any tropical fish keepers here?

i have not set up any tanks since i moved but i am very mush into tropical fish keeping.
i specialize in new world and african cichlids.

i worked at a couple local fish stores(which i think i was lucky) cause i was working close with people that are VERY into it, going to convetions and things like that...

if you ever want to talk fish or ask questions, i'll help ya out.

i'm actually getting ready to set up 125 gallon tank at my wifes job for the residents of the nursing home..they're paying for it but it is like a gift for the residents and i will be able to maintain it..

i took care of about 50 tanks at one store and about 70 at another at one point.
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we had various sized tanks around the house but before we moved i started to sell them off..

i had a tank in my computer room where i had a dovii(parachromis dovii)

i like the tankbusters...
when it comes to new worlds we kept(at various times)
dovii
managuense
trimaculatus
jack dempsey
midas/red devil
green terror
festae

i didn't get a chance to get one but i wanted an odo and an ubi but i never got around to trying them...

if you guys are into exotics like this you can get them from
tangledupincichlids.com
dudes name is jeff rapps. fish are top shelf.
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we had an african tank in out old living room that i had dialed in...crushed coral on the bottom to buffer and lava rock for the shellies to go into.
had a couple
brundi frontosa
tropheus moori(malawi blue dolphin)
tropheus elongatus chewere
pseudotropheus acei
pseudotropheus solosci
clown loaches
yoyo loach
bristlenose pleco
few haps
tilipia buttikoferi
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not all in the same tanks of course
we had more than those at various timez, severums and other things...

i really enjoyed it because it was another life system in my living room. i would sit for long periods of time just staring at the tank, watching the fish....they all had their own little habits.


besides people that keep oscars what else we got here.

you keep any fish? cichlids or community?


edit*, i WILL have a snakehead one day

[edit on 14-11-2007 by Boondock78]

[edit on 14-11-2007 by Boondock78]

I used to breed tropical fish some years back. Not chichlids, but barbs and danios. Yeah, not so advanced, that would be like intermediate level. I don't have to mention guppies -- that's newbie level fish breeding

I really like zebra danios, especially the ones with long flowing fins. I like to watch the schooling behaviour, very fascinating. I also kept clown loaches and miniature catfish (forgot the name, corydoras something or the other -- the one with leopard spots). The barbs I mentioned were tiger barbs (no surprise there - it's a Malaysian fish).

For some strange reason I always fail at keeping neon tetras. I never figured it out. Oh, I also kept betta splendens -- that's a given for us Southeast Asians.

Yeah, I guess with the exception of the betta, all the fish I reared back then were the one that do well in fresher, slightly acidic waters. Keeping brackish water fish seemed a bit more complicated.

reply to post by Beachcoma


those cats you are talking about corey cats...

neons are pretty tough to keep actually.

they do better in a tank of ike 20 of just them.

they can literally scare themselves to death.....when i was at the one store, we had a lot of neons and they were like .69 cents. i used to have to net them REAL slow....almost wait for them to swim in the net...

if i went in ther eand chased em with the net, a few hours later or the next day, i'd have 20 or 30 dead neons in there.


i dig the danoi's too. i used to keep the long fin zebras as dithers for my cichlids.

most danios chil at the top but the you can get some that hang out at the very tiop and some that are mid level dwellers. really fills teh tank out nice.

i used to keep 5-8 tiger barbs too. schooing fish are good dithers for the cichlids.

Originally posted by Boondock78
neons are pretty tough to keep actually.

they do better in a tank of ike 20 of just them.

they can literally scare themselves to death.....when i was at the one store, we had a lot of neons and they were like .69 cents. i used to have to net them REAL slow....almost wait for them to swim in the net...

That explains a lot. Back when I was keeping fish neons were hard to come by -- the shops nearby were usually sold out. So I'd have to cycle up to 5 kilometres away to find them. They must've been traumatized by the the trip -- I was on a mountain bike so I took shortcuts on rough terrain.

reply to post by Beachcoma


thats what....and the places that were sold out were just as easily out of stock cause when they come in half are dead and some die each day.

lemme just te ya that the tanks in the chain stores suck. stores like petsmart and that have thir tanks on a central system.
no physical water changes...if a fish in one tank gets ich, they call get it....to medicate that tank, you medicate all.

my first bit woud be to only buy from the mom and pop store....the fish store ony...usually those are started by a hobbyist anf they actualy know what they are doing.
the major chain stores simply do not care and they take their fish out of the advertising budget a it is such a small part of their revenue.


they also blatently lie on their cards that inform the customer...

then you walk in a petsmart or a pet supplies pus and go to the cichlids...you will see a tank with midas r red devils in there. it will tell you that they ar eaggressive but only get 8 inches...

thet is 100% false....midas/re devils his 10-12 for demales and 12-14 for males all day.
they do this wil AL their fish..

ever heard of a cery pacu?(red belly pirahana...but not really pirahna)...you have probably seen em but they have them labeled as like 8-10 inches....those pacu his 30 inches on the regular.

i have seen buttikoferi labelled at 9 inches and they are tank busters.....18 inches.

it gets people in the store. people that don't know what they are doing ot don't know anything about fish are selling fish and gear to people that know nothing about fish.

last store i worked at, i used to give my cell out to certain customers...i'd help em out with a problem or hook em up when something cool somes in...

i walk into the chain stores and i see what they have...the green terror, the red terror, the managuense, and various africans, and the good ole convict...i ask them the most asked questions we get...."what is the most aggressive fish i coud get' and the answer is always the oscar.

that is why i despise them...they are NOT tough or aggressive..they are big and they eat a lot. they are prone to hole on the head and make your tank filthy...

back to the neons, the way you were transporting them, they were dead from the get go...not your fault man...

the way to go with them is if you want 10 neons, you need to buy 20..after a few days you'll have 10.

come on people.....all these members and nobody keeps fish?

what about salt?

since my back is all jacked up i have been thinking of getting a small bowfront tank and keeping a nano reef tank...just tossing the idea around.

before i forget, there is a few members here that live in the cleveland area..ifyou are into fish, there is a store called something fishy right on state road...this guy specializes in african cishlids....
he just got back from africa from some convention.

anyway, his entire basement is full of tanks....there is an open tank in the store that has a microlepis in it....if you go in there, ask the guy if you can see the other two..he has a mating pair of microlepis in his basement...he is the only guy i have ever heard of with a mating pair of those fish.


i think that the tank at my wifes job is gonna be a go...it's gonna be sweet. they have tried birds and dogs but they never work. i am going to hook them up with the raddest tank around.

it is hard on my back but i am really getting the itch to start another tank....i don't know what to do though.'
i like african cichlids a lot but i equally like the new world tank busters...if i go for couth americans, i will only be able to keep one, maybe two fish in the tank but if i keep africans i can keep a lot.

check out these pics.

if i get a new world tank, i would want one of one of these kind of fish..i have had every one of them before...

please click thesel inks and see the pics

this is the parachromis dovii(wolf cichlid)...these are the baddest new world cichlids you can get...unless you have a 150 gallon, you can only keep one of these by themselves..they hit about 13-17 inches


www.tropicalresources.net...

this is the cousin to the dovii, the parachromis managuense(jaguar cichlid)..these guys are beautiful and their bite is second in strength only to that of the dovii as far as new worlds go..
they hit about 12-15 inches

www.tropicalfishcentre.co.uk...

this one will blow your mind..meet the umbiferum aka(umbee)...get this, they reach lengths of 28-36 inches....these are some bad boy tank busters.

forums.waterwolves.com...

this guy is one of my favorites...nandopsis hatiensis(odo, black nasty, haitian cichlid)..these boys get to be about 15 inches and they are some bad mofo's...gorgeous fish

www.geocities.com...

another favorite of mine although unless you get one of these guys from rapps, they will not have these great colors....this is the festae(red terror)..they are very aggressive and hit about 12 inches

213.180.95.58...

here is the festae cousin, the Aequidens rivulatus(green terror)..little smaller than the red terror and not as aggressive

images.google.com...://badmanstropicalfish.com/aquascape_pics/green_terror.jpg&imgrefurl=http://badmanstropicalfish.com/stats/c ichlid_stats/stats_cichlids2h.html&h=216&w=376&sz=12&hl=en&start=3&tbnid=MmG4Y6G36GTC0M:&tbnh=70&tbnw=122&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dgreen%2Bterror%26gbv%3D2% 26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff

one of the mack daddy's..this is the midas cichlid. the cousin is the red devil the midas gets a bigger nuchal(hump on head) than the red devil..f you get your midas or red devil at the store, you are more than likeley getting a midas/devil cross.
they come in a variety of colors and get 12-15 easy...these are some bad mo's.
here is a white/pink variety
www.midas-cichlid.com...
orange male(see the nuchal)
nas.er.usgs.gov...
and orange feamle
www.aquariumlife.net...

if you are lucky you can get a cross color like this one...i talk to this lady a lot..this is a show fish...pei
www.tropicalresources.net...

here is a red devil. you can kind of see the difference between the midas
animal-world.com...

here is a trimaculatus(flowerhorn)..again, tankbuster....15 inches of terror
www.flower-horn.de...

despite what you think, you do NOT need to feed these fish live food...matter of fact, the only time my cishlids would get live food is when the convicts would mate and they could get to the fry...
feeder fish have zero nutrients and unless you breed them yourselves, you are wishing for trouble...

now, the convict cichlid...these guys will have a clutch ever 45 days...they hit about 6 inches but they have a serious attitude problem and will not take any static from the larger fish.

the females have orange/red belly's...they are the easiest fish to distinguish sex as you don't have to vent them..

so, female convict
www.aqua-fish.net...

male convict
fish.orbust.net...

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while we are still on south americans, lets check out a hybrid...i don't approve of this cause they are going to dillute a species...this is a 'parrot fish'

www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk...

if they don't get their food from the top, they could get bloat cause they take in a lot of water if they eat from the middle.
a parrot is a cross between the red devil, which i already showed you and a lemon severum which is this guy

www.nigalius.co.uk...

now, what they also do is inject them with a hormone or dye them so they have vibrant colors....they also do this with oscars and call them blueberry oscars...i will include oscars in this even though i hate them..

they get to be about 12-15 inches. they eat anything. they are very dumb and very dirty but here are all three variety's.
classic oceloti, albino, then blueberry(they will only stay blue a month or two)

classic
www.flower-horn.de...

albino
cjexotics.com...

edit*--can't find a pic for the blueberry

here we have an arowana...get to be about three feet long
files.zite3.com...

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lets check out some africans...

this is the biggest, baddest african cichlid there is...most africans don't get that big but this guy gets more than 3 feet. this pic is decieving...you want one of these plan on spending a grand
www.aquaticreefsystems.com...

the tilipia buttikoferi....bad dudes here too. hit about 18 inches...will dominate anything in the tank save for a few
myfish.akvamalawi.com...

now, as i said a lot of your africans are smaller so here are some of them..small and beautiful. if you have a 75 gallon or even a 55 gallon, you could keep a nice stash of fish

tropheus acei
www.akwafoto.pl...

tropheus moori
www2.biology.ualberta.ca...

cyrtocara moori(malawai blue dolphins)
www.geocities.com...

these AREmy favorite..the kings of lake tangnyka...the frontosa..very big, very tough, but very mellow...18 inches aww day

www.verse914.com...

here we have Iodotropheus sprengerae(rusty red)..they are mbuna, pronounces um-boona
www.african-cichlid.com...

meet the livingstoni..these dudes only hit about 5 inches but they are tough as HELL
www.centralpets.com...

pseudotropheus elongatus chewere
www.akvariumas.lt...
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now, before i get to the crossovers that can go in either, this is the snakehead..they are from asia and they his about 3-4 feet/ they are illegal and a full gron snakehead can eat a two year old child.
they destroy whatever ecosystem they are put into cause they wreck stuff.
they can also live for days on land and actualy migrate across land, across small distances....
i WILL have a snakehead...
you can search youtube and monsterfishkeepers for some feeding vids with snakeheads...

here he is
www.aquamojo.com...
www.ndpteachers.org...

now, you don't want to mix new work with africans but these guys are good for the tanks depending on what is in there.

clown loach(once they get ich, they can never get it again)
www.myaquaria.com...
yoyo loach
www.azgardens.com...
bristlenose pleco
www.fishpondinfo.com...
pictus cat
www.fishforever.co.uk...
raphael cat
www.aqua-fish.net...
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back to the snakehead for a second. if you live near the potomic, you can pull them out of the water yourself. they can all be traced back to an asian guy. he bought a few to make stew for his sick siter and never made it so he dumped them in the river system and they take over..they are dominating the native fish to the area. fish and game electroshoks the area all the time.
by law, if you catch one you can not even dispose of the carcass. you care supposed to cut it's neck, bleed it out and after it is dead, call fish and game to get the carcass.
they are just bad mamma jammas.
i don't think they are illegal in every state but they may be.

none of those fish(save the snakhead) do not need to be fed any live food at all.

here is to a long post about a subject people don't like.

Those are tiny snakeheads! The ones we have here (locally called ikan toman) can be bigger than compact cars. Really aggressive fellas, I've witnessed myself one jumping out of the water to gulp a heron

By the way, one of your links is messing up the formatting. You can fix it by wrapping it with [url][/url] tags.

wow..i have never heard of snakehead getting that big.
i want one i just can't figure out how to set it up.....i am probably going to get with my bro in law cause he is real good with woodworking and i can make maybe a 500 gallon plywood/cement/plexi tank in my basement that was i can see inside the tank from all directions and he can just be in there chilling out...


you want to see some cool fish, check out
monsterfishkeepers.com

you're gonna get a lot of stupid pirhana crap but there is other good stuff there.

Up until the beginning of the year I had African Cichilds. I loved them. The only problem I had is that all the stores around me only stocked small cichilds. So it was impossible to introduce these fish to a community of adult fish. I also had a bad experience feeding them feeder fish once, lost a couple. I am not sure if it was feeder fish themselves or the water from the feeder fish. Either way I did not buy feeders from that store again.

Now I have wussed out, and just have a tank of South American Betas. Going back about 10 years I use to have a red belly piranha tank, they were cool. But they made a mess every time feeding, which was neat the first few times. Continuosly cleaning fish heads out of the filter got old.

Originally posted by testrat
Up until the beginning of the year I had African Cichilds. I loved them. The only problem I had is that all the stores around me only stocked small cichilds.

Now I have wussed out, and just have a tank of South American Betas.

Going back about 10 years I use to have a red belly piranha tank, they were cool. But they made a mess every time feeding, which was neat the first few times. Continuosly cleaning fish heads out of the filter got old.

the only way you're going to get a full grown fish at the store is if someone turns them in...
most africans don't get that big, but they are mean as hell. like the auretus..small, cute, but will tear stuff up

i loathe pirhana..they are ugly, boring and not what i would call an aggressive fish....they get mean round feeding time but the rest of the time they humker around...put em in with some of those i mentioned and they'd get a beatdown.

oh yeah, bettas are from thailand....can't keep two males in the same tank unless you seperate them....maybe someone sold you something and they didn't know what it was...

Originally posted by Boondock78
oh yeah, bettas are from thailand....can't keep two males in the same tank unless you seperate them....maybe someone sold you something and they didn't know what it was...

Some of them can be found as far south as Malaysia, too, in the rice paddies. If you want to make them more aggressive, you keep them in a smaller tank (some of my friends kept them in a 10 ounce bottle) and you keep the tank away from light. After a awhile they turn darker and eventually become pitch black and pissed off.

Personally I kept them for their long flowing fins and bright colours, but when I was younger there were quite a number of kids who kept them for fights. I wasn't into that stuff (yeah, you can call me a peacenik), I thought it was kind of brutal and animal cruelty. But it used to be a common thing around here, they'll fight anything -- fish, beetles, spiders

They're very aggressive to each other. Males will fight each other until they are seriously wounded or to the death, if they've been isolated long enough. They'll even get agitated by their own reflection. Male and female will also fight each other, but not to the death -- just until they mate. You can think of them as Klingon fishes

reply to post by Beachcoma


i know all that.
i am not a fan of keeping bettas in small containers or anything like that...
have you ever seen a shipment of betas come into the store>
you know how when you buy them, they are in 4 ounce jars? they don't come like that.

the jars come empty and they come in a tuny, and i mean TINY zipper bag, maybe enough to hold .5 ounces of water...just enough to keep their gills covered. then, they put this blue # in the water to keep it oxygenated...

i LOVE aggressive fish but i am very anal about how i keep my fish...i never fed my cichlids life feeders..like i said, only when the convicts mated did i give them live food.


99.9% of the people out there that keep fish don't know what they are doing, as the same goes with the people that work the stores and it disgusts me...most peoples tanks are too small for what they have...

they keep an oscar and a jack in a 29 gallon tank...

most people just don't get it.....

i am not talking abotu you man, just ranting in general...

pretty passionate about my fish husbandry