Neolamprologus tretocephalus

[Alien Anna]

I saw one of these fish a few months ago and fell in love - he was so gorgeous! However, practically everyone and his dog tried to put me off, so I left it and got mollies instead.

Baesch says they grow up to 6", which didn't sound to bad, but I've been told they're very territorial and very aggressive. What sort of minimum tank size would a pair require (if you can keep a pair) and how do you select a breeding pair?

Also, are they difficult to feed?

At the moment, this is just hypothetical, but I would really like to move up to more demanding fish some time and I'm doing my research. Has anyone actually kept these fish and what was your experience of them?

 

[smb]

I've only had a couple of N. tretocephalus before so I'm in no way very educated about them.

I never had a problem feeding them. They ate frozen and especially liked flake food. I'm not sure why anyone would try to turn you off on getting them? Unless I just happened to get lucky with the few I've had, I would recommend these fish. I even had them in with community fish for a while and they never even looked at them. They are very aggro to conspecifics tho and that's why I had to put one into my community tank as an emergency.

I couldn't get any to get along to try and breed them but I'm assuming they might be like most cichlids and become very territorial with other fish when they do but having never seen or heard about it I can't be sure.

Hope this tiny bit of info can help you. If not, CM will be around and I have no doubt that there isn't much he doesn't know about any cichlid.