Getting First Fish Tomorrow

[yabadaba]

Hi guys, the fishless cycle is finally over for me. Put the last dose of ammonia in this morning and this evening I'm going to be giving the tank a good clean to get rid of all the brown algae, switching substrate to coral sand, adding my ocean rock and refilling with fresh water. Tomorrow I'll be visiting my LFS to buy the fish.....and that is where I would really appreciate your input. The fish they had in stock when I last visited that the member of staff I spoke to thought might be suitable are as follows:

Pseudotropheus elongatus
Pseudotropheus estherae / Metriaclima estherae (Red Zebra?)
Labidochromis sp. (Perlmutt)
Labidochromis hondi (Red top Hongi)
Maylandia emmiltos (Red Top Zebra?)
Labidochromis exasperatus
Haplochromis sp. CH44 (Red Tail?)
Labidochromis caeruleus (Yellow Lab)

Please can you let me know which of the above you think might work together and what you would suggest in terms of numbers and male to female ratios. In fact any advice you can give in respect to fish selection would be much appreciated.

NB: The guy in the LFS was very helpful in writing out a list for me, but all the names were in latin and some of the spellings were clearly a bit out. So the above is the result of me having googled a bit to get the names right and I've tried to add in some of the common names - needless to say there might be some errors!

 

[mattlee]

sorry i dont know much about these fish... but how exciting is it getting your first fish good luck with them

 

[dthoffsett]

Pseudotropheus elongatus - Very aggressive species, best kept in groups of 1m/5+f

Pseudotropheus estherae / Metriaclima estherae (Red Zebra?) - Metriaclima estherae would be correct. Great mildly aggressive species 1m/3f ratio

Labidochromis sp. (Perlmutt) - Mildly aggressive species 1m/3f ratios

Labidochromis hongi (Red top Hongi) - Males are very territorial, best to only have one per tank.

Maylandia emmiltos (Red Top Zebra?) - Metriaclima emmiltos, mildly aggressive species, males can be territorial so best to avoid similar looking species

Labidochromis exasperatus - Actually Melanochromis joanjohnsonae like all Melanochromis species they are highly aggressive.

Haplochromis sp. CH44 (Red Tail?) - Actually Haplochromis sp. "Thick Skin", aggression wise they would fit in with the mbuna, however, they are carnivores which would make it difficult to feed.

Labidochromis caeruleus (Yellow Lab) - One of the most peaceful mbuna species, multiple males are tolerated and oddly enough they are ignored by most aggressive species. They do tend to be shy, so they should be kept in groups of 5 or more.
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Of the species you have listed, my concern would be that Labidochromis species tend to interbreed, but as long as any fry don't leave your tank it's not a problem. The only other thing I would suggest I to have either the elongatus or the emmiltos as they are similar looking which could cause aggression problems between the males.

I'd say your tank could comfortably support 30-35 adults, it's really up to you to decide if you want larger numbers of a few species or more species with fewer numbers.

 

[yabadaba]

Well, I finally got my first fish yesterday and they appear to be doing fine so far. All are juveniles, with most at about 1.5" and the biggest around 3". They are as follows:

Metriaclima (Pseudotropheus) estherae (Red/Blue Zebra) - X3 Red, x3 Blue
Labidochromis sp. “Perlmutt” (Yellow Bar) - X4
Labidochromis .sp "Hongi" (Kimpuma) - X4
Labidochromis caeruleus (Yellow Lab) - X6
Iodotropheus Sprengerae (Rusty) - X3

I'll be keeping a very close eye on pH, NH3 and NO2 over the next few days, given that these are the first fish I've added and I've gone for a reasonable number. Quite strange, but for some reason my Ph read somewhere in between 7.4 and 7.6 on the API colour chart when I first added the fish, but is up to 8.0 this morning...which is probably better. Maybe the coral sand and/or ocean rock has started to have some kind of buffering effect now, as when I did the first test the water had only been in the tank for a couple of hours?

What do you think to my fish selection......any adjustments required?

Edit: I must have been typing the above at the same time as dthoffsett's reply, so didn't see that before choosing my fish or reporting back now. Thanks for the info though...seems to indicate most of my choices will work okay.

 

[dthoffsett]

Looking good so far, I'd be curious to see pics of your red and blue estherae. In the wild male estherae are blue while the females are red, blue males are rarely seen in the trade, sometimes M.callainos will be grouped with M.estherae.

 

[yabadaba]

Looking good so far, I'd be curious to see pics of your red and blue estherae. In the wild male estherae are blue while the females are red, blue males are rarely seen in the trade, sometimes M.callainos will be grouped with M.estherae.

Given the fact that I'm still struggling with all the (latin) name similarities and the different colour morphs I may well have made some ID mistakes. I'll post some pictures later and would be more than happy for you to check how they match up against the list of what I think I have. Thanks for the help and feedback.

 

[yabadaba]

Okay, here's some pictures that I grabbed very quickly and they are of just whatever fish were out and about and that I could focus on before they dashed off! Hopefully there will be some matches to the list I posted, but if anyone thinks there's something pictured here that isn't on the list then please let me know.

 

[yabadaba]

Okay, apologies for the heavy picture content, but these latest lot look much better than the ones I took earlier as there was more natural light. I'm not sure which are the Hongi's and which are the Perlmutts though!

 

[dthoffsett]

Great pics, everyone looks nice and healthy.

I'd say the blue ones are M.callainos instead of M.estherae, no big deal though care for them is the same. I'd aim to eventually get 2 or 3 more of each.

 

[kiriyama]

Really nice pics. love the colours think the rock wrk is awesome ,I be they have a great time exploring all the nooks and crannys....