My fish room for Malawis

[mattrox]

I got one set of lights taped up using double sided tape so they are in place. All 16 light strips are up and doing a good job.
Just a few pics from this weekend.
Labidochromis caeruleus "Nkhali"

Pseudotropheus flavus

The light strips in place with the transformer taped in place too. I put a timer on to control the lights.

That makes it 8x 4ft tanks with lights. Now I just need to do 2 more 4 ft tanks and 4x 3ft and 2x 6ft tanks.

 

[Jason7894561230]

Wow it looks greeat and i noticed you aree in Australia. Me too

 

[ChizerBunoi]

Excellant progress. This reminds me of my former breeding setup about 10 years ago. I was mostly breeding peacocks and haps as they were rare back then. My fish room wasn't efficient like yours though. The problem that I found was that the local fish stores didn't want to purchase anymore fry after the first two batches. But I wish you the best of luck and hope you have great progress.

Can you explain more about filtration for these 4 ft tanks? I notice the fluvals but are you using those on all of them?

Thanks for the tip on the Hamburger Mattenfilter. How often do you have to clean out the sponge?

 

[mattrox]

I am using fluval 305's on the 4ft tanks, biomedia and crushed coral in the baskets. I have cut some coarse sponge to put in the bottom basket of some of the filters as an experiment. Same set up with fluval 405's on the 6ft tanks. I want to get more flow in the tanks and thinking of cost effective ways to do it.

I think I'd have to clean out the sponge once a year or something. Most gunk gets sucked right through and settles out behind the sponge. That can be syphoned out, but I haven't dont that either yet.

 

[ChizerBunoi]

Have you considered adding some PVC pipes for siphoning the water out? You just connect your gravel vacuum to the PVC pipe and start draining. But that is Dependant on whether you have a floor drain in that room or not. What I did was have two large garbage cans. One is for draining into and the other had aged water with a sump pump that pumped the water back to the tanks. The garbage can was on wheels so I could wheel to the right place and dump out the water.

 

[mattrox]

I have a window that I can use to remove water. I am devising a system where multiple tanks can be drained out at once onto the lawn (reuse, recycle etc). This means the tanks can be drained quickly, but filling is always slower. No room to put in a massive water storage to refill multiple tanks via a powerful filter.

 

[Wy Renegade]

Coming along nicely!

 

[mattrox]

I am excited because the flavus is holding for the first time, as is the hajomaylandi. The 2 female Nkhalis mated on the same day from different males and this Ndumbi female was from a different source than the males. All up a good week in the fish room, I seperated the females into their own tank for observation.

Lab. Nkhali x2,
Ps. flavus,
M. hajomaylandi,
Ps. sp perspicax "Red Top Ndumbi"

hajomaylandi

 

[Fastfossil]

Could you post some pictures of your fish room so we can get the full picture please

 

[mattrox]

page 5 to 9 of the thread show the various stagea of the room and give a perspective.

 

[Fastfossil]

Thanks I remember you posted a picture when the shelves were going up but don't remember the completed photo looks great fish paradise. I will be doing something like this one day doing a water change must be harsh. They even have air con

 

[mattrox]

Luckily the window allows water into and out of the room, but to do all of the tanks does take a few hours, so I tend to do half the room at a time.

The aircon is definitely required, as a summer heat wave would kill all the fish without it.

 

[ChizerBunoi]

That's a lot of nls containers.

Do you then isolate the females or manually stripe them? How long do you hold onto the fry before you resell them to the lfs?

 

[mattrox]

I usually leave the fish in the tank and strip them after 3 weeks, but with a few fish holding at once it is easier to keep track of them. And if one happens to spit I know the fry won't get eaten.

I usually let them grow for 3 to 4 months before moving them on.

 

[mattrox]

An updated pic of my dominant male O. lithobates 'Zimbabwe Rock'

He is starting to get is blue adult colouration

 

[mattrox]

Protomelas sp. steveni taiwan 'Chimoto Red'

 

[meegosh]

Wow! Those are two stunning fish! You are making me want to start a whole new tank. The wifey is going to kill me!

Keep the pictures coming! I love when I see a new post added to this thread!

 

[mattrox]

Some pics of some male fish.
Protomelas taeniolatus "Fire Blue"

Copadichromis borleyi "Kadango Red"

Aulonocara stuargranti "Red Shoulder"

 

[Sonomakid]

Wow, those are some amazing fish there, nice work !

 

[meegosh]

Stunning like always! Looks like quite the bulldozer.