Life after Gulp.....new arrangement, new fish.

[Gulp]

How is everyone settling in?

They love the tank. They are all very active, checking out all the caves and openings. There is one female that's larger than the rest.......and she is a food vacuum. She darts around eating everything before the others can get any. They are going to be much more entertaining to watch than poor Gulp (sorry big guy. ). They still run from the cat when he tries to check them out.

My PH is only around 7.4, but they seem to be fine right now. I need to do a little research and find the easiest way to raise the PH to the level they need without having to dump a bunch of chemicals or baking soda into the water. I already have crushed coral in one of the Magnum 350's and in two of the cartridges in the Emperor 400, and that has been keeping it about 0.4 above my tap water. The water from the LFS was around 7.8. The guy there told me they would be fine even if my water was around 7.0 (which is where I kept it for Gulp), but I don't want it that low if they naturally live in 8+ water. I should have done this before buying them......but I was impatient (not a good thing when buying a new type of fish...I know).

BTW, I know the answer is already on this board somewhere, but since I'm already typing.....how many A. Cichilds should I keep per gallon? The guy at the LFS was telling me I could have 20+ fish in the 110 gallon.......but I'm not sure if he was just trying to sell more fish or not.

 

[Captain Hook]

I'm no cichlid expert but I think there are two methods for stocking. One is a light load with caves to handle all the aggression. The second is high stocking so aggression can't really be an issue (no room to stake territories).

I love that big syno cat! I think I have the same type (eupterus) but it's still much smaller. What do you feed yours?

 

[Gulp]

I love that big syno cat! I think I have the same type (eupterus) but it's still much smaller. What do you feed yours?

Hoover gets Wardley shrimp pellets and algae wafers.....plus all the scraps from the other fish of course. He's an excellent cleaner.

We just added two auratus today and it was interesting to see how the other fish reacted to the newbies. All the other fish have only been in the tank for 3.5 days.....but almost all the original fish chased the new guys around for quite some time, biting at their fins. At one point, 6 of the originals were chasing one of the new guys around at the same time. They are all about equal size......and they've shown no signs of aggression the entire week...but they didn't seem to like the new guys.

One of the auratus finally got tired of it and fought back, having some "circle battles" with about 5 of the other fish........they leave him/her alone now. The other new guy is just hiding under a rock...

If I'm going to add any more fish, I guess I need to do it quickly before they all have their territories set up.....if they are going to act like this every time I add new fish, there could be trouble.

 

[Debra Mark]

That is just the nature of Cichlids. Whenever we add a new fish, everyone always chases him like mad - and they all have tons of room. After a while, the newbie will find his "space" and they all settle in to wait for the next addition.....

Read your previous threads - sorry about your loss :sad

 

[justinb013]

Stocking a 110

The guy at the LFS was correct, many keepers of African cichlids, especially mbunas, tend to overstock to help curb agression. I keep 18 mbunas in a 55 gallon tank with lots of rock work. I would say that 25 or so smaller mbunas would be fine in your tank, but you will want to research the each fish before you acquire 'em.

Your auratus get quite agressive when adults, as do many other mbunas. Yellow labs are pretty docile for mbunas and can be kept with many different kinds of fish.

Mbunas also tend to breed quite readily, and will hybridize if you keep different species of the same genera. Most folks frown on hybrids, so careful consideration of stock is encouraged. www.chiclid-forum.com has an incredible amount of info about each type of fish in the profiles section. You've got mbunas from Lake Malawi.

Your fish should be OK in the short term in lower pH water, but in the long run would greatly benifit from harder water with higher pH. Adding some limestone rocks, crushed coral substrate, certain sandy substrates can all help buffer pH without adding a bunch of baking soda, etc. I still have to use buffers (Kent African Cichlid Buffer) to raise my pH, as I have very soft, low pH water out of the tap.

Hope this helps.

 

[Gulp]

Hope this helps.

Definitely.

I'm not sure what it is about these fish......but my wife suddenly has a new interest in the hobby. She's buying books, researching online, visiting every LFS in the area, etc. She practically ignored poor Gulp once he became large and "boring". Oh well......maybe this means I won't have to be the only one that takes care of the tank.

I think we are going to buy about 4 more fish (that will put us at 17 cichlids) and stop there. We already have the cat, and 2 other precox, so that's 20 in the tank. We were thinking about putting some smaller, schooling, non-cichlids in the tank (LFS guy said it would help with aggression by giving the cichlids something to chase.....but not harm.

) Not sure what would be best. Has anyone tried tiger barbs? Will that be asking for trouble?

 

[justinb013]

We were thinking about putting some smaller, schooling, non-cichlids in the tank (LFS guy said it would help with aggression by giving the cichlids something to chase.....but not harm.

) Not sure what would be best. Has anyone tried tiger barbs? Will that be asking for trouble?

Dither fish aren't really needed with a heavily stocked mbuna tank, as there are enough cichlids to spread agression. I am personally not a big fan of tiger barbs, but they should be able to take most of the punishment that your mbunas can dish out should you decide to pick 'em up.

 

[Gulp]

I'm going to hold off on dither fish at this time. We added another fish today......a lemon Labriodichromis. I'm going to have to stay away from the LFS's before I buy way too many fish. It's addictive trying to "collect them all"..........I need to stop.....they aren't Pokemon afterall.

You can see the new lemon in this pic, along with a lot of the other hungry devils. Maybe these guys get shy when they get bigger.......but we aren't seeing any of that behaviour at this point, they are always begging.

I bought a new camera today (Canon Powershot A75), so you all will be bombarded with pics once I figure out how to take a few decent ones.

Here's a pic of the bumblebee. He does hide a lot, swimming from cave to cave:

 

[Gulp]

BTW, I added more slate today. Any opinions? Should I keep stacking? I kind of like having some open water above the rocks like it is, but I keep wondering if it would look better with rock all the way to the top.

The lighting in the room stinks tonight, and the flash of this new camera isn't very strong apparently, but you can see the outline:

A little better, except for the flash:

 

[Indigo]

That looks pretty good to me. The camera is taking awesome pictures, they look great. I'm jealous, I'd love to have an african setup like yours.

I like how the slate is now, personally.