sharpshark
Fish Fanatic
So, Mbuna tank has been up and running for about 2-3 months now, it was a mature tank anyway and well cycled, the water down here is Southampton is naturally hard, which is a #28### for kettles and washing machines but lucky for my tank mates! Its a Juwel Rio 400ltr tank, its got a sand substrate with alot of slate decor, I run an Fluval FX5 filter and a small powerhead to help with surface turnover.
I wanted to follow some kind of plan and asked for help choosing fish breeds but quickly learnt that it was difficulty because A - They're expensive, B - Relatively hard to find and C - They're still expensive.
I managed to track down some Yellow labs and have six juveniles, and then some quite cheap tiger variant synodontists, excellent..
So after visiting some LFS I went to a Maidenhead in Christchurch who were selling off fish in a large display tank as they are having an imminent renovation, and after buttering up one of the staff and giving a sob story about how much money I didn't have he struck up a deal whereby they basically are offloading fish for £20.00 a time, for which I am getting 4-6 larger adult males and females which from anywhere else I've visited should cost £10-15 per fish (though I this maybe high its what I've seen stockists charging).
So I've been twice now not wanting to over stock the tank too quickly and have a mix of male sand females, none of which I have id'd except for a large red zebra which confusingly to me is yellow apparently!
And to top it all off, yesterday we spotted a baby Mbuna!!! Not sure who's breeding, there is a female who looks like she is holding in her mouth, though as a Mbuna newbie I'm not sure, it is in picture 7. in the yellow circle, just a blur but its there I promise!
Here are some pics, excuse the quality, I need a new camera and these were taken on my phone, any help with ID will be appreciated and thoughts on the set up, I took some recent advice TFF advice and moved some of the 75kgs of slate around to make it more visually appealing, and its growing a nice blanket of algae now. Thanks!
I wanted to follow some kind of plan and asked for help choosing fish breeds but quickly learnt that it was difficulty because A - They're expensive, B - Relatively hard to find and C - They're still expensive.
I managed to track down some Yellow labs and have six juveniles, and then some quite cheap tiger variant synodontists, excellent..
So after visiting some LFS I went to a Maidenhead in Christchurch who were selling off fish in a large display tank as they are having an imminent renovation, and after buttering up one of the staff and giving a sob story about how much money I didn't have he struck up a deal whereby they basically are offloading fish for £20.00 a time, for which I am getting 4-6 larger adult males and females which from anywhere else I've visited should cost £10-15 per fish (though I this maybe high its what I've seen stockists charging).
So I've been twice now not wanting to over stock the tank too quickly and have a mix of male sand females, none of which I have id'd except for a large red zebra which confusingly to me is yellow apparently!
And to top it all off, yesterday we spotted a baby Mbuna!!! Not sure who's breeding, there is a female who looks like she is holding in her mouth, though as a Mbuna newbie I'm not sure, it is in picture 7. in the yellow circle, just a blur but its there I promise!
Here are some pics, excuse the quality, I need a new camera and these were taken on my phone, any help with ID will be appreciated and thoughts on the set up, I took some recent advice TFF advice and moved some of the 75kgs of slate around to make it more visually appealing, and its growing a nice blanket of algae now. Thanks!
Baby!
