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Hi Winston, no longer having a big fishroom will definately decrease my stress levels as well as the strain on my dodgy old knees and back As far as my favourite memories about the hobby, these are my top few memories : (i) ~ I really enjoyed the personal contact and camaraderie in the hobby in pre-internet days, particularly the 1980's and 1990's when attending fish club meetings and auctions was the only way to meet experienced breeders and obtain information and hard to get fish. Most weekends I had lots of visitors who I enjoyed showing around my garage fishroom and talking about fishkeeping and breeding. Unfortunately the advent of the internet and facebook has changed the hobby and people in general, and in the last 12 years or so I found myself no longer willing to entertain strangers in my fishroom and home. (ii) I can't remember the exact date but a few months after the restrictions on importing Frontosa were lifted I managed to buy one of the very first imported wild caught groups of Ikola frontosa. I bought 7 young fish at around 12cm or so from Bay Fish and ended up with a nice colony of 2m 5f. After only having access to Burundi and Kigoma variants in Australia prior to this, the Ikola were a stunning contrast and were my favourite fish for many years. (iii) Around 20 years or so ago I managed to obtain an adult breeding colony 1m 3f of cuckoo catfish (Synodontis multipunctatus) at a time when they were quite scarce and expensive in Australia. I was fascinated by their breeding method and bred them in good numbers for quite a few years with a variety of hosts and never got sick of them, they have remained one of my favourite fish right to the end. (iv) In 2007/2008 my children finished school and became relatively independant, so I was able to get my wife's support to build a 12 x 4 metre shed in the backyard to setup as a dedicated breeding room. My old fishroom in the garage had evolved over the years and was made up of piecemeal racking systems and tanks, including some home made tanks. It was a dream come true for me to be able to design and build a purpose built fishroom from scratch and I thoroughly enjoyed the whole exercise. When I built the fishroom I planned to be using it well into my 70's, but the universe has different ideas, at least I got 12 great years out of it. Cheers, Doug

Here is a photo of an auto siphon to create a flushing filter. This is an overhead filter using a 200L barrel but it could be in a sump and doesn't need to be as big. The inside pipes before media is added - very simple. Water comes in through the 90mm pipe at top. The water level rises and falls inside the filter to create a wave tank. The media used can be anything that doesn't float. The photo below is rapid seeding of hydroton clay balls. No fish, just a heap of ammonia. If you want to boost other (hetrotrophic) microbes for bio film production you can add sugar as well. Power head circulating flow through an aged sponge filter. This is the end result below. As I didn't want to waste the energy of pumped water up to the barrel, I decided to add a moving bed bedside the flushing barrel as well. A moving bed of K1 is a bio film filter. Often confused with a fluidised bed filter. Happy to asnswer any questions but please google first as there is plenty of better explanations online elsewhere. Simplistically, having the media circulate to the surface allows fish waste and oxygen to the bacterial colonies. There is 16500 LPH of pumped water flowing through the moving bed barrel so the air pump is not necessary but it's a good safeguard against power failure if your air pump is backed up. This is energy wasteful so I was going to replace this with a normally closed solenoid tap to drain out. During a power outage the solenoid fails open so all the water drains out. However after some thought, I decided to drill a permanent 4mm hole. When the pump runs, there is plenty of water. If the power fails, the barrel will slowly drain allowing air to get in. No moving parts to fail. Saved $12 on a solenid tap. I have removed the air pump now. After the moving bed, the water gravity drains into the flushing filter. The flushing filter will re-oxygenate the water and provide additonal bio and mechanical filtration. Instead of having the media move (like a moving bed filter) the water level rises and falls so oxygen and fish waste are brought to the media in a different way. Photo of inside the moving bed filter below. The thinner pipe on right (40mm) is incoming pumped water which goes to the bottom of barrel and points back up to stir. The left thick pipe is 90mm stormwater as an overflow drain. It has lots of slits to stop K1 escaping and a T at top to let air out.

thanks! I keep mainly placidochromis, lethrinops and aulonocara

No need to apologies at all, I appreciate a detailed response I am not giving up. I am currently going to grow the group out and see how they turn out. Due to import laws Australia seems to constantly be in positions of losing pure strains from the hobby. Take the speices in the Vieja (or paraneetroplus idk they change them all the time) so many of them have been cross breed as people don't know what they have or they are intentionally attempting to spawn hybrids. I have some pretty exciting growouts happening for me at the moment with my wild caught Hypselecara Temporalis pair, wild caught wavrini (although from what I have read getting a female is near impossible), the Parachromis Multifasciatus and now also a group of 6 Parachromis Dovii which were a birthday present from a close friend. I have read that it will take them quite a while to out grow a 6x2x2 so by the time they have I plan to have a larger tank or I know people with larger tanks to move them on too. P. Dovii has been a bucket list fish for me as long as I can remember. My last group of P. Multifasciatus turned xanthic at around 12cm which was quite early on. I guess in hindsight I guess that saved me from growing them for many years for it to happen then. I have always tried to find info on what could trigger then to turn later on or earlier in life, but I think no one knows. Here is a video of them in the growout tank. They are in there with some Melanotaenia Duboulayi as dithers. It is fascinating to see the dominate in the group when they are displaying dominance and flash the tradition adult colouration. I did need to remove the driftwood and divide the tank in half as while the 6 P. Dovii are still small they will growout in here as well. I didn't want to risk just chucking them in there with the P. Multifasciatus and coming home to a massacre ahaha. I am not the greatest photographer so I think that coupled with the setting on the radion light has washed out some of the fish and made them look white.

Hi and welcome to the site

The pet GG at Aquabird Toowoomba.

I would upsize, especially if you are using solar electricity during the day. The three things I looked for were: * Titanium heat exchanger * Quiet to run * C.O.P. (energy conversion ). * Thermostat. * Easy to use/set. * Long warranty. Okay that's more than 3 but those were the most important to me. The latest EvoHeat has 16.28 C.O.P. So 1 kilowatt energy produces 16.28 kilowatts of heat !! And they are in Brisbane so onsite support is easy. They sometimes have slightly dented stock with full warranty. Unfortunately I bought last year so I only have 6.57 C.O.P. but it's working well. It's highly recommended to filter before heat pump. And a monthly flush with chlorine to remove bio film build up. So stick in a 3 way tap arrangement when plumbing up.

Hi @MFF I need someone with your experience :-) Are you on 'AirTasker' ???

Most heat is lost through the top of the tank so make sure you have full cover lids. One of my sheds is not room heated so I put sheets of 15mm polystyrene on top of the glass lids and throw a plastic sheet over the whole rack. I see lots of condensation and the air feels warm underneath so I am sure it works. At least that's what I tell myself. I get scary power bills. You can use a light beam thermometer gun if you want to find heat leakages on tanks or fish rooms. Good for annoying the neighbours cats too.

I have 2 setups that run sumps, my 6ft system (6'x2.5'x2' & 2x 2'x1'x15" plus 4x18"x18 sump) has a 200w & a 300w heater and both set at 28*C (from memory haha). during the coldest day in winter (-5* in ipswich), my tanks stayed around the 22*C mark. I use to add a Jager 300w (the 2ft long jobbies) heater to boost the temps up in winter (removed once winter was over) until i put the 200w heater in the sump. My 4ft setup, has a 250w heater set at 28*C, it was only setup with the sump in September last year, so will see how it goes this winter :-) Edit: my heaters stay in and on all year round, they only come on when needed. Some #tankporn for you all ;-)

ah huh, you've been outdone! what's better than a pool full of topicals in the subtropics? a pool of tropical fish in the tropics! https://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/vincent/fish/fish-all-sorts-for-sale/1238130613

Trying my luck again to see if anyone has any pure Amphilophus Trimaculatus (Trimac) available. I’m away of very few left in Australia. Willing to pay good money for pure specimens, more then happy for Growouts if they are available. Please message me on here or text message me 0452117671

Hey all have a pink GG to move on 7-8cm approx $400 pick up flagstone I can meet a the 7/11 pm ot txt 0474 142 508 cheers

@Grover65k yoi know you need another mouth to feed

G'day, names Lance, new to the forum and avid lover of African Cichlids.

@Blake91- thanks for the business Blake was nice to meet you mate. Hope the drive back went fine. All the best with the fish. All 5cm fish - SOLD Cheers Chris

Would love to see some setup pics...heres mine. Aquaponic 4ft with rhads, pac blue eyes, threadfin and peacock gudeons. Wanna start looking at creeks for more rhads and really want a couple glass fish.

hey mate. take a look at, https://www.aquagreen.com.au/catalog.html

Hi and welcome to the site it's still going to be heavy

I agree with the Salvini. One of my favourite species but I won’t keep them unless new blood comes in as many are either lacking of colour, as well as the fact pretty much all have mouth deformities. Attached is photos of the Festae pair that I used to have. Can’t find a photo of the male from a better angel at the moment though. Second photo is of the female in a friends tank. I am the same as you. I am happy to invest more money in wild caught species compared to domestically spawned as many species have been inbred, and cross bred sometimes you don’t know what you are actually getting. With the H. Temporalis so far I have noticed that the wild caught are much more aggressive then domestically raised especially with conspecies. They are very protective of the fry and still have the spawn with them. I am tempted to pull a small amount of them but don’t want to disturb them too much as it is only their first spawn. If so I’d only pull a very small percentage so they still have majority of the spawn with them to continue learning and to strengthen their pair bond

Freddies (now multi) have been in Aus for at least 10 years and I am pretty sure longer than that due to the ones I had observed and importing laws. @MRNOS who I believe no longer frequents the forum had some loiselli (now another name I believe - maybe the new friedrichsthalii?) but he never got his pair to spawn and sold them and they disappeared, much to his and some american keepers disappointment. They were the first and last time I ever saw loiselli here. Should be some photos left on the forum of them. There were two lines of multis in Aus at one point. The larger population (not sure of locality or if you can even call them a locality anymore) of the current ones we see that have high chances of carrying xanthic genetics. The second was a smaller group of 'la ceiba yellow head' locality but they didn't stay separate for long and were bred into the other variety and has since vanished. As the xanthic gene a recessive trait, not all will be visuals. With xanthics dying/going blind early they dont reproduce for as long as normal ones. So even if you breed two visual normals that are 100% hetrozygous for xanthic, 25% of the offspring on average will be visually normal and will not carry the trait and 50% chance that the offspring will be visually normal and 100% hetrozygous. The only way to produce an entice batch of fry that is 100% xanthic is to breed xanthic to xanthic. Therefore it is not impossible to find animals that dont carry the gene or that will not display it. Your best bet to avoid it is to not buy a whole group from one source/batch to avoid potential xanthic animals. Or look for breeders whose fish are a few years old and larger than 25cm. As 15-20cm seems to be a common size that the animals show the mutation. Not sure if its based on size/growth or age though.

Hi and welcome to the site

found a 4x3xx18in tank out in the garage not being used, decided we needed a Quarantine\holding tank for our baby rays and other fish we decide to bring in, plumbing today, sump and filtration to go in

Mahachai, imbellis, and stiktos. And if the isolation continues, I suspect I'll venture into mouthbrooders. Breeding but only unintentionally. What do you keep?

thanks john thats one of bris aquarium shops that i havent been too yet. was thinking of visiting aquariums alive as i will down that way.

Ha ha! Just like the Royal Family - you never put the all the family members on one airplane! So too with GPGs, you gotta let other people own one or two just in case the Billabong gets visited by a flock of hungry pelicans

@Grover65kis going into a tail spin,,theres s gpg in south east qld he doesnt own

Hi I'm Adam and have just started back up in to having fish

hi mate I just pm u cheers john

Hi and welcome back to the hobby and site

New to this website, post what I have so far and looking for some else

The Billabong has just dropped to 23degC. Anybody want to swap a few Jager or Eheim heaters for what I might need in the Billabong? Grover PS: 13.5kW might be overkill - I think I'll look at 8-10kW ones.... $$$$$

How do I view live stock trader that is mentioned? I'm new here, obviously haahha. Looking to stock my Cichlid tank at little better

Sold

u need 5 posts or more to get the hole forum so keep posting then u will get it cheers john

Yes.. on a big tank. These blue barrels are the back up (redundancy) emergency filter as the main filter is outside the tank and much bigger. However the same principles apply.

Meanwhile... back in the BBF... OK cobbers, I've discovered what is causing the scoria to keep washing out red colour after you have rinsed it for 10-15 minutes - Red Clay! It pretends to be a chunk of rock - But then either gets crushed by the scoria being tumbled or else crumbles in the sun as it dries out - All I want is this - And what ends up in the BBF bottom layer is this - Not to worry! After I fully recover from my operation, I'll be back into washing the scoria & if I see any of these "jobbies" they will get hurled off into the garden beds Grover (Billabong temperature under the blue cover is sitting on 24degC - so far so good)

i decided to go 24 on all tanks this year. my jungle perch and tandanus didn't eat last night, maybe due to temp so I thought id go 24. of course i had to have a dud heater among the bunch i kinda remembered there was on from last year.

StarTrack from Sydney made what's usually an overnight service a two day service. Fastways from the sunny coast made what's usually an overnight service a two day service as well. My essentials handled the journey "swimmingly" very well packed and water was treated to detoxify ammonia. Do be careful all, results may vary!

Yep Doug, It looks like someone cried. I am trying to get it back. We do and almost always have a post pointing here for sales. Some people break the rules, and I consider myself not to be the facebook police. If we can get it back I may have to dress in a police uniform and inform the facebook rules more. Any posts of police uniforms offered to me should probably go to off topic.......

This fishroom was designed and built 12 years ago specifically to meet my needs as a breeder of Lake Malawi cichlids. All tanks and racks were professionally custom made, racks are hot dip galvanised with adjustable feet. Pictures below are of a fry tank I had custom built to sit on one of the racks and it is plumbed into the system so fry are always in the same water as parents. This tank is 6 feet long x 600 wide and 200 high, with crossbraces set on their edge siliconed in every 200mm to enable flexibility with handling of fry. It currently holds the last few fry I will be growing out. I have used a mix of containers including Ziss fry savers and ice cream containers to hold new fry until they are transferred to a growout tank. I also use Ziss egg tumblers in some of the growout tanks to hatch eggs. All breeding equipment will be sold with the fishroom.

Usage #2 - Rapid sump drainage On another system I run 18 x 500L green tubs (9 tonne water). These are circular tubs so very easy to create a circular swirl flow with a tap positioned tangentially. With a central drain pipe and outer sleeve, I can pick up the bottom crap easily. In fact I can harvest fish by pulling both pipes and letting the fish drain out to a collection net in sump as the pipes increase in diameter. This system has automatic water change via a 24/7 constant drip. One of the problems with this setup is the lack of space under the bottom tubs for a sump. I did not want to cut the concrete slab or put an external sump outside the shed (below ground). There is only 30cm clearance. It is possible to daisy chain several sumps to gain a bigger volume but that creates further issues. And I wanted a glass sump because I harvest fish through the sump. In fact, I empty one tub at a time during harvest by pulling out the central stand pipes drain. So my sump needs to be big enough to handle the excess water (overflow from tanks) if a power outage occurs but this is very difficult on small sumps for large volume racks. However with the constant drip water change, the sump is quite full. This is also to safe guard against the pump running dry and burning out. So I use an auto siphon on the sump which will rapidly drain water during a power outage. This still leaves enough water for the system to restart when the power returns and the drip will top back up within a day. The U tube is the auto siphon. The adjacent vertical pipe (stand pipe drain) is the water height I want to retain in the sump. There isn't a lot of difference in height but these siphons can be very precise if you design with care. Take note of the siphon break hole on the U tube stem. During normal use, the vertical stand pipe drains out the excess water from the constant drip. This does not need to be a big drain as even a slow continual drip can change considerable volumes of water. I set this for 20% daily as these are growout tubs. During sudden water height increases, the vertical stand pipe drain can't cope so the water level rises until the auto siphon kicks in. This drops the water level down until the anti siphon hole is reached which breaks the sipon. And if water is still coming in and overwhelms the vertical standpipe drain again, the cycle repeats. This is quite reliable as there are no moving parts. The photo below may explain better. Ignore the downward elbow on closed valve tap as this is to drain the sump completely if I need to clean it. Having tight sump clearances create lots of issues. I have started using sumps on steel post (rollers) to slide out now but that's another topic.

my first malawis were, saulosi, blue males yellow females, and trewavasae blue males ob females. i think saulosi are pretty good for beginners due to the different colored sexes, small size, colored fry and they were the most frequent breeders I've had.

I recently washed 12 bags of scoria from bunnings. Each bag contained a lot of red sludge mud. I bought a 6mm seive from bunnings which was a huge time saver, just sieve a little at a time. https://www.bunnings.com.au/icon-plastics-395mm-garden-sieve-with-hand-grips_p2961023

Just picked up some fish Troy is a great guy and the fish are super healthy would highly recommend to anyone regards Peter

Hi and welcome to the site

but it's not Friday, it's sort of like Friday I finished work for the week but it's not proper Friday cause there was no fish and chips

Fry with adult male holding eggs in background:

If you want to try and keep a few alive put them in a large well established outdoor pond that gets at least a few hours of direct sunlight with Elodea, sand substrate and no other fish. The micro foods they require can not be replicated with things like bloodworm. A Well established pond may have enough food to enable a few of them to survive and grow. To try and raise them in a tank is very difficult - although can be done.