My Malawi Tank

[adele]

I'm completely new to Malawis, but this is my first attempt! Everything does need moving around as the shyer fish don't seem to have many places to hide at the moment...

I don't know what any of the species are called, so if anyone could identify some of them that would be very helpful

This one was bright yellow when I first bought it, but now it's kinda lilac

 

[helsekia]

hello.nice to see pictures of your tank it looks great.
welcome to the forum we are all quite friendly on here and I have learned so much since joining.there are people on this site that are like encyclopeadia!!!!but very nice with it

 

[BabySealClubber]

Nice lookin' tank, Adele! Welcome to TFF!

 

[bunjiweb]

Lovely looking petricola, do you have more than 1 of them?

Ben

 

[Exiled]

Hi adele -- welcome to TFF and your tank looks very natural! good job!

You mentioned you need help with ID-ing your fish?

The first pic after the full tank shot--on the left in the foreground looks to me like a Melanochromis auratus male changing into adult coloration, or possibly a subdominant female. The blueish one on the right is partially obscured so my best guess would be a pseudotropheus acei or a Labidochromis perlmutt or hongi -- because I see some yellow comming in on his dorsal fin. Can you post some more pics of him?
The dark brown/black one on the lower right had the body shape of a Psedotropheus elongatus and is probably a female Usisya or female jewelspot.
Next pic: The fish changing on you seems to me like a subadult Pseudotropheus saulosi. If I'm right he will eventially be a brilliant blue with darker stripes. Your catfish is a synodontis petricola and the last photo is a Labidochromis caeruleus.

Hope this helps a bit.

 

[denis coghlan]

Nice tank adele! I really like the fish and the 180 looks great. How long has the tank been up and running for? welcome to the forum.

 

[adele]

Lovely looking petricola, do you have more than 1 of them?

Ben

Thankyou And yes I have 2 of them... not so sure that's a good idea now though, as they don't seem to like each other very much (especially when feeding!). Is this normal?

Hi adele -- welcome to TFF and your tank looks very natural! good job!

You mentioned you need help with ID-ing your fish?

The first pic after the full tank shot--on the left in the foreground looks to me like a Melanochromis auratus male changing into adult coloration, or possibly a subdominant female. The blueish one on the right is partially obscured so my best guess would be a pseudotropheus acei or a Labidochromis perlmutt or hongi -- because I see some yellow comming in on his dorsal fin. Can you post some more pics of him?
The dark brown/black one on the lower right had the body shape of a Psedotropheus elongatus and is probably a female Usisya or female jewelspot.
Next pic: The fish changing on you seems to me like a subadult Pseudotropheus saulosi. If I'm right he will eventially be a brilliant blue with darker stripes. Your catfish is a synodontis petricola and the last photo is a Labidochromis caeruleus.

Hope this helps a bit.

Hiya, thankyou very much

That's been really helpful! I think you're right about the blue one in the first pic as I remember the guy at the aquatics refering to them as "acei" but I still wasn't sure. I was told the other one (the dark one in the lower right) was a white-finned variety of the same species, but again I wasn't 100% sure that he was right.

The one which is changing colour is getting much darker bolder stripes now aswell, so I'm quite looking forward to him being blue!

Again, thanks for your help x

Nice tank adele! I really like the fish and the 180 looks great. How long has the tank been up and running for? welcome to the forum.

Thanks a lot! It's been up and running for about 5 months now.

 

[karen84]

great tank

 

[mark7616]

The first picture after the tank shot the fish right at the front to me looks like a krib and shouldnt be in that tank!

 

[adele]

The first picture after the tank shot the fish right at the front to me looks like a krib and shouldnt be in that tank!

It's not a krib, it's too big and doesn't have the pink colouration on it's belly. I think it is a Melanochromis auratus.
Here's a better pic

 

[fishfishfish]

u must have 2 male petricola.u should have atleast 2 more prob as they are very social.i had 2 that were sexed but recently lost my female due to ich. but once my summer job starts up ill be getting 4 more

 

[Ginge]

Yeah and a nice one at that but very very agressive am i right in saying thats a female. If so does she have any males with her??? P,S how are those plants doing i had exactly the same ones in my nearly identical setup and mine died. What are the other stats of that tank
e.g. Size,filteation etc.

 

[adele]

Yeah and a nice one at that but very very agressive am i right in saying thats a female. If so does she have any males with her??? P,S how are those plants doing i had exactly the same ones in my nearly identical setup and mine died. What are the other stats of that tank
e.g. Size,filteation etc.

Yep, it's extremely aggresive. I think it's male - I did have 2 to start with but this one bullied the other for a couple of months and eventually killed it. I seems to be terrified of my sucking loach though, that's calmed it down a lot lately.

The plants seem to be doing ok - I think I'm going to take out the Java Fern though, as it's looking very overgrown and messy at the moment, only problem is I have a few smaller cichlids that like to hide amongst it!
So far none of my plants have died.

My tank is a Juwel Rio 180. (101 long x 50 high x 40 wide [cm]. It's Juwel Filteration system that came already fitted in the tank as part of the package so I couldn't really tell you a lot about it!