Bogwood Or Shellies?

[fishstick]

I have a quite heavily planted 180l aquarium with 4 large pieces of bogwood in it. I have the usual community fish plus a corner area with a male and 2 female shelldwellers. They have had several lots of fry who seem lively but a) they are not very big even the ones 2 months old and B) I am wondering if the bogwood is affecting them as there never seem to be more than 3 or 4 about. My stats are: ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 7, ph 8. The shellies are the more important so I will take out the bogwood if I must (its absolutly covered in the white dots I wrote about before) Anyone any ideas please?

 

[Teelie]

IMO, the bogwood can't give off enough tannins to lower the pH (which given the level, it definite isn't) and I have some with my shellies who seem to have no problems with it. What species of shellie do you have? Some of them take a while to grow especially if not given plentiful food when they first start eating.

 

[fishstick]

I have neolamprologus multifaciatus and I think the feeding might be the problem as its quite difficult to get the crushed flakes or algae tablets down to them past the other fish. The tendancy is to give more than a 'small amount' so all get something. Many thanks.

 

[Griz]

Neolamprologus multifaciatus are rather slow growing. I have some that are now about 5 months old and they are only about 1/2" long and my 2 month old fry are only around 1/4". A pH of 8 is just fine for them. I feed mine a staple diet of flake which I crush up very fine and put into the filter input stream. This disperses it quickly into the tank and gets it down where the fry are. I give small amounts and find that the fry are easily able to snatch a few bits which is all they really need. I also give them frozen BBS which works well too. Since to food is so small, the larger fish need to work harder to get enough whereas the fry are able to get their fair share easily. Be careful of course not to feed too much, feeding smaller amounts 2x per day works well if you can manage it.