What Fish To Keep With Pseudotropheus Demasoni

[harris_hpe]

Hi there,

I am currently cycling my tank and I am going to keep Pseudotropheus demasoni. My Tank is 30 gallons which Is why I chose the Ps. demasoni due to their size, however I am goin to be moving house in the next 6months or so and I will upgrade my tank to a larger size when I have moved as I will have the space to. I would like to get some juvies of another species other than the demasoni and just wondered if anyone had any experience with these fish and which tank mates would be suitable. I fully understand that I will be overstocked but I will be moving them into a bigger home at a later date so I figured it would be ok.

If anybody has any advice or an opinion it would be very welcome

Thanks

Harris

 

[dthoffsett]

What are you tank's dimensions? If it's at least 3ft long, it might work out, however, you won't be able to keep any other species than the P.demasoni.

Because dems have such high conspecific aggression (aggresion towards their own species) they should be kept as either a single specimen or in a group of 12+. If kept in smaller groups the dominant male will quickly kill off all his competition (read all the other fish ), however, in larger groups there are so many other fish to chase, no one fish gets picked on constantly.

You'll want a lot of rock work for territories, just be sure to leave room for swimming.

I realize you'll be moving and upgrading, however, they'll reach sexual maturity in less than 6 months and that's when your aggression problems will start. Personally, I'd wait until I upgraded, but that's entirely up to you.

 

[harris_hpe]

Yea i realise I will have to keep a minimum of 12 to relieve the aggression. The thing I did wonder is, how do you go about keepeing more females then males? I have heard they are really hard to sex because the male and females look so alike so say for instance I get 12 of them and 8 end up being males and the other 4 females, will this make them more aggressive or wont it matter because the the fish wont be able to tell the difference either???

Ok so I will keep just the dems for now, but when I do upgrade my tank, what kind of fish will react well with the dems??? Just other mbuna or is there other species?

Thanks

Harris

 

[fifer78]

Yea i realise I will have to keep a minimum of 12 to relieve the aggression. The thing I did wonder is, how do you go about keepeing more females then males? I have heard they are really hard to sex because the male and females look so alike so say for instance I get 12 of them and 8 end up being males and the other 4 females, will this make them more aggressive or wont it matter because the the fish wont be able to tell the difference either???

Ok so I will keep just the dems for now, but when I do upgrade my tank, what kind of fish will react well with the dems??? Just other mbuna or is there other species?

Thanks

Harris

Yellow labs are good with Demasoni. The colours are stunning and contrasting.

 

[harris_hpe]

Yea i realise I will have to keep a minimum of 12 to relieve the aggression. The thing I did wonder is, how do you go about keepeing more females then males? I have heard they are really hard to sex because the male and females look so alike so say for instance I get 12 of them and 8 end up being males and the other 4 females, will this make them more aggressive or wont it matter because the the fish wont be able to tell the difference either???

Ok so I will keep just the dems for now, but when I do upgrade my tank, what kind of fish will react well with the dems??? Just other mbuna or is there other species?

Thanks

Harris

Yellow labs are good with Demasoni. The colours are stunning and contrasting.

Thanks fifer. Anybody else recommend anything? maybe something a bit less common?

 

[dthoffsett]

I think the chances are pretty good you'll get more females than males, however, once they are sexually mature you should start seeing behavior differences and you may have to remove any bullies.

As for other tank mates, it depends on what you can source. L.caruleus as stated is a classic combination, if you don't want them, metriaclima estherae would work, or the albino variant of pseudotropheus socolofi would look cool. Just avoid any species that looks similar to your dems.

 

[harris_hpe]

ok, cool

What about species from another lake such as Victoria? Is this possable or should I just stick to mbuna? The socolofi look like nice fish. I guess because they are not as aggressive as the dems that they are not posed as a threat?

 

[james41683]

since you have a small tank, have you considered saulosi(sp?). the males have the demasoni pattern and the females are yellow.

 

[dthoffsett]

ok, cool

What about species from another lake such as Victoria? Is this possable or should I just stick to mbuna? The socolofi look like nice fish. I guess because they are not as aggressive as the dems that they are not posed as a threat?

Some of the Lake Victoria species might work, personally I'd just stick with mbuna. Dems tend to ignore any species that doesn't look like them, however, they are quite capable of standing up for themselves if anyone gets too nosy.

 

[harris_hpe]

Do you think I would have any problems keeping Pundamilia nyererei Makobe with them and if so, what sort of quantity and male to female ratio would be recommended?

 

[dthoffsett]

Do you think I would have any problems keeping Pundamilia nyererei Makobe with them and if so, what sort of quantity and male to female ratio would be recommended?

I think they might work, you'll want to be careful on feeding though because the nyererei are omnivores and the dems are herbivores. If you can source some spirulina enhanced frozen brine shrimp, you should be able to feed that once a week with no problems.

There should only be one male nyererei in your tank, and IMO at least 4 females, the males are known to kill any rivals and harrass the females if you don't have enough. You might pm kj23502 as she kept some.

 

[kj23502]

Looks like I came to check out Africans at the right time??

Nyererei are very aggressive fish themselves. I think they'd work. Juvies have a greenish tint to them, until the male colors up.

 

[harris_hpe]

Looks like I came to check out Africans at the right time??

Nyererei are very aggressive fish themselves. I think they'd work. Juvies have a greenish tint to them, until the male colors up.

So you dont think the two species would clash bacause they are both so aggressive???

 

[dthoffsett]

Looks like I came to check out Africans at the right time??

Nyererei are very aggressive fish themselves. I think they'd work. Juvies have a greenish tint to them, until the male colors up.

So you dont think the two species would clash bacause they are both so aggressive???

I think they'd work because they both have high conspecific aggression, which means they are aggressive towards their own species or others that look similar. However, they tend to ignore other unsimilar species, though if they do clash they are both tough enough to avoid once species being too bullied. Hope that makes sense, if not I'll try again.

 

[kj23502]

The males of the nyererei are stunning