It's been a good 5 months since the last update and a lot has changed. Both the new additions from the last post died. That's what I get for not quarantining... Then the larger of the two Red empresses died, she showed major signs of stress but looked perfectly fine otherwise. I did a big water change soon as I saw it having issues but it was dead by morning. I dissected it and found it to be a female but nothing else. My male mutt fry from the one eyed female peacock and blue ahli was killed off by someone. Shortly after all this my evil bot beautiful dominant male (profile pic) was being a terror. His girl had just released her last spawn and she suddenly came down with dropsy. Bloated, pine coned scales, lethargic. I thought she was a goner. I threw her in a 5gal bucket with a heater and air stone. Treated her with epsom salt, Meth. blue and kanaplex. After 5 days and a few water changes she was good to go. It looks like she will spawn in a week or so. It was a rough last few months for the cichlid tank.
I traded in the frontosa, 2 male peacocks, the youngest male hybrid (yellow lab X peacock), and the OB mbuna. A few pictures of fish I traded in. The frontosa was 5in
The less pretty male OB.
Then the slightly disappointing dragons blood male. He doesn't have the brightest color but I'm quite sure he's a boy. I did
not trade this one in.
I then added a young male(?) rock kribensis and a male (?) rusty cichlid. It wasn't planned at all but here we are! They were quarantined for 2 weeks and have been in the 55gal for 1 week now. The krib got his tail bitten but both seem fine otherwise and have become more confident. No pics of them but both are about 2in right now, very tiny compared to the others.
I moved my big blue male OB to a 20gal temporarily. I want my orange/pink OB male to have his way with the ladies and get some new blood in my OB strain. All the females are looking plump, one is
very plump and I worry about her. This will be her first spawn but I don't know if it will go well. Fingers crossed.
As for the last batch of OB fry, they're doing great. I've been culling the fry with no/poor OB pattern (basically any "normal" peacock fry) and now there's a few that are looking like keepers. I'm working on getting OBs with less marbled pattern than their parents. The main reason I want the orange male to spawn.