught him out of but im still not sure about humanity on it. technicaly the inch of fish per gallon is still plausable but is it safe? i do not have the space or money to upgrade so my main question is will it shorten its life being in a 6 gallon and being 5 inches long?
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Post by bikeguy33 on Nov 26, 2009 3:28:49 GMT -5
that tank is too little....altho, being alone he wont be near as active. it will in the end shorten his life a lil....but the important thing to us, as caring keepers,is their health and happiness. he will be fine for the time being, but what i recommend is visiting garage sales etc. and buy him a 10 or 15 gallon tank. this isnt a purchase that needsto be done tomorrow....but more a suggestion to keep your eyes open for a larger home in your budget...
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Post by murdock6701 on Nov 26, 2009 9:19:18 GMT -5
I stand corrected on the neons as dither fish for the mbunas - try zebra danios - thry're a little larger - the neons did fine at first, but if your fish are doinf "the dance", frustration and agression can leave the neons as targets - they're fast enough, but usually end up w/ nipped tails, which do grow back but their small size makes them vulnerable - I went to both zebra and giant danios - also, I have 2 large gouramis, both female, in w/ a mature male yellow lab and they co-habiate very well
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Post by corycatwoman on Nov 26, 2009 18:42:07 GMT -5
thnx murdock and bikeguy. i have been looking for an upgrade thats only a few extra inches in all directions for him. but most of the small tanks i can find in the area on craigslist are either damaged or not at all worth the effort cleaning them for use. but i have been looking. and thanks thats all i needed.
also murdock i wonder if i ditch the 10 gallon and 6 gallon completely upgrade to a 20 and have the solo male lab with the gold gourami... but still might be too small for the 2 oposite species to live together in harmony.
^^ thats another not sure about idea?
thank you all soo much
i will have pictures of the socolofi soon for everyone to admire. pictures truely do not give the dominate one justice. hes got his flags up constantly and doing the shiver dance saying look at me look at this rock it is mine!
also some sparing is happening in small doses and it corrects itself with the 3 subdominate ones skirmying away in 3 different directions and the dominate male just like awesome guys! your sweet!
do have a question on my original socolofi i had before purchasing the other 3. his jaw looks a bit wider then the rest and it makes him look from the side like right triangle on his head that goes into the torpedo body. where the rest of them have the under and over side come together evenly.. i guess in simpler words the bottom side of his jowel area is oversized?? im hoping he just grows out of it. but ill take a picture of them and you can see what im talking about alot better.
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Post by corycatwoman on Nov 26, 2009 20:21:56 GMT -5
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Post by corycatwoman on Nov 27, 2009 0:06:33 GMT -5
in the second to last picture is the fish i was concerned about. the one with the stubby face. not sure if it just needs to grow into its large mouth or if its actually something to worry about. if you notice in the other pictures the shapes of the heads are all uniform top and bottom. but that 2nd to last picture is the one that the bottom is just overly large around the jaw area.
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Post by Carl on Nov 27, 2009 11:07:26 GMT -5
Thanks for sharing the pictures I did not see anything "that jumped out at me" as per problems, maybe a different picture angle or others here such as bikeguy can see something that I missed. Carl
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Post by corycatwoman on Nov 27, 2009 12:41:49 GMT -5
ya. hes the bottom of the pecking order so hes a hard one to catch in the camera most of the time hiding our away from the front glass. but ive been taking around 40 pictures a day so im sure with a matter of luck and time ill get one that shows what im seeing with my eyes.
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Post by corycatwoman on Nov 27, 2009 21:34:31 GMT -5
i took murdocks advise about the dither and purchased 3 giant danios.
i may infact have to take them back for the smaller zebra danios. but as of right now i think they will be fine but if they reach max size i think i might be slightly overstocked. on the other hand tho mbuna do better in an overstocked envirenmont as far as aggression goes. so i dont know??
3x 5.5-6inches (giant danio)
4x 4.5-5inches (socolofi)
and i only have 26-28 gallons would that be an ok stock?
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