Zedd Posted July 25, 2005 Report Share Posted July 25, 2005 Hi there, we are fairly new to tropical fish and have just set up a tank with cichlids. We have 2 young dubouis (sorry about spelling) the spotty ones who change. And 2 electric yellows. The electric yellows are behaving (we think) a bit oddly. They spend a lot of time staying quite still in a cave, we have yet to see them eat (have had them nearly a week). We changed tank around and made more caves they seemed happier but are still not very active. PH and everything else is fine. The two different sorts of cichlids don't bother each other at all. We have looked online but can't find anything to help. So we thought one of you guys was bound to be able to give us some advice. We are pretty sure that we have a male and a female. Thanks Paul & Nicolle Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faran Posted July 25, 2005 Report Share Posted July 25, 2005 It's fairly common to have your fish breed pretty fast when given proper conditions. As a matter of fact, if you have opposite sexes and certain conditions it's hard to make fish NOT breed. I'd try and look into the cave nad see if you can see anything going on. If you see them being territorial then you might have breeding as well. Aside from that, are you doing regular partial water changes? There's more to freshwater than just pH. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
herefishiefishie Posted July 25, 2005 Report Share Posted July 25, 2005 Hello Paul & Nicole, Sometimes cichlids may take a bit of time to settle in. Yellows can be shy, no kids banging the tank? I wouldn't worry to much about it if they fish still apear to be in good nick. Just incase, (a) what are you feeding them? (b) How big are they? © What makes you think they are m & f? (d) how big is the tank & how is set out? Frenchy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
malawi_man Posted July 25, 2005 Report Share Posted July 25, 2005 what are you feeding them?? i'm worried about bloat for the duboisis Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
herefishiefishie Posted July 26, 2005 Report Share Posted July 26, 2005 Heres some interesting reading on Electric Yellows. First an article done by a Andrea, a lady on the forums here, (still on going as she finds more informaation) its about the quality of yellows in australia. http://www.sydneycichlid.com/content/?page_id=132 One more for fun by Ad Konnings, has wild caught pics too. http://www.cichlidae.com/docs/authors/konings_ad.jpg & a pic of a wild caught yellow, from the states. Frenchy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zedd Posted July 26, 2005 Author Report Share Posted July 26, 2005 Hi there, I'll give you some more information. We think they may be male and female because of the colouring - one of them has a lot of black in the lower fins where the other has none. Although in saying that there are no signs of aggression and they don't really hang out together much, the one with lighter colouring hangs out more with the dubosis. We are aware of the food thing and a very careful what we put in so that we don't bloat the dubosis. Mainly we are feeding them some flakes (which we have stopped as nobody likes them), Tetra Cichlid mini granules, JBL Novo vegetable food, and frozen cichlid mix. The tank is a 90 litre which has fully cycled and the fish are fairly small about 4-5 cm. There are plenty of caves and some fake plants in there. Like I said they seem ok just not moving around as much as the dubosis, and we haven't seen them eat. Yes we have been doing regular water changes, we have had them for a week today and done two changes - is that enough. Would be very grateful for any advice, they are beautiful and would hate to loose them because we are doing something stupid. We have realised that the different eating habits means that they probably weren't the best mix, but we have them now and hope that we can keep them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zedd Posted July 26, 2005 Author Report Share Posted July 26, 2005 I have just looked at the link you put in Frenchy - thanks for that. I do realise that the tank is a tad small, but I have plans to move them to a bigger tank as soon as we can afford it. We have seriously been bitten by this bug!! Any loss is awful. If we can learn to look after the cichlids well we would like a much bigger cichlid feature tank, and we are also talking about a feature discus tank - boy do we need to win lotto :lol: I will try and load a picture of the cichlid tank on tonight. once again thanks to everyone for all your advice. Paul & Nicolle Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faran Posted July 26, 2005 Report Share Posted July 26, 2005 Hey Zedd, just saw your tank setup in the other section. Is that an AR980T? Nice setup, nice and tall. Couldn't see much in the pics tho... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
herefishiefishie Posted July 26, 2005 Report Share Posted July 26, 2005 The duboisi are very active swimmers & I'd say your yellows are fine. Yellows being mbuna can handle the same diet as the duboisi. I'd be feeding them anything high in spirulina. Mysis shrimps once a week for something different. Your tank will be fine for a while. Just one thing to be careful with is the duboisi when they get bigger, they may be very harsh towards each other. Tropheus are best kept in a group of 10 or more, or on their own. Frenchy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zedd Posted July 27, 2005 Author Report Share Posted July 27, 2005 Well our worst fears have come to fruition. One or the yellows has died and the other one is probably not far behind. I'm stumped the PH is around 8.0 The water has been changed a couple of times in the last week, there is no nitrite or amonia showing up in the tests. The dubosis seem fine but from the day we put the yellows in the tank we never saw them eat once. Strangley their behavour was not that odd - a little shy and quiet but they swam around a bit - they just never ate anything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
malawi_man Posted July 27, 2005 Report Share Posted July 27, 2005 were they getting skinny?? did you ask the people/shop that you got them form what they were feeding them, maybe they didn't know how to eat it :-? sounds pretty strange but hey, anything is possible. 8) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
herefishiefishie Posted July 27, 2005 Report Share Posted July 27, 2005 I'd say your yellows are fine What do the ones still left in the shop/source acting like? As said earlier what are they feeding them? If there were ph differences at the shop/source to your place, or if the yellows had paraisites, nitrites,ammonia ..... then the fish will be breathing heavy. From what you say they are not, which leads to internal problem, bacterial infection & the like. Which leads me back to the source. When I bought my yellows(got about 20 from 4 places) 2 of them I noticed after a couple of days acted different to the others, not as active, anyway both died. (I jacked up UV Sterilser to tank for security) All others were/are fine. My thought was that the "2" were very similar & probably ones I got from either source 3 or 4. From which I only got 2 yellows from each of. On returning to just have a look & see, at one source there was a dead yellow & a couple not looking good.(They seemed fine 5 days earlier) But another important point, they were on a system & they had problems in other tanks. A reminder to myself to check properly next time. To me no point having them on,(I got a shrug of shoulders when i noted the deaths) I wouldn't want a fish again from them. I am sad to here your loss, if I was there I would donate a couple of mine, yellows are such a lovely fish. Anyone there have good yellows? Frenchy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zedd Posted July 28, 2005 Author Report Share Posted July 28, 2005 Thanks everyone, the other yellow was dead this morning, will call into the shop they were bought from this weekend and check the rest out. It must have been from there, can't think of any other reason. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beachy Posted July 28, 2005 Report Share Posted July 28, 2005 Totaly off topic, here is a pic of my 6 foot malawi setup, i dont have this tank any more, i look at the pics and wonder how i got away with putting that much weight in there. Any way i thought i would share, and sorry for your losses , i used to feed spirulina flake to mine, they seemed ok for my e/yellows, might not be ok for your others though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zedd Posted July 31, 2005 Author Report Share Posted July 31, 2005 Well we bought a couple more yellows and they are doing fine very different fish. It's a very small world, while at Jansens we ran into DG who overheard our story and recognised us from here. Well we ended up back at her place and came home with a few more cichlids and a couple of baby bristlenoses. The new cichlids are all doing fine so we must have just got a bad pair from the first shop. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
herefishiefishie Posted August 2, 2005 Report Share Posted August 2, 2005 Glad to here things are now going well. Frenchy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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