yellow lab questions

[caryliss]

I've kept fish for several years, FW and SW, but never any cichlids. I recently saw some yellow labidochromis at an LFS, watched them for a while because I thought they were so beautiful, and began to fall for their interesting behavior and appearance. I have many fish books but little info on cichlids.

I have a 20 gallon that will soon be emptied (moving some fish around). Would that be an adequate size for 1 male and 2 females? How do you sex them and how big do they have to be to tell the difference? Should they be in a species tank Anything else to recommend for or against them?

[scholar]

This is my favorite fish also. They do get to be 5 inches. the male sdo tolerate each other. they do not hav eto be in species tank. They go well with saulosi who are tangarene (female) and blue ob black (male).

I would not try them in less than 50G trank. THough they and saulosi's are on the mild side of africans. The male can and will do great damage to females. I have had to trade my last two males. I am going with three females and a much smaller male. They were in a 135g tank in 2f/1m set up! Big females are in great demand for safety reasons. Make sure that the yellow color has no black streak in them. It is nto a health issue, just purity of the gene and beauty of the fish.

The minimum good accomodatinos are six foot long tank with lots and lots of rocks to hide. Even at 135g, I found that 2 females was not enough for my one male, both times.

Sexing them is rather difficult. Those with black lower fin are dominate ones and normally males. However in stress/anger or without a male the females would display the dominance also.

The sure way is to see the chasers (male) and the chasee (fenmale). From 1.5 inch on, you could tell by looking at the head. The females have THE horizontal lower jaw.

You could house babies in a 20G for while. But then, they grow. they are the smartest fish I have seen. :)

[caryliss]

Thanks Scholar. I was considering getting another 55 gallon--I'll wait on the yellow labs until then. Thanks for the tip about finding ones with no black streaks in the yellow. Several at the LFS did have that, and I wasn't sure which was preferred.

[DavidT]

IME you could keep 5 Yellow Labs in a 30 gallon tank with very little problems as long as they have grown up together as juveniles and you have only 1 male. The problem is its impossible to tell with any accuracy if a juvenile is male or female.

[JSchmidt]

I agree that a 30 is about the smallest you'd want to go for labs. You could keep a trio or quartet (including only one male) in that size tank. Five would be OK, but you'd be changing water a lot...

A 55 would be better because of the larger footprint, but I don't like keeping bottom dwellers (like labs) in a tank that's so tall, proportionally, to its depth (front to back).

HTH,
Jim