Lido 120 with Chocolate Gourami.

Finally in it's proper place.



Kev.

Kev,
if I were a wizard, I would use all my secret knowledge to teleportate your tank to my place. It's georgeous and these fish and plants so healthy!!
Wow!!
Kath

bardzo dziękuję, jesteś zbyt łaskawy.

Cheers Kath.

Kev.

looks great Kev. well done.

www.JEALOUS.com!!!

Cheers m8.

Kev.

Mental ! Thanks.


Kev.

If I were a fish I'd get lost in that tank with my sense of direction. Looks the business, brilliant.

Dave

The Triffid on the rhs looks like Kelp !

Kev.

Ó, Kev Tá mé an-tógtha le do chumas sa Pholainnis!



Cheers,
Kath


PS I hope it means: "Oh, Kev I am impressed with your Polish"

Great plants.
Great mix of fish.....that gets a good from me.
And even better still.....great to see one of the best fish around getting some air-play. (and the Chockies look in good nick as well)

(maybe I'll get some pics of mine sometime for another thread).



ian

Cheers Ian.

Kev.

gdzie bylibyśmy, gdyby nie google translator !!!

Thanks Kath.

Kev.

that's a fine tank Kev
very nice
lovely ambient music too, compliments the vid very well...




Des

That tank is STUNNING!!! Fair play to ya:cheer:

A few more pics.












Kev.

Kev,
Stunning tank,have you had long term success with the choc gouramis before? Ive never managed to keep them for more than a few months at best,very shy fish but your set up seems more than suitable for them. They defo need a tank specific to their needs really I reckon but Ive never had the time to go ahead to do that. What you feeding them on,,I never had a problem with them eating,it was more of an anti social type behaviour from them eventually leading to death. Again the tankmates didnt match either I suspect.

Best of luck with yours,the tank looks great,really is impressive.

Gavin

Thanks for that Gavin, I tried to get the Tank overgrown with Plants to allow for places that the Fish could hide should quarrels break out, I put the lushness of the greenery down to Ferts and CO2 ( Fire Extinguisher )

The Chocolates look like calm easygoing wee things, something they arent... they are feisty Fish but all of the Aponogeton growing and twisting on the surface is perfect for them. As you said, no problem with them eating, anything goes, Blood Worm, Brine Shrimp and Tetra granules.

The Lido they are in is great because it is deep, something they use to their advantage as they shoot to the top when getting out of the way, there are six of them and definitely males and females.

All of the Fish in with them, and they were last to go in, are defensive and protective of fry but no damage so far to any Fish.

In this Set-up they aren't shy at all but don't like the Camera unlike the Apisto male, I have to knock on the Glass to get him out of the way, he was given to me as a freebie from an LFS because most of his Fins had been ripped to shreds by other Fish.

The occupants are 3 Dicrossus maculatus, 2 Females, 1 Male.
2 Aequidens curviceps 1 Male, 1 Female
6 Chocolate Gourami.
3 Apistogramma cacatuoides "double red" 1 Male , 2 Females
2 Nerites.
1 Otocinclus

Thanks for the comments Gavin.

Kev.

I am finding it more difficult to get a decent photo of the chocs than I am keeping them alive. !

My tank is overly over-grown with plants (I like it like that, and have a super A.crispus going wild), and they know when to just get behind a leaf as the camera clicks.

My chocolotes got a nice (not on purpose) treat last week.....I thought they looked extra 'happy' one day.....as they had been busily eating the fry from Rams that suddenly appeared within the tank (mind you that was a bizarre parenting ritual going on anyway as three rams were acting like the parents of the young).

@Kev...are you noticing that these are secret bullies? and,
more importantly, are you hoping to breed the chocs?
Are you tempted to set up another tank and get some of the banded chocolates (usually a bit more expensive...a pity)

ian

Hi Ian, yep, they are bullies and probably on a par with any Cichlid given their size.
I'd love to breed them but I doubt I will have the time.

Kev.

Has anyoune on the Forum had success breeding the Chocolates?


Kev.

Conductivity Kev.....the key to many of the trickier species.
I define various groups of the 'acid loving/softwater' fish into 3 groups to give an idea of what is needed in comparison to other fish:

Group A.....easy to keep at medium high conductivity (upto 200microS per cm);
Group B ..... more difficult to keep, and need a lowered conductivity (upto 100 microS per cm); and
Group C .....very difficult to keep, and even more difficult to spawn and requires a very low conductivity (max of 50 microS per cm, but going down to 20 microS per cm).

In Group A we have Apistogramma cacatuoides; normal Angel Fish; Silver Dollars and Piranha-types (I'm not too sure about the breeding of Pacu though); most of the Corydoras; and a number of the anabantids including Siamese fighting fish.

In Group B we have Cardinal Tetras; Discus fish (S. aequifasciata group); Rams; Pearl Gouramis etc

Then in Group A....the 'we demand the best water snobs' are Altum Angel fish; Black-winged hatchets (Carnegiella sp); Heckel Discus (wild caught); and Chocolate Gouramis.

So, if your water is good enough to breed Rams and Cardinal Tetras.....then that is no indicator at all that it is good enough for Chocolates (although it is a good sign).

Dilute the water with RO to gradually bring the conductivity to 50 micro siemens per centimeter (borrow a conductivity meter if you don't have one). You could use a TDS and then guess (the popular conversion factor that people quote is actually not valid, but it happens to work on most waters).

I have lost my main conductivity meter....and that has put me at a loss (and it was not cheap to replace either).

The idea is to balance the conductivity with the pH (and hardness).

If more and more acid is added to reduce pH, then that will increase conductivity and have a negative effect.
If you have too little dissolved salts (especially carbonates) by using too much RO water in the tank then that will mean that in a planted tank the pH can rocket to high pH and suddenly drop again within hours.

The key to breeding Altum angels (for example) is conductivity and not pH.

ian

JohnH wrote:

Two group 'A's...

John

well spotted JohnH.

Yep...the bit saying "Then in Group A....the 'we demand the best water snobs' are Altum Angel fish; Black-winged hatchets (Carnegiella sp); Heckel Discus (wild caught); and Chocolate Gouramis.",

should have said 'Group C'

Cheers John. I must have been half asleep (or wondering whether to go get me some Crenuchus today or not )

ian

It would appear I have a penchant for the difficult ones, I was recently given a Quartet of beautiful mature synodontis lucipinnis, another bloody challenge I believe, and the Dicrossus maculatus and of course the Chocolates, hmmm , maybe the Guppy rout is the way to go?... nah, I'll continue in hiope..

Here's a link I found for the Synos....it's a pdf.

www.kwas.ca/Articles/Petricola.pdf

Kev.

You are leaving us wondering..................did you get any?



Kev.