Tank Mates for Yellow Labs $$$

Razzo

Razzo

AC Members
Mar 5, 2009
938
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18
Michigan - Indiana Border
Real Name
Russ
I have a bunch of yellow labs in a 55 and they breed like rabbits. I am teaching my son to care for them and I let him keep the money that we get from LFS for the fry. Is there another cichlid that would go well with the labs and even do a little breeding too. I could pull out the labs that don't breed to make room for another kind of cichlid. Also, this new fish, I would like to be cheap like labs so their fry can easily be sold to LFS.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Russ
 
Wow I'm glad to hear your having such good success with Yellow Labs as Im about to set up a 80 gallon species tank with labs in a salt water motif with dead blue and red corals. I wish you lived in my neck of the woods, Id be your best customer. Do you have any bottom dwellers at all taking care of the bottom that get along with the labs?
 
I have to strip my labs of fry and currently have about 20 from the latest round. I haven't tried anything with them. It is a species tank with the express purpose of breeding them.
 
i have an unidentified type of pseudotropheus in my yellow lab's tank and they got along real well at first but now he's a little bit bigger and picks on my yellow lab, not nipping him, but chasing him around and harassing him. so if you go with pseudotropheus, be careful on what you get.
 
There are a plethora of Mbuna that would work with the Labs. It's probably easier to list the species to avoid: P. Crabro, Kenyi, Auratus I would avoid. Saulosi would make a good addition, along with Acei. Personally I would do 3 groups of 4-5 fish. You should have a look at what's available in your area and post that list here. It would be easier than throwing around names. Plus you know they're available to you.
 
CWO4GUNNER said:
Wow I'm glad to hear your having such good success with Yellow Labs as Im about to set up a 80 gallon species tank with labs in a salt water motif with dead blue and red corals. I wish you lived in my neck of the woods, Id be your best customer. Do you have any bottom dwellers at all taking care of the bottom that get along with the labs?
Click to expand...

Just labs and one big pleco (who has float). I inherited my labs from a guy who got out of the hobby. He had a little bit of hybridization going on. As best I can figure out, I think a Johani got mixed in the blood line of a couple of them. So, I get yellow lab fry and I also get "olive labs." The olives are actaully a good looking fish, they are olive with electric yellow highlights under the olive color and their fins are dark and have bright yellow stripes on the tips (inverse colors to a typical yellow lab).

I sell them as "Tank Raised" to my LFS customers and they like having both yellows and olives to choose from. It actually doubles the amount of fish they buy from me (or my son) as it is a different fish. In any event, I've got about 70 fry that are ready to sell to LFS and a new batch that just got put in the tumbler this week. Here's a pic of the latest batch...

06-08-09withlabfrytoo006.jpg
 
Thanks for the suggestions everyone, I will be looking into these.

Should I buy WC and sell F1s or should I just get some F1s and sell their F2 fry to LFS. My goal is to have something cheap that will be in demand at the LFS and easy to breed. My high end fish are some WC frontosa but most LFS won't buy them at fair market value so I sell those over the internet.

What I do with the labs is to teach my son to take care of them (water changes and feeding) and to help sell them. Part of the money he makes helps buy the supplies for those fish. I am teaching him the priciples of hard work, saving money (long term), short term savings and giving. And of course, having some spending money. A few weeks ago he purchased a megalodon fossilized shark tooth on ebay (with his own money).

Thanks again,
Russ
 
You could put in some rusty cichlids they're really cool! I have 6 of them but am starting to think that they are all male as they are really hard to tell them difference M/F and I have seen no inkling of them mating.
 
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