Kribensis

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Common name/s: Kribensis, Purple Cichlid

Scientific name: Pelvicachromis pulcher

Family: Cichlidae

Origin: Nigeria, Cameroon, West African, Riverine species

Maximum size: 4"

Care: The Krib is a popular cichlid for beginer breeders. It hails from West Africa, and is found in rivers. The fish are usually found in fresh water, though they have been found in Brackish water. They like soft water, and their Ph should be around nuetral, though they can have a higher Ph up to 8, and one down to 5. They are realitivly peaceful, though they should not be kept with some peaceful fish such as the guppies. A good tank mate would be the black skirt tetra, and other mildly aggressive fish as such. Despite being African cichlids, they should not be kept with Mbuna, or other rift lake vally cichlids. The minimum tank size for a pair is 20 gallons.

Feeding: You should give your kribs a mixed diet, as they are omnivours. They will nibble at live plants, but will also eat live worms. They will also eat live bearer fry, and small ghost shrimp.

Sexing and breeding: There are a few ways to distinguish the genders of the fish. One way is the by the fins. The males usually have a pointed dorsal fin as well as tail fin. The females have "eye" spots on their dorsal fin. They also have a rounded dorsal and tail fin. Males are also bigger than the females. The females will also have a red round stomach. After a while of the male and female being together they should pair up. It works best to have the largest male and the smallest female together to make it happen faster. This is to lessen the aggression of the female, as larger females may injure the smaller male. Once paired up the pair will breed about every few weeks. The female will disaprea for about five days. At this time she will be fanning eggs that she layed. they will be in a cave. the male will be guarding the cave entrance. After the 5 days are up the eggs should hatch. They will be in the wiggler stage for about 3-5 days after. Once the wiggler stage is over the fish will be free swimming, schooling with the parents. At night the parents will pick up the fry in their mouth and return them to the cave that they were born in, unless you renovate the cave. The fry have slow growth after a while.
 
IMG_2770b.jpg

Female Krib
 
My Male and Female Krib's with babies :)

Kribensis1.jpg


And my Male Posing ;)

Kribensis2.jpg
 
I would like to add some information!
First, this is a picture of my beautiful female after about 3-4 months in my tank:
sherlock.jpg


The Info: these fish, at least in my experience with this female, can be closet-case aggressive. You wouldn't want to believe it, but I would add a female betta, and it would die on me for no seeming reason. All the time, the only fish that attacked them (visibly) was the krib. My veil angel's fins started to get nipped as well...Since it all seemed to point to her, I had to make the heart-wrenching (trust me, i loved that fish!) decision to remove her from the tank. While she was there 3 female bettas just "died" for no reason. Since then, I have kept 2 females without any troubles. No fins are being nipped. It seems as if most, if not all, of the aggression in the tank left with her :hyper:
So, just a word of caution. If you introduce a "peaceful" krib into your tank and things begin to go haywire, take a closer look at the krib's behavior!

And to show what i'm talking about...here's a picture of one of my favorite betta's ever that she killed...who's in the background?!?!
mona_lisa2.jpg
 
Re Fishaholics previous post, Totaly agree !!! i Have a pair of Kribs in my 30" comm tank wich only holds 1m/3f guppies and 5 Danios, Although the female is quite peacefull with these fish the Male is a bully towards Her. I thought i'd remove her into my 2nd comm tank and get another pair to divide between the 2 tanks in the hope i'd get 2 Mating pairs. Unfortunately the tank i'd put the female into contained some guppy fry which were 2 wks old and very healthy, She Decimated all but 1 ! :( So as you can imagine i wasn't non to pleased but at the same time so surprized that a fish that was so placid and shy should have turned into such a nasty Fish, Needless to say she was taken out and returned to the tank where she was being bullied by the male. Not nice for her but i dont want her to turn on the rest of the other fish !!!
 
I keep a pair (breeding?) or Kribs.

Feed on flake and frozen. They can become aggresive once breeding so a bigger tank is recommended with plants.

James.
 
Females can be vicious. I've lost them to conspecific aggression. Males routinely square of but usually doesn't go past occasional liplocking
fb21ee2b2ca14f45262b6b9dd49f190c.jpg


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