My New Shellies...with pics

Emg

Emg

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Jan 16, 2005
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Northeast Connecticut
emgstanks.blogspot.com
Yippeee.....I was bored today so I went out to hunt down some shellies. I had seen them at a large petstore in the area a few months back...and they had a tank full of babies, so I figured it was a good bet they had a few.

I was right. They had two different species....I had a hard time deciding...but I chose the Brevis because they were a bit more colorful. I had watched the tank for a bit and chose two that I thought were a pair...then I got a "fish catcher"...lol.....as soon as he stuck that net in the tank all hell broke loose !...these fish are FAST ! Needless to say...I'm not totally sure I got the two I was aiming for...but they'll do.

You can see one of them hiding in the shell. Amazingly....they can both fit in that little shell ! The fact that both of them are willing to hang out in the same shell, gives me a bit of hope that I have a male and a female...but who knows...
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Hi Emg,

EDIT: I'm 99% sure you do have a male and a female, and the top fish is the male and the bottom fish is the female.... if not, then maybe try to get better pics so you can compare the size. If one is markedly bigger than the other, then that's the male.

Here's a pic of mine for comparison - pretty obvious eh? ;)

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Oh yeah....I had the guy at least get me one of the bigger ones...and a smaller one. The one inside the shell is the smaller of the two. Wish she'd come out...lol...I'd like to get another look at her.

I have been wanting to do up a tank of these fish for some time now. I've been holding off because...frankly...I really have enough tanks...lol. I ended up booting out two female betta I had in a 10g...and set that one up with the crushed coral and sand. That was my day today...lol...shopping at fish stores...and setting up a tank. What better way to spend some free time ! :D

Oh..I put the female bettas in other tanks I had laying around. I'm sure they'd rather have the 10...but...too bad....lol..
 
Jeesh..these guys are a pain to feed. The female never comes out of the shell...it seems like she's afraid if she does...he'll get in and she'll loose it to him. He never goes more then a few inches away from the shell because he's waiting for an opportunity to take it from her....lol...silly fish...there are 4 other very nice shells in this tank, you'd think ONE of the others would interest them.

Anyway, since they won't leave the shell, anything that I put in there to feed them just drifts around the tank and settles on the bottom. They will only snap up whatever comes close enough for them quickly grab without leaving the shell. And the female gets the least because she will NOT give him even the slightest chance to get in that shell. I can't put any cories in with them to eat up what they don't ...because I have read that they would quickly murder them...

Hmm...I think I will pick up another pair...or 2 other females to give this male something else to think about....think that would work ?
 
yeah, a harem of those guys would work great. Shellies can take weeks to come out of thier shell so to speak. Just act normally, don't baby them by sneaking up on them or watching from afar. It will only encourage the scitishness. Plant yourself in front of the tank and just sit for 10min or so.

A small synodontis (will eventually get too big for 10g) would make a good scavanger for that tank. Upsidedown catfish would fit the bill and are usually readily available and cheap. The brevis are good looking fish, but if you get bored with them (once they bury their shells they don't really do much) then let me know and I can kick you a few of my multis (never shipped but willing to give it a try).

Welcome to Tanganyikan Cichlids emg!
 
Wow...they had multis at the fish store where I picked these up .....dang...are you telling me that multis are more interesting and fun to watch than the brevis ??? (RATS !!)

Lol...as far as planting myself in front of the tank.....not a problem !! :D

Here's a pic of the tank I'm keeping these in for now...though I am planning on getting a 15 when I can find one at a tag sale somewhere...they want over 30$ for them at the fish store....and that's just for the tank !! Not going to happen...

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How many multies can you fit in a 5 gallon Moo ?? (would one male and 2 females be ok?) I have one I could set up and it wouldn't cost me more than the price of the fish since I could snatch some substrate from the 10 I'm keeping the brevis in. There's plenty in there and I have some leftover crushed coral.

OH....and thanks for the welcome Moo ! ;)
 
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Hmm...they show up on my puter ?? I have no idea Sam :confused:

Try the link on my signature....I have pics of them there, though I'm not sure the "tank" pic is up yet...just edited it this morning and sometimes the pics show up right away..sometimes not until the evening.
 
You could probably keep a trio in a 5g, but a pair would be better. Actually, the pair of brevis would be better in the 5g since they have such small territories anyway, and the multis will soon breed themselves right out of a 5g. It will work though. I kept a trio of multis in a divided 20g long. The space I gave them was probably only about 5g footprint wise. They still managed to increase in number form 3 to 12 before I offloaded the brevis that were hogging the rest of the tank.

As far as the N. meleagrise (also known as N. stappersi ) goes, I've never kept them, although they are very pretty fish (not sure why brevis is so much more popular). Here is an article, but does not decribe much about thier behavior. N. meleagrise . I believe that they, like brevis, and oceletus actually live over more of a muddy/silty substrate in pairs or small harems (not a true colony). They bury thier shells so that just the opening shows and then settle down.

Multifasciatus and similis on the other hand live in a true colonial situation where shells fall into depresions in the lake bottom and pile up several layers deep. There is usually one dominant male, and several subordinate males (his offspring). The subordinates take up sentry duty at the edge of the colony while the dominant male "makes the rounds" so to speak. Multiple generations of fry grow up and join the colony with no canabalism at all. In the aquarium they dig right down to the glass, and continue to rearrange shells and make new depression untill every shell is either buried or in the pit that they've made. Each breeding female maintains her own pit and they are forever spitting mouthfuls of sand into each others pits, which are eventually spit right back. Very cool fish.

Check out www.shelldwellers.com for answers from some real shellheads
 
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