OH dear I dont know if this is good or not

[hollywoodH]

Ok I got home yesterday with my final four fish for my tank to find that i had 5. So on initial thoughts i thought result i got a bargain but on releasing into my tank i not that it is not a good fish to have in there its a very small less than an inch N. livingstonii. Although i love this fish im a bit worried. Although I went above a lfs to where the owner keeps his own fish yesterday before i brought these and he had a tank with a single male in with all the fish i have in mine and said he had no problems generally.


WHAT SHOULD I DO.....?

 

[semper fi]

what are the other fish that you have in there now? livingstonis are able to hold their own. as long as he has a few hidey spots to chose from he may be okay.

 

[hollywoodH]

OK THIS IS WHAT I HAVE


1 melanchromis johanni
1 melanchromis cyaneohabous
1 melanchromis chipoke
1 metriaclima zebra - red
1 metriaclima zebra
1 labidochromis vellicano
1 labidochromis caeruleus
1 labidochromis hongi - red toe
1 pseudotropheus demaroni
1 pseudetropheus elongatus
1 pseudetropheus maylandia greshakei - albino
1 cynotilapia afra
2 bristlenose
1 crayfish

and the Haplochromis Livingstoni


all fish are male as this is a show tank not a breeding tank which i am about to set up. And currently they are all less than 1 inch in body length

ph is at 8.2
gh is at 16
amonia is at 0


tank is 48 x 18 x 18 and it is predominately filled with slate and lots of hidy holes.

 

[semper fi]

your tank is way overstocked. when the fish do get to their adult lengths then you will start to have problems. too many fish for your tank size. quite a few of them do get to lengths of 6". the biggest problem is mixing the mbuna with the non mbuna. the chipokae is the most aggressive of the mbuna. quite comparable to the auratus. this will be the king of the tank. ime, the chipokae will be the king/queen of the tank. it will bully all of the other fish in the tank to make sure that he rules the tank.

some ofi the species you have in your tank will also cross breed. fish are not too picky about going outside of their species. you may not have the intention of setting up a breeding tank, but may find that it turns into one.

 

[hollywoodH]

OK so my lfs is wrong again. According to them when the fish are bigger then the tank will be at just about the right level of stocking as mbuna tanks need to be overstocked so i have been going off of their recomendations. the only fish i was worried about was the livingstonni but i guess i have to look at the chipoke as well

 

[cichlidmaster]

Who told you these were ALL males???

If it was the LFS then I would question how they came to this conclusion.

At the size they are (<1") some of these fish are still showing their juvie coloration. If they are showing their adult coloration, then they have either been fed a food with steroids in it or they are a lot older then their body size indicates.

If they were sexed by means of egg spot detection, this is also unreliable at this size!!!

Females of the red zebra can have 1 or 2 egg spots. Female afra can also have an egg spot or two.

I would definately question the reliabilty of these fish being males!!!

Find out how the sex of these fish were determined and let us know.

One last thing....I can find no reference to P. demaroni!!! Could this in fact be P. Demasoni??

Also no reference to M. cyaneohabous!!

CM

 

[hollywoodH]

cm sorry it is demasoni.


It was the guy in the shop telling the difference between sexes. the max size wish is about 1.5 inches