This is the first one I'll be posting for a few days (A friend took the photos and needs to cut the wheat from the chaff so to speak before I can post more) but here is a photo of one of the guys in my tank so far.
For those that don't know about these, they're "Neolamprologus Multifaciatus". They're cichlids that need Lake Tanganiyaka conditions, and they differ from most fish in the way that they live inside shells. When the lights go off in the tank they sleep in them, when they breed the female lays the eggs in them, when they feel threatened or scared they hide in them etc. They can exist in small tanks (I have what looks like 2m and 2f in my Juwel rekord 60 which is 15 US gallon. You're meant to keep more females to males, but when we bought ours a stowaway came from inside the shell, meaning we had an extra male, but so far he's not displayed sufficient aggression to warrant him needing moving). The males ae typically bigger than the females, and the picture above is of the more dominant male. He's probably only a couple of inches long, and I'd say a quarter inch longer than the biggest female.
Last night while I was watching the tank I noticed that there was something bug like swimming around and generally looking a bit gross. I used a pipette style thing to take it out of the tank and blot it onto paper.
After examining it for a few minutes it soon became clear that it was a fry! It's unusual because usually they keep the fry in their shells and they only venture out when big enough (and are usually herded back into the shells by their parents, like sheepdogs), but this guy somehow slipped through the net. As this was the parents first time though, it wouldn't be unusual for one to fly the coop. Anyway, I blotted him back into a shell and I'm hoping the parents have now plopped him back with the rest. Check out the size of him though! I think these are the smallest Cichlids available in trade, if not the smallest overall.
I'll have some more pictures in a few days.
For those that don't know about these, they're "Neolamprologus Multifaciatus". They're cichlids that need Lake Tanganiyaka conditions, and they differ from most fish in the way that they live inside shells. When the lights go off in the tank they sleep in them, when they breed the female lays the eggs in them, when they feel threatened or scared they hide in them etc. They can exist in small tanks (I have what looks like 2m and 2f in my Juwel rekord 60 which is 15 US gallon. You're meant to keep more females to males, but when we bought ours a stowaway came from inside the shell, meaning we had an extra male, but so far he's not displayed sufficient aggression to warrant him needing moving). The males ae typically bigger than the females, and the picture above is of the more dominant male. He's probably only a couple of inches long, and I'd say a quarter inch longer than the biggest female.
Last night while I was watching the tank I noticed that there was something bug like swimming around and generally looking a bit gross. I used a pipette style thing to take it out of the tank and blot it onto paper.
After examining it for a few minutes it soon became clear that it was a fry! It's unusual because usually they keep the fry in their shells and they only venture out when big enough (and are usually herded back into the shells by their parents, like sheepdogs), but this guy somehow slipped through the net. As this was the parents first time though, it wouldn't be unusual for one to fly the coop. Anyway, I blotted him back into a shell and I'm hoping the parents have now plopped him back with the rest. Check out the size of him though! I think these are the smallest Cichlids available in trade, if not the smallest overall.
I'll have some more pictures in a few days.
