hey bren
it was all sort of an accident
i bought eight off a guy and put them in a tank and had even thought i had killed them when i hadnt seen them again for nearly 4 months and then decided to pull apart the tank and see what was there, and they all were still there,
chucked them back in and hardly saw them again over the next 18 months as my wife mainly fed them
at that time they were in a 5x2x2 and apart from a nicely planted tank they were the only inhabitants and i bought a heap of small slate caves from a youngguy off a forum that was making them at a really good price and bits of broken clay pipes that had been in the tamk way before i bought the zebs
the tank has three large jebo filters on it two joined to one large spray bar across the back of the tank and one on the side all about 3 inches above the water
oh and i didnt say that the tank is not a normal tank the only part of the tank that is glass is the front the rest of the tank is made of marine ply and lined with a proof coat and plastic internal liner an odd combination but i got it cheap and i actually really like it.
every week my tank cleaning procedure has been and has never changed and that is take a quarter of the water out and refill it with cold tap water clean the front of the glass and thats it.
i dont know if its just me but everytime i find eggs or young zebs i also have an outbreak of snails and i have become convinced that the adult zebs either eat the snails or the snails eggs and somehow the snails have something to do with it or maybe they like the same water conditions.
as its a planted tank the snails have always been there and i actually have 2 small clown loaches in there to keep the snails down and as they reach the 8cm mark i catch them and put them in my display tank and get another 2 smaller ones
i also have 2 breeding pairs of discus in the tank and i keep the ph at 6.5 as that seems to keep the discus in breeding mode but they had bred with no discus in the tank and no ph monitoring
in the 3 years that i have had them in this tank i have only gravel syphoned the tank twice but the jebo filters are cleaned every three months and the only filtration i use in them in hydroton clay balls from my hydro shop and have only ever reused the same ones
at somewhere between the 18 month and 2 year mark my wife walked back from feeding them one day and asked me where i got the small zebras from i said i didnt and what was she talking about and then we went and looked and there were 12-14 young ones behind a piece of clay pipe
the tank temp is 26 and the first few times they bred is was very sporadic but its now becoming a regular 12 week thing winter or summer and no fighting at all with the males but as i mentioned earlier lots of hiding spots
as i am writing this i have been talking to a mate and we have decided that on sunday we are going to do a proper clean out and count and i,m going to take photos of the fish and post on here .
i have pics from january and was going to post but i cant see how and have no http link
so hope that helps
and to all the people that replied so quickly i have been a bit suprised and rather than send you all individual pics if you can all hold off until late sunday after noon i will take a heap with a ruler as comparison
grant
