buying fish

[htm]

Hi all

I have set up my tanks and wanting to stock them but find that the fish at LFS arent all that great, both in variety and quality. Im in Canberra and there isnt a whole lot to choose from in regards to stores. I was wandering whether people out there that have cichlids for sale sell them only by pick up or is it possible to get them freighted?

I havent made a decision on what i exactly end up keeping ,i guess to some extent it is determined by whats on offer. I really like the steatocranus group.Im not sure how many of that group are avaliable but i would like to try and source steatocranus tinanti(hope the spelling is correct).

My water from the tap seems to be about pH 7.8-8.0 with Kh 60 and Gh 180. Should there be an increase in the GH or KH to keep africans happy/breeding? Or can i do with what is coming out of the tap?

Any advice much appreciated

[Lv426]

My water from the tap seems to be about pH 7.8-8.0

Geez...Sydney water is about 7. Given this PH you would be better off keeping Africans. I dont really know much about hardness and carbonate and all that jazz. I just focus on ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, PH and water temperature.

I was wandering whether people out there that have cichlids for sale sell them only by pick up or is it possible to get them freighted?

I have some Africans Im trying to sell. We could work out something as far as freight is concerned. My post

Cheers

[Ducksta]

Mate you need to sign up for the Canberra to Sydney Road Trip next weekend for the major Cichlid Society Auction.

Forget shipping, cash and carry is the way.

If you check the classifieds, there are also lots of sellers who will meet you at the auction to exchange their fish for your cash, outisde the hall of course, wouldn't want to pay NSWCS fees on the deal

[rosco]

Hi there,

As Ducksta mentioned there are a couple of Canberrans who are dedicated (or crazy or both) enough to travel regularly to the Sydney NSWSC meetings and the gong major auction, I am one of them. I have bought several lots of fish down from major auctions and breeders alike. To date I have been quite successful in fact I think that in this time I may have only have lost one BN (if that). I think that your best option is to try and make it to the a NSWSC meeting which is only just under 3 hours away from Belconnen (if you going for cichlids of course) and see if you can organise pickups from breeders at the meeting.

I have had fish brought down from Newcastle, grabbed the fish at the meeting stayed for another 4-5 hours and then brought them back to Canberra. So the fish were probably in bags for around 12 hours before I got them home and started a climatising them back to an appropriate temparature. I have done this with little or no losses. I am happy to say that everyone I have bought fish from thus far bag the fish properly and usually add some prime or safe to the water to avoid any ammonia spikes .

There are couple of rules that I follow when I get the fish back home. The main one being to put all the fish into a bucket and slowly syphon your own tank water (I use 4mm tubing) over about and hour or 2. Then I remove the fish from the bucket and put the fish directly into the tank and discard the water they were in along with the water you just added. This process has worked consistently for me so much so that my wife told me that I am not allowed to do it in the house anymore. So she gave me permission me to build a fish room and do it out there, so I did not wake up the whole household when I get home, so I did

Sure you get into bed around 4:00am but hey you get good quality fish at a good price, meet some great people and have a good time while your in Sydney.

Anyway I hope that helps.

cheers

Rosco

[Eddie Salita]

htm, If you do get some tinant, you may consider getting your water hardness and ph down a bit. They are an african riverine, not a rift lake species. Ideal for tinanti is ph 7.5, DH 5-20. Having said that, they seem to be able to tolerate a wide range of parameters, as long as ammonia, nitrite, nitrate are in check. No guarantees though. There is quite a bit of web info on this species. One more thing, tinanti may vary a bit, but if you are doing a long trip, I would suggest one tinanti per bag. They can and will biff in the bag. My theory is they arent upset by the bumpyness etc... like most fish, they may even enjoy it. Maybe its because their habitat includes fast moving water near rapids of the Congo

HTH,

Jason

[htm]

Thx guys might need to go on that road trip.Right now timing is a buffer with work commitments but will be going down to Sydney for few days to see Satriani Concert. Can anyone recommend a store or two thats worth seeing. Not too good with the streets in Syd but i guess i'll try not to get lost too many times.