My Tanganyika Cichlids

[onidrase]

Tropheus species have a high metabolism and are best fed high spirulina content food several times a day (3 times a day recommended)

It's not the hardness of the pellets that makes it hard for them to digest, its the protein. Soaking the pellets doesn't take the protein out. Tropheus are herbivores, they survive by scraping algae off rocks all day in the wild. Thus they need to eat rather constantly.

Okay, so I'll start feeding them all more often with the tabs daily/nightly. My LFS said i may have been over feeding them, becuase i did have a fungus of the body erroding away, so i stopped that and everything is fine now, and ive been steady with everyother day, with occasional extra another day, but I will start feeding daily, with more often water changes.

The problems would have sooner come from the huge amount of fish in the tank with the lack of filtration, rather than the feeding issue. Make it a priority to get one of your canister filters hooked up. But if you plan on running a tropheus tank, you'll need a lot more filtration than the canister and hang on back IMO. It's also likely you may need to rehome the mbuna. I'd also try to rehome the plecos to give them tropheus more algae to graze on.

Tropheus species all change color as they grow, all of yours seem to be juveniles. It also looks like you have a few tropheus duboisi, not just moorii. I'm not sure if they'll get along as sexual maturity reaches or not.

Yea, we shall see. As time progresses too of course i will be adding a lot more rock to the tank.. As a matter of fact if i remember properly when they had the tank set up, they had a very high mountain of lava rock which i may go back over to doing again, or ocean rock, if i can find any not live and so much $$..
Also, i just ordered a new tub for my filter, so hopefully they ship it ASAP and i can have it up and running, and i plan on getting a second canister and have both of those running the tank.

and on another note i was able to identify my green pleco through the pleco forum.. "Green Phantom Pleco, Green Pleco, L200, Lemon spotted Green Pleco - Hemiancistrus subviridis"

I'd go around on google and search up websites on how to care for the tropheus, as they seem to be the most abundant in the tank. I'm highly reccomending you rehome the mbuna and plecos, tropheus seem to do best in species only tanks. What you have now are juveniles.

Juvenile fish always get along perfectly. It does not directly correlate how the tank will work in the future. Tropheus cichlids aren't necessarily the type of fish you can replace, either. they create a social hierarchy which is very fragile, adding or removing fish from it will cause the heirarchy to break and everyone will want to kill each other. Thus, if one of your mbuna throws a fit and kills one of the less bulky tanganyikan fish, your tank can go into chaos, and many more will follow. I'd rehome them now to solve the problem before it arises.

 

[SikkAquariums]

Tropheus species have a high metabolism and are best fed high spirulina content food several times a day (3 times a day recommended)

It's not the hardness of the pellets that makes it hard for them to digest, its the protein. Soaking the pellets doesn't take the protein out. Tropheus are herbivores, they survive by scraping algae off rocks all day in the wild. Thus they need to eat rather constantly.

Okay, so I'll start feeding them all more often with the tabs daily/nightly. My LFS said i may have been over feeding them, becuase i did have a fungus of the body erroding away, so i stopped that and everything is fine now, and ive been steady with everyother day, with occasional extra another day, but I will start feeding daily, with more often water changes.

The problems would have sooner come from the huge amount of fish in the tank with the lack of filtration, rather than the feeding issue. Make it a priority to get one of your canister filters hooked up. But if you plan on running a tropheus tank, you'll need a lot more filtration than the canister and hang on back IMO. It's also likely you may need to rehome the mbuna. I'd also try to rehome the plecos to give them tropheus more algae to graze on.

Tropheus species all change color as they grow, all of yours seem to be juveniles. It also looks like you have a few tropheus duboisi, not just moorii. I'm not sure if they'll get along as sexual maturity reaches or not.

Yea, we shall see. As time progresses too of course i will be adding a lot more rock to the tank.. As a matter of fact if i remember properly when they had the tank set up, they had a very high mountain of lava rock which i may go back over to doing again, or ocean rock, if i can find any not live and so much $$..
Also, i just ordered a new tub for my filter, so hopefully they ship it ASAP and i can have it up and running, and i plan on getting a second canister and have both of those running the tank.

and on another note i was able to identify my green pleco through the pleco forum.. "Green Phantom Pleco, Green Pleco, L200, Lemon spotted Green Pleco - Hemiancistrus subviridis"

I'd go around on google and search up websites on how to care for the tropheus, as they seem to be the most abundant in the tank. I'm highly reccomending you rehome the mbuna and plecos, tropheus seem to do best in species only tanks. What you have now are juveniles.

Juvenile fish always get along perfectly. It does not directly correlate how the tank will work in the future. Tropheus cichlids aren't necessarily the type of fish you can replace, either. they create a social hierarchy which is very fragile, adding or removing fish from it will cause the heirarchy to break and everyone will want to kill each other. Thus, if one of your mbuna throws a fit and kills one of the less bulky tanganyikan fish, your tank can go into chaos, and many more will follow. I'd rehome them now to solve the problem before it arises.

Unfortunately I don't have another home for them. My 37gal will be terrorized and my other tanks are too small. and same goes for the plecos, no tanks big enough for them atm. I mainly moved my pleco out of my 37 due to the amount of poop that was his all over the tank all the time. I may just try getting a credit at my LFS for him. Sometimes the stores buy them back. the two mnuba though im not sure what ill do yet.. ;/ i really like them and their colors, but would like to make their home proper, mehh..no other tank or room for them.

 

[SikkAquariums]

Also, I thought of this as I was trying to take pictures this evening, what sort of lighting is good. Right now i have a 48" Coralife with t5 antic and t5 10,000k but my tank is still really dark. Are the bubbles making too thick a layer for the light to travel, and maybe even the color of the water would show light through better?? I wanted to replace with a marineland LED system, but gotta wait a while for that, but in the mean time think i want to add a mini one for one side perhaps. Any suggestions on better lighting and Energy Effec.

 

[SikkAquariums]

The first two look like tropheus moorii cichlids to me, they like to be kept in large groups (1-3 males and 15 or more females typically)they're very prone to bloat and need a steady diet of herbivorous foods, they're also algae grazers so imo if you want to keep them, you should remove the plecos so these guys can get their diet of algae.

Second pic is another type of tropheus, looks like moorii but might be something different

next down looks almost like a young frontosa, but I'm not 100% sure and have a feeling I'm wrong.

Then the next looks like a juvenile tropheus duboisi

and the last two are big plecos. Not sure what the first one is, second one I'm 98% sure is a common.

Im going to be looking up more about these fish today, but wondering if you or anybody else knows stocking for the tropheus moorii and frontosa..i only have 2 left all the ailments, and would like to replace any if possible..also will aggression become a problem if they were all there first?

 

[onidrase]

The first two look like tropheus moorii cichlids to me, they like to be kept in large groups (1-3 males and 15 or more females typically)they're very prone to bloat and need a steady diet of herbivorous foods, they're also algae grazers so imo if you want to keep them, you should remove the plecos so these guys can get their diet of algae.

Second pic is another type of tropheus, looks like moorii but might be something different

next down looks almost like a young frontosa, but I'm not 100% sure and have a feeling I'm wrong.

Then the next looks like a juvenile tropheus duboisi

and the last two are big plecos. Not sure what the first one is, second one I'm 98% sure is a common.

Im going to be looking up more about these fish today, but wondering if you or anybody else knows stocking for the tropheus moorii and frontosa..i only have 2 left all the ailments, and would like to replace any if possible..also will aggression become a problem if they were all there first?

Tropheus species like to be stocked in groups with 1 or 3 males and several females, several meaning about 15 or so. It's good to have a minimum of 15 to allow aggression dispersion and let them create a social hierarchy. This means that you will have to remove some of the fish when they're older. Males don't tend to get along well once sexual maturity hits. If you remove all the other fish, you'll be able to get about 25 or so in a 75 imo, given the filtration of the tank is at its peak, two small canisters or 1 large canister like the fluval fx5 would be sufficient.

Frontosas also like to be stocked in a group of 1 male and 5 or so females. Frontosas also get huge, about 12-14 inches, sometimes larger. So honestly 75 gallons is not big enough to properly keep these fish.

Mbuna cichlids also create hierachies and need a lot of fish in a group (usually 6-15 depending on the temperament of the species) to disperse aggression. They're also, from what I've read and seen, a lot stronger and more aggressive then a lot of tanganyikan fish. Their bodies are built better for fighting than the blunt-headed algae scraping tropheus. I couldn't possibly see them being compatible with each other long term. Mbuna and tropeus both dwell in the rocks, meaning they'd be constantly in each other's space, just making things worse.

if this were my tank I'd rehome everything but the tropheus. I haven't kept them personally, but I've been dying to try them. They are very interesting and beautiful fish. I recall you saying you liked variety, but honestly, with african cichlids, mbuna is the best variety you'll get.

 

[SikkAquariums]

Yea, I am going to have to look into it all as the time progresses with them. Now im having the problem of heat ive noticed, my small nano 4gal is going over 80F now, and my 75 is at about 82, and thermo is set to 73F ish...any suggestions, the house is about 82+F, do the cooling fans petco used to have work at all?

 

[SikkAquariums]

I tried doing a count of the fish that i know of in there, and I will recount when i redo the tank with the new sand, so far I have:
Tropheus Duboisi - about 5
Young Frontosa - 2
Tropheus Moorii - 2
Neolamprologus Cylindricus - about 4-5
Neolamprologus Pulcher Daffodil - 4


More Fish to ID!
Please Help, Thnaks!

About 10 or more of these guys...(unknown)

only 2 but no idea either..

 

[gregswimm]

Well I keep writing a reply but forget to submit it before leaving the page so I'm going to make this quick; I'm getting very frustrated lol.

First; may area of experience is in Tanganyika cichlids

Fish I see:

1. Neolamprologus cylindricus (isk region) - carnivore, difficult to mix with it's own species; should not be mixed with N.leleupi
2. Neolamprologus sexfasciatus (prolly samazi but idk)- easily confused with frontosa. It is a carnivore; rather aggressive. don't know much about it
3. Neolamprologus leleupi (idk region) - Carnivore; don't mix with it's own species or with N.cylindricus. A carnivore
4. At least 2 different types of tropheus - PURE HERBIVORES should not be fed protein (will cause bloat/death). Keep in groups of no less than 25 in a tank no smaller than 125g. NEVER mix different species and or same species from different regions. VERY AGGRESSIVE
5. Dimidiochromis compressiceps - Carnivore/piscivorous from Malawi (don't mix with Tanganyika)

I would not keep these fish on anything other than sand.
Rules of thumb:
NEVER mix conspecifics of different species
NEVER mix same species of different regions
NEVER mix Lake Tanganyika with other rift lakes

You have a LOT of research ahead of you. READ READ READ and READ. Lots of info can be found on cichlid-forum.com but it should not be the only place you get info from. ALSO, people who work at petco(and many other pet stores) are notorious for not know what they are talking about. It is no wonder you got this tank for free.

 

[SikkAquariums]

Well I keep writing a reply but forget to submit it before leaving the page so I'm going to make this quick; I'm getting very frustrated lol.

First; may area of experience is in Tanganyika cichlids

Fish I see:

1. Neolamprologus cylindricus (isk region) - carnivore, difficult to mix with it's own species; should not be mixed with N.leleupi
2. Neolamprologus sexfasciatus (prolly samazi but idk)- easily confused with frontosa. It is a carnivore; rather aggressive. don't know much about it
3. Neolamprologus leleupi (idk region) - Carnivore; don't mix with it's own species or with N.cylindricus. A carnivore
4. At least 2 different types of tropheus - PURE HERBIVORES should not be fed protein (will cause bloat/death). Keep in groups of no less than 25 in a tank no smaller than 125g. NEVER mix different species and or same species from different regions. VERY AGGRESSIVE
5. Dimidiochromis compressiceps - Carnivore/piscivorous from Malawi (don't mix with Tanganyika)

I would not keep these fish on anything other than sand.
Rules of thumb:
NEVER mix conspecifics of different species
NEVER mix same species of different regions
NEVER mix Lake Tanganyika with other rift lakes

You have a LOT of research ahead of you. READ READ READ and READ. Lots of info can be found on cichlid-forum.com but it should not be the only place you get info from. ALSO, people who work at petco(and many other pet stores) are notorious for not know what they are talking about. It is no wonder you got this tank for free.

Yes, lots lots more reading to do. I won the tank at a fair, I already have 2 other tropical tanks, but this tank is basically what is left from after the fair and transport. Sand is getting put in, withing the next few weeks, i have it, just need the time off from work. As for the fish and species, ill look into more and figure out what to do with the ones i don't need and the ones i want to keep/add.

 

[gregswimm]

I would get rid of everything except the pulcher (they are the easiest). Cylindricus/leleupi are rather difficult as they don't take well to their own species. Your tank also needs re-arranging I would suggest 2 rock piles on either side of the tank that make natural caves where they come together and leave an open area in the middle for the pulcher. You can then keep 2 cave spawning species like a pair of Julidochromis dikifeldi + a pair of Altolamprologus comps/calvus or some Neolamprologus buescheri still have room to have a 10-15 fish school of Cyprichromis leptososma.

Edit: Making a working Tanganyikan community tank is one of the hardest stocking jobs I have ever done lol. Each species requires its own territory/space so stocking for agression like one would stock haps does not work and will only lead to stressed fish.

 

[gregswimm]

Also a marineland c-360 is not enough filtration you want 8-10x tank volume turnover per hour.