smidey

what size is your tank? the yellow is trying to avoid being attacked based on what you've said. the best way of keeping africans is to have many more than you have. At least 6 of each species ideally only one or two males. this spreads the aggression over many more fish. Basically, the dominant male will chase everyone else to become or stay the boss, then he'll harass the females for breeding. It's all about who is the toughest, the toughest eats best and breeds the most. Think of african fish as having ten times the normal animal instint when it comes to dominance and breeding behaviour.

i buy them from packaging supply stores, ice bags in a bag of 50 for about $10 i think they were

i'm sure you know what it is. do your males have more prominent top lips than the females?

i reckon that is a female from the pic. nice fish Edit. To elaborate on my theory, all my males have big pronounced top lips and the females are smooth in shape like that.

very cool man, the calvus look awesome

it could be food, what they were being fed. last time i say this. the most important thing i think is feeding the right food, NLS and jbl novorift i believe are the best. You can choose to feed what you wish but that's what i've had great success with.

In my experience they aren't delicate at all, at any size and I've breed around 800 tropheus alone over the years. Of all the fish I've kept and bred the very few I have lost have been due to aggression or an out of the blue thing like one jumped out of the tank. I put this down to the food I feed, nls and jbl novorift. Other than that, they get put from one tank to another including into other peoples tanks, no acclimatizing or any of that and I've not had an issue. They get six times the tank volume per hour and a weekly 30%wc. Sometimes I leave it for two weeks, they are really easy to keep if fed the right stuff think. I regularly freight fish at 1.5cm the length of the country woo weak they are not.

I'm not saying it's bloat, just wondered if you had any experience with them as you referred to them as delicate. Nothing delicate about them I think, certainly if compared to species of other origins. In my experience if the water parameters are some where near what they need to be about the only thing that'll hurt them is the food

Ira, have you kept tropheus or africans in general?

seems very odd. I have found trophs to be very hardie even when small. Can you find out what parameters the tank they came from have compared to yours? I recommend feeding NLS cichlid formula and JBL novorift. i have never acclimatised any africans and haven't had any issues so doubt it's that as well

my tanks vary up to 4 or 5 degrees when i fill straight from the tap doing a 30%. i keep africans, never been an issue

it doesn't make sense to me because i also haven't had any fish deaths either and i don't use any meds at all. i have left them for several days and never had an issue. the tank also gets a good clean as the algae grazing nature of the fish clean it up so they aren't actually being starved the entire time. I'm not saying you shouldn't dose, that's your choice but i think it's a waste of time based on my experience.

i have left them for up to 5 days with out feeding when i have had to. no issues at all and it seemed they bred every time i did so, not sure if there was a connection or just coincidence. not sure about the advice regarding dosing the tank, i haven't and wouldn't. it doesn't make sense to me to do so.

i got rid of mine with flourish excell but i dosed as recommended, not double.

i don't think it matters which species go in first. The dems are most likely to be aggro towards their own kind, it's called conspecific aggressive. Them and other africans, like tropheus are extremely conspecific aggressive but aren't as bad toward other species. They will chase other species but don't take it to the level they do with their own kind. The e yellows will stick up for themselves, as long as they are a similar size it'll be fine. for example, with my tropheus, a pemba will seek out another pemba that's in a group of 6 duboisi. It looks like they can't even see the other species apart from swimming around it.

there's no reason why you can't keep other species, just have to be smaller ones. adding some peacocks will be ok, even some zebras but the lack of depth is your biggest issue. the length is good, they can create territories away from each other. Make it up as you go along, get the yellows and dems and see how it is working out. As time goes on keep an eye out for what fish become available and do research into if they will work and give them a go if you like them. From what i've seen regarding availability of specific species is it can be erratic. You might decide you want a certain species but then none are available for months.

So it's around 140L? The CF1200 will be plenty. The red tops may get a bit big for the width, church how big they get. I can't remember exactly what size they get to

I'd start with around 40 fish and go from there. You can add as you feel like it or introduce another species. As they become adults you may want to reduce numbers but you have plenty if time if your getting juvies or fry.

Years ago I used to feed sushi wrap which I think is sea weed?? I thought it was good to. I also had good success with shelled peas, you may want to try that as well. I stopped when I got the tropheus, was scared of it going wrong haha

30% weekly

just a question, aren't firefox "Tropheus sp. Red" rather than moorri firefox?

usually they are aggro to their own kind (con specific aggressive) and generally leave other species alone as long as they have their own kind to chase/dominate. they do chase other species but never seem to actually go through with fighting and causing damage. Personally, with my experience if i wanted to keep one with those fish i'd give it a go and see how it went. The moorri, like pemba have the down facing mouth and i've noticed they don't do any where near as much damage as duboisi which have the forward facing mouth so when my pemba are fighting limited damage is caused.

you could keep many other species in that tank as well, making it work is more about species compatibility than tank size. Dems and most other malawian species can be kept with yellows

i totally agree with this. big numbers and heaps of food is my advice to anyone that wants to keep africans at their best. as long as you've got plenty of filtration it won't be anything but good for them as long as your feeding NLS, JBL or Sera foods designed for them.

i prefer to keep my africans, tanganyikans specifically now as easy as i can with the least amount of messing around. that keeps conditions stable that the fish will adjust to (minimally) and do well. If your on town supply the water will automatically be near what you need as the water supply needs to be acidic so it doesn't destroy the water supply system. In cases where you are on tank water, like me, concrete tanks are good and plastic tanks make it much harder to get the water to desirable conditions. I have kept africans for years and always set up like this, they have all done well and bred in massive numbers so i know what i do works. If you choose to add chemicals you risk getting it wrong over time and have the water conditions swing and really hurt the fish. Also keep in mind the fish you have or will get are not wild caught fish or any where near it so many generations above them have been kept in fish tanks so wild conditions aren't that important as long as you keep your conditions in a similar nature. My tap water is ph of about 7.4. In my tanks i have crushed marble as a substrate along with whole and crushed shells. I keep the temp about 26, filtration of around 6 times the tank volume per hour with 30% water changes each week. feed good quality food and plenty of it and they will do well. stocking is a completely different setup depending on which species you go for but keep them in big numbers, more than you think is too many usually. once you setup is right they will be easy to keep, you'll have very few health issues and you'll enjoy them a lot with little weekly maintenance.