CichlidFish.com - Fish That Think.

Carpinte eat a mussel


Nicaraquense eat a mussel


Synspilum eat a mussel


Herichthys bocourty

Greets Adri

Visit my chilidphotosite: http://www.cichlidphotos.tk/

Nice pictures :thumbsup:

I see you have Theraps irregularis.Nice cichlids :thumbsup: Any luck spawning them yet?

Stillearnin, I had no idea how involved you were!!!
I love the site, maybe I can get some fish from you some time.!
Nice pictures by both of you!

Originally posted by stilllearnin
Nice pictures :thumbsup:

I see you have Theraps irregularis.Nice cichlids :thumbsup: Any luck spawning them yet?

The Theraps irregularis are no longer, dead to sickness.
However, egg, but man eats these.
Sorry for bad English

Sorry for bad English

Thanks for the reply
I understand it perfectly :thumbsup:

Stillearnin, I had no idea how involved you were!!!

Yeah I have a few fish ,down a little due to moving this year but I've still got a few
Hopefully next spring I'll get the "fishroom"/garage conversion finished and be back in deep full swing again.

I love the site, maybe I can get some fish from you some time.!

Thanks - Me and my limited computer skills just started remodeling the site about a week ago.
Once it warms up - let me know what your looking for :thumbsup: I ship pretty regularly but I avoid it around this time of year due to the cold weather and the added delays extra holiday packages seem to add with most carriers.

No big rush yet, I still have to get rid of a few I have. I need to open up some tank space. When it gets warm I'll be callin'.

I can't believe you run that whole show from your basement!!:eek: Have you ever looked into leasing some warehouse space?
Here where I live there are some decent little warehouse's (basicly self storage converted with heat, power and water) That you can lease for a fair price. Something that I've been playing around with, thinking of getting a bit bigger.
Maybe one of these times when you have a minute I'll explain my situation over here, and we can work something out that will benefit both of us.

I thought about renting something here before but in my area (small rural town) most normal buildings have weight restrictions on their floor or they're high priced retail "storefronts":( storage type units would work but none in this area have water

My "garage" is over 1300 + square feet with 9' ceilings,so I'll have a decient amount of space next year :thumbsup: So far it's 60% insulated ,drywalled and painted or covered.90% of the electrical is done. A few tank racks are built in it along with some cageing for other things. Waters about 50% done. Sewer system is done. About 45 cubic feet worth of freezers are running now. The "offfice" part is mostly finished - has electric,phone,cable,etc..

Took the slow route of doing it myself so it's takeing a while and is pretty much on hold until warm weather. But doing it that way lets me finish it exactly how I want. - All ground fault outlets , all R-33 insulation (walls and ceiling) ,pvc (sheet) covered walls anywhere that might get wet (water proof and easy to clean),theromopane tilt in fully openable windows on the exposed sides, thermopane fixed (non-opening) tempered glass windows on the side of the garage we can't see from the house, etc..
8" thick poured concrete floor should hold the big tanks we plan to build in as well

Still a work in progress but one day it'll be done - hopefully

That sounds great, make sure to post some pictures of the finished project.
One slight problem I see in your design. If you put all of your equipment on G.F.I's, you could be going back and forth re-setting them. The G.F.I is a great device don't get me wrong, but if they sence any curcuit imbalance, even as low as 4 microamps they trip. I'm an electrician by trade and I use G.F.I's daily to protect equipment from possible power surges. I just think every outlet can sometimes be more of a pain than it's worth.

Example: If you put your fridge on a G.F.I and you have a power outage, you have to pull out the fridge to reset the G.F.I. A major pain in the backside! However, if you put a regular outlet behind the fridge and just tie it into a G.F.I somewhere a little more accessable. The outlet is protected from surges or loss of power and the G.F.I is somewhere you can access it to reset it.
I can only imagine what trying to move a 100+ gal. tank to access your outlet must intell. You must tie any outlet you want protected from the G.F.I, off the load side of the G.F.I.

Well that's my take on wiring not always the best view but it's mine. I'm not saying that you can't put G.F.I's in every spot, I'm just saying think about.

Best of luck, keep me posted on your progress.

Well that's my take on wiring not always the best view but it's mine. I'm not saying that you can't put G.F.I's in every spot, I'm just saying think about.

I know what you mean.

My freezers and my incubators aren't on GFI's - just for the reasons you stated.
(they're not close to water though either)

But everything else is and the outlets are in places where they can be reset without moving anything. Like I can just reach between tank row #2 and tank row #3 and hit reset.

Hopefully - in theory most of the outlets will rarely ever be used anyways. As the majority of them will be for heaters and I plan to heat the building it's self. My airpump will run most of everything and it's only 2.2 amps with a 15 amp circuit dedicated to just it so I'm thinking/hopeing that circuit should be ok. When I get ready to move everything that circuit will also be on battery backup - but thats being done by a local electrician,since the wireing to turn it on but also keep it from back feeding my whole line is above my electrical knowledge.

Seemed like whoever I talked to before I started had pros and cons for and against useing all GFI's. Except our insurance company they're cutting us a discount for haveing them and without them they wanted a claus in our policy against covering any accidents involveing visitors (and an extra ryder policy added) until we decided on useing GFI's.Because I have a "liscensed" business. They heard 200 amp service and thousands of gallons of water and frowned on the idea . Thats pretty much what lead to the GFI overkill Otherwise 50 39 cent outlets verse 50 $15.00 outlets would have been a super easy choice on it's own

I'm not an electrician and actually hate wireing (actually the thought of getting fried lol) but the other option I was given was to use GFI breakers - I decided against that route so they didn't stay shut off in case I lost power.
Seems theres a downside anyway you try to mix alot of water and alot of electricity.

Well if it gets you a break on insurance and you can get to all of them (outlets) go for it!! The battery back-up sounds like a winner. I'd like to know what's involved in wiring one myself. Something else for me to look into. Arc Fault breakers are good but the cost out weights their actual function.

Another question then I'll leave you alone. Do you plan on running air to all your tanks? I know sponges are the way to go with fry, but not so good with adults with larger bioloads. Or are you talking about running airstones in every tank? No canisters or power filters? Are you going to try to run your whole room off one sump system?

I know that was more than one question.

I plan on running a sponge filter in every tank,two or more in every tank over 20 gallons. My air pump (blower) will probally push over 1,000 sponges,since I'm paying for the electric anyways I might as well get what I'm paying for.

I won't be useing airstones in any tanks. In my oponion - they're worthless. One airstone takes more air to run then a few good sponge filters and do nothing more then breakup the bubbles.

Sponges once they're established,setup right and in the right flow rate actually work fine for adults. When I say right sized and right flow,I mean good large sponges like hydrosponge 3 - 5's not just the little corner types that most fish stores sell.
I used to be a little sceptical about useing sponges from adults but the majority of the larger places I've checked out or toured in the last year use mostly sponges. So I have some tanks now running nothing but sponges,kind of on a trial basis and everythings fine.

I'll probally use a few different small sumps divided up between types of fish, like high ph on one , higher temps on another and some (probally the majority - the way I'm leaning now) will only have sponges for filtration , the overflows on those tanks will probally get plumbed into the drain and they'll get a constant supply of fresh declorinated water. Other tanks with sensative or messy fish will probally run with larger hang-on filters (like emporer 400's) and sponge filters.

Some of this might change,seems I've changed a lot of things around during the process. Trying to combine the most economical ways with the easiest workload with the best setups for the fish. Seems theres always another way,suggestion or option.