Western Cichlid Forum

I noticed a little condensation happening in my heater a few days ago. I left it because I have had the problem before without any major issue. Tonight I heard my heater blow up. (continue reading…)

A Short tank journal by Northstar

I will start from the beginning. The 18mm ply sheets were cut to size,
the two side panels were cut at1000mm x 1100mm, the bottom panel at 2440 x 900mm,
the back panel at 2440mm x 1000mm and the front was cut at 2440mm x 1000mm with
the oval cut out of it . These were all cut to size at the timber yard . (continue reading…)

Looking for a new aquarium, tropical fish, catfish, loaches or hardware in Perth and not sure where the retailers are located. Then have a look on the map provided. If you see a store you are interested in then simply click on the flag and zoom in or out. (continue reading…)

Please enjoy our slideshow featuring member display aquariums, cichlids, catfish and others (continue reading…)

I have included in a download, a PDF file(1.7 meg) of the national review of the management of ornamental fish and plants in Australia. (continue reading…)

Microworms are great for all fish but in particular they are exceptional for raising of fry. Even extremely small fry like the egg laying calvus benefit enormously from this great food source as its very small and can be easily digested by small fry. (continue reading…)

Prevention of Malawi Bloat

by Terry Ranson
First published in Fincinnati, the official newsletter of the Greater Cincinnati Aquarium Society
Aquarticles

Besides territorial aggression, the main problem with Malawi cichlids is their tendency to get what has become known as Malawi bloat. This ailment is also known as African cichlid disease or African bloat. Malawi bloat can easily be prevented, and even cured, through proper husbandry. (continue reading…)

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Lake Victoria is 69,000 square kilometres in size, making it the largest lake in Africa, the largest tropical lake in the world, and the second largest freshwater lake in the world. It is the source of the longest branch of the Nile, the White Nile. The lake rests in the Great Rift Valley and is surrounded by Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya. (continue reading…)

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This is an interactive map

Lake Tanganyika is a large lake in central Africa (3° 20′ to 8° 48′ South and from 29° 5′ to 31° 15′ East). It is estimated to be the second oldest lake in the world after Lake Baikal in Siberia. (continue reading…)

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This is an interactive map
Lake Malawi, originally known as Lake Nyasa, Lake Nyassa and Lake Niassa after the Yao word for “lake”, is the most southerly lake in the Great African Rift Valley system. First “discovered” by the famed Scottish explorer and missionary Dr. David Livingstone, Lake Malawi has commonly been referred to as “Livingstone’s Lake.” (continue reading…)

This is a small screensaver from our miscellaneous section of the gallery. It features a few images of bugs and the like.

It is a self installing .exe windows installation.

The download is here…. hope you enjoy

Daily Tank Check

An often overlooked process when owning an aquarium is your daily aquarium checks. It ensures that simple unexpected catastrophe’s don’t occur. Most often a tank check will not take more than a passing glance or two so at most a few seconds of your time will ensure everything is running correctly.

A basic checklist to remember is.. (continue reading…)

Salt As Medication

An almost forgotten treatment for many common freshwater fish parasites is plain old aquarium salt. Used properly, a saltwater bath can be very effective in eliminating “ich”, velvet, Trichodina, Chilodonella, and a number of less common parasites.

Advantages. Salt treatments are: (continue reading…)

Every once in a while an emergency pops up. It may be your fish are looking ill or you may lose power to your house for varying lengths of time. Here are a few things that you can keep on hand to prevent that last minute stress of running around trying to find what you need to stave of a potential disaster. (continue reading…)

Causes Q: Why is my fish sick and how do I prevent more illness?

A: Probably 80-90% of diseases in captive fish can be prevented by avoiding stress. Stress weakens fishes’ immune systems, leading to increased susceptibility to disease. Actually, diseases and pathogens are almost always present in tanks, but a healthy fish’s immune system will prevent them from being a problem. Some of the most common stressors for captive fish are: (continue reading…)

As alot of us recycle products from around the home like plastic bottles,newspaper and the likes, recycling what comes out of your aquarium is a thought often overlooked.

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I’d been mulling over my background on my 8*3*2.5. I couldn’t find any paper backgrounds that were 2.5 foot tall and really I wanted to do something special with this tank so after a little looking around I based my background after this one on another forum.
These backgrounds are really easy to make and I’d recommend anyone that likes to tinkle with things to give it a shot. There are many different ways to do a background ranging from flat if you are limited by space to something like I have done below.

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Now this is where it all starts coming together. You will need to grab one of your cans of spray foam and start joining everything together. Do everywhere….top,underneath down the joins and seams everywhere. It will look fairly ugly and you will think that you have taken a step backwards or done something wrong. Dont worry about it because the cement stage pulls everything together. As you can see in some images, I had foam drip by accident onto the piece. Just let it as they just look like small rocks when the concrete goes on. In fact I added small blobs onto the back and base just to add more texture.

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This is a simple fry saver that I use for when my fish breed. The benifits of using a fry saver is that the fry can be allowed to grow for a few weeks in water that they are accustomed to without risk of shocking them with different water parameters when moving into a growout tank. Once the fish look strong and healthy is a good time to move your fry..
Mine are made from ice cream containers like the ones found at ice cream shops but any container or bucket may be used.

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One of the most useful things I have made is the hose attachment that I use when I do my water changes. I have a dedicated hose that I use for my water changes. I think from memory that its 21mm or so and while a little more expensive than normal hosing, it really dumps the water out. With this attachment on the hose, I can just walk away and not worry about any hoses popping out of the tank or too much water being drained out as the level is dictated and set by the length of PVC tube that is sitting in your tank. The tap on the unit is also very handy as not only can it be used to simply turn off the flow if you require smaller changes but it also holds the siphon so that you can simply remove the hose,put in another tank, turn the tap on and the siphon starts again. I would be guessing that the price of making one would barely exceed 10 dollars
Now onto some pics…..

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Recently I have been messing around with modified “side drop” filters – mainly because I have found they are a pain with bristlenose and fry, and also to try and cut down costs in building them. After a few early prototypes on smaller tanks Chuck was kind enough to let me run loose on his 5×3x2 and see if a few modifications worked better. The following is a brief step by step of how I put them together.

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9. 3mm glass bits are used to hold the mesh in place around the uplift section. I glue it in so the mesh is at an angle to make it easy to get the air stones in and out.

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This topic has created a fair bit of interest so I thought I would do an article on it and hope you all find it useful. These filters are incredibly easy to make, very cheap and work very well. (It’s also fun eating and drinking the contents of the items required – not the marg though

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I make about 15kg of food at a time so you can adjust all these ingredients according to how much you want to make for yourself.

Ingredients:

5kg frozen marinara mix
5kg white fish meat (any type, although no skin and as little sinew as possible)
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DIY fry saver, by Daniel Radaich.

So what is the difference between other fry savers and my design? Well here are some points which may persuade you to use this design instead of the common designs:

• The first advantage is increased volume of the container; this is because the container is attached under the polystyrene, unlike other models where it is above the material used to float it
• The second, increased circulation; there are four windows instead of the usual two so that water flow is better facilitated
• (continue reading…)

Here’s a very easy, and CHEAP lettuce clip you can make with just a piece of PVC and a hacksaw.

Cut a piece of PVC about 20mm long, I use 20mm PVC because it forms a nice tight clip for holding nori. Cut the piece length ways with the hacksaw (split the pipe). If you want to stick the clip to the side of the tank put a suction cup on it, I find the easiest way is with one of the cups with a knob on the back, drill a hole in the PVC which will make the knob a tight fit. For my tanks which are small and uncluttered i find it just as easy to drop the clip in and let it sink to the bottom, and retrieve it later when its empty.
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Below, I have the current listing of all freshwater allowable imports. It is current as from November 2006 and is intended as a quick reference only. This link will take you to the official AQIS site for a more complete rundown. (continue reading…)

Cichlid Jaws

A cichlids mouth really is a multi purpose tool designed for maximum survival. Cichlids actually have two sets of jaws. There is an inner jaw that is used to mash its food leaving the outer jaw free to evolve specialized teeth which allows them to gather all different types of food available. (continue reading…)

What’s Wrong with a Painted Angel?
- by Dr Jim Greenwood

Since the mid 1980’s Glassfish of the family Chandidae that have been injected with fluorescent dye have been imported into Australia from South East Asia. These fish have been painted by injection along the dorsal and ventral body surfaces and are sold as “Painted Angels”. In 1998 I became concerned when I noticed several fish species appear on the Australian market that had been injected with dye or paint.

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Injecting Fish with Dye

What is Juicing?

Juicing is the artificial colouration of fishes. Commonly juiced species include the so called “painted glassfish” along with albino varieties of a number of catfish and loaches. Some species, such as albino corydoras and so called “painted” glassfish are injected with dye using a hypodermic needle. A large number of fish reportedly do not survive this procedure. In fishes that do survive this process there is an 30% increase in diseases such as lymphocystis in “painted” varieties compared to wild type (unpainted) aquarium populations. This is presumably due to infection via dirty syringes between juicing.

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