View Full Version : any africans for 10 g?
sunnygirl
05-30-2003, 4:24 PM
are there any africans that can live in a 10 g. tank? maybe shell dwellers? anyone know where i can find pics of just shell dwellers?:confused:
there should be a thread started by childawg somewhere around here with a bunch of shellie links I'll see if I can't find it for ya. http://aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=11184
Tightdog1
05-30-2003, 5:01 PM
yes shell dwellers would work perfect. but i know nothing about them. sorry.
Kit Walker
05-30-2003, 6:03 PM
A shell dweller such as ocellarus should be ok.
or neolamprologus brevis or lamprologus multifasciatus. sound about right to you jayhawk ;) :)
EDIT: jayhawk is the man with the master plan when it comes to shellies. If he advises something about them I'd stick with it. Check his report on them out on that link I posted.
Jayhawk
05-30-2003, 9:42 PM
Go to www.cichlid-forum.com ,go to the articles, look in Shell Dweller Corner and there are, I believe 11 articles there on shellies. Any of the smaller shellies will work (ocellatus, meleagris, similis, etc...) but my fav's are brevis and multifasciatus --- along with ocellatus they're also the most common shellies. Cool little fish, and with my con's attacking each other again :mad: in my 20 long, I'm beginning to wish I'd kept those little guys...
I'm keeping 3 Brevis in a 10 gallon with silica sand, shells, and a large boulder. It also has a tronic heater w/ guard & a Eclipse hood kit.
At first I had 4 in a 20 gallon extra tall w/ aragonite, but one died, probably from aggression....and I moved them. They seem to be doing just fine without the aragonite, but my tap is great for africans anyways. I do, however, see aggression......and they are more than happy to bite me. I won't lie, they DO have sharp teeth.
Check out www.cichlidrecipe.com, look at "desktop cichlids".
And, my personal suggestions are that Meleagris are the coolest. Oceallatus are also cool....brevis I just settled for. I have sunspot brevis, which I find much less attractive than the kingoma variety.
-Zeb
Oh, and about your stocking suggestions: 1 male, 2 females would be best....if not, two would be better than 3 as I have found.
Jayhawk
05-30-2003, 9:56 PM
Brevis are definitely pair breeders not harem breeders.
Give your sunspots time. The female will always be rather drap, but the male in a year or two will get pretty dark plumb in coloration and have really cool territorial displays that make him look like a mini-caluvs or comprecisseps.
Personally, I find brevis charming. They make devoted couples, guard their eggs very well, care for the eggs well, but mine always made terrible parents (they thought the fry were tasty treats after about 2 weeks).
Well, that's certainly nice to hear.....
I thought, in the beginning, I had bought 2 males & 2 females. They were originally intended to go in a 4 foot tanganyikan tank, but the idea of it soon faded when my julies started to become a pain. ( one died on me, which is somewhat rare. Of all my fish, only 3 have died. Not counting dithers, of course. )
Now I'm not sure what sexes I have. There is alot of jaw locking in the tank. One, the most dominant, is definately a male. Larger, darker, often showing stripes. The others seem lighter....but they fight so often, sometimes I think they must be males.
-Zeb
Jayhawk
05-30-2003, 10:44 PM
They could be all males. I bought 4, thought I had 2 males and 2 females, but really only had 1 female and 3 males.
Do you have shells in there big enough for them to share? If not, you'll probably never know if they are a pair. Mine didn't pair up until I found some sea shells that were larger than the standard escargot shells I used for my multis. I put in the larger shells, they paired up, but they did later move to different shells except when they were spawning. Also, for quite some time after they paired up, the male use to keep the female pinned into the shell (I think he was protecting her). She got hungry and beat on him a bit, and after that they were great - no aggression between the two. They were pretty merciless on any other fishes in the tank that got into their territory though (my male literally grabbed the fin of a syndodontis multipunctatus 3 times the size of the brevis and threw it into the glass wall! The catfish was surprised and uninjured, but he gave that male a wide berth after that).
Kit Walker
05-31-2003, 2:47 AM
I have to agree with Zeb about a big bite for such a little fish. One of my ocellatus used to bite the hell out of my hand when siphoned near his favourite shell. Funny little things they are. I'm sure anyone who has kept shellies hasn't been disappointed.
sunnygirl
05-31-2003, 1:42 PM
:cool: wow! thanks for all the info. it really helps. im not even sure im going to keep shellies yet, but im really leaning toward them after reading all your comments. any more info would be greatly appreciated.
You should get them! They are the best choice for a 10 gallon......I've been keeping apistogramma & some other small dwarves in a 10g, and I think the shellies are the coolest.
About my brevis - they have large snail shells, sold for adult hermit crabs. They also have some smaller ones that are just from dead apple snails. ( medium ) But they do need more.
Does anyone have a picture of a female & a male, so I can compare?
http://www.akwarium.org.pl/galeria/mariobek/foto/brevis4.jpg
http://www.akwarium.org.pl/galeria/mariobek/foto/brevis3.jpg
http://www.akwarium.org.pl/galeria/mariobek/foto/brevis2.jpg
http://www.akwarium.org.pl/galeria/mariobek/foto/brevis1.jpg
Is this what you're looking for?
Nice! Mine don't often look like that....sometimes I can see the blue underneath the eye, but that's about it.
....I wonder if it's because the substrate I keep them on has always been light colored.
So, do you know which one of those are male, which are female?
Nice pic's jimbo. Just made me decision seem even better :):)
jimbo
05-31-2003, 10:00 PM
I think you're right about the substrate, they seem to act more naturally and their colors stand out more against a darkish substrate.
The site I linked these photo's from is Polish or something and believe me, I can't even pronounce what they write.
Thats why I don't know which is male or female.
Perhaps somone els can tell the difference from these pictures.
Sorry I couldn't help you with that.
Jimmy
Jayhawk
05-31-2003, 11:06 PM
It would be much easier to tell if there was a pic with both fish side by side, but I'm pretty sure the bottom one is the only female picture.
Females are lighter in color and are less pugnacious looking.
Hope that helps!