Dragon blood peacock cichlid care

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elephantnose3334

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I've been keeping fish for 5 months. In the future, I want a hardy and beautiful cichlid called the dragon blood peacock. It's a beautiful variety of the peacock cichlid and grows quite big. How do you care for this cichlid? What's the minimum tank size of this fish and how do you look after it? How often should you clean their tank?
 

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It's an Aulonocara species from Lake Malawi. They grow to about 5 inches and need a tank that is at least 3 feet long. The water should be hard (GH around 300ppm) and have a pH around or above 7.6.

They are predators and eat small fish. Males have colour, females are usually silver all over and don't get as big. Generally you have 1 male and a few females. If you only want colour, get a group of different peacock cichlids (Aulonocara sp.) and have no females.

They are mouth brooders and the males set up territories and have a harem of females. When they breed, the male has yellow egg spots on the anal (bottom) fin and increases the colour of these. The females pick up the eggs and then try to grab the egg spots on the male's anal fin. When she does this, he releases sperm that fertilises the eggs in her mouth. She has a buccal pouch (small sack in the bottom jaw) where the eggs and babies stay until they are old enough to swim around. The female usually stops feeding when she has a mouthful of eggs. The bottom area under her jaw also looks fat.

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You clean the tank and filter like any normal tank. A big (50-75%) water change and gravel clean the substrate every week. Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before you add it to the tank. We have chlorine in the tap water in Western Australia.

If you have soft water (most Perth water is desalinated (reverse osmosis) and has no minerals in), then you will need to add a Rift Lake water conditioner to the new water and mix it up for at least 24 hours before using it. Aquasonic Rift Lake conditioner is what I used to increase the pH, GH & KH of the tap water.

Established biological filters should be cleaned once a month. It normally takes 4-8 weeks to cycle a filter so if you use a new filter, don't clean it for the first 2 months unless the water flow decreases a lot.
 
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Good info from Colin above - I'd have said a 4 foot tank as a minimum and also wanted to add that you need to keep them with other Peacock Cichlids they are not suitable to mix with community fish.
 
A YouTube channel once mixed this cichlid with polar parrot cichlids, koi, a gourami, a Fisher's woodcat and goldfish once on their youtube channel. Not a very good variety of fish.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
It's an Aulonocara species from Lake Malawi. They grow to about 5 inches and need a tank that is at least 3 feet long. The water should be hard (GH around 300ppm) and have a pH around or above 7.6.

They are predators and eat small fish. Males have colour, females are usually silver all over and don't get as big. Generally you have 1 male and a few females. If you only want colour, get a group of different peacock cichlids (Aulonocara sp.) and have no females.

They are mouth brooders and the males set up territories and have a harem of females. When they breed, the male has yellow egg spots on the anal (bottom) fin and increases the colour of these. The females pick up the eggs and then try to grab the egg spots on the male's anal fin. When she does this, he releases sperm that fertilises the eggs in her mouth. She has a buccal pouch (small sack in the bottom jaw) where the eggs and babies stay until they are old enough to swim around. The female usually stops feeding when she has a mouthful of eggs. The bottom area under her jaw also looks fat.

------------------------

You clean the tank and filter like any normal tank. A big (50-75%) water change and gravel clean the substrate every week. Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before you add it to the tank. We have chlorine in the tap water in Western Australia.

If you have soft water (most Perth water is desalinated (reverse osmosis) and has no minerals in), then you will need to add a Rift Lake water conditioner to the new water and mix it up for at least 24 hours before using it. Aquasonic Rift Lake conditioner is what I used to increase the pH, GH & KH of the tap water.

Established biological filters should be cleaned once a month. It normally takes 4-8 weeks to cycle a filter so if you use a new filter, don't clean it for the first 2 months unless the water flow decreases a lot.
That's good information on how to breed them. Picture one shows the yellow egg spots from the bottom fin.
 

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