...Anyone doing anything new or different?...
I've been concentrating on expanding my
Cyprichromis colonies. I have two medium-sized colonies of
Cyprichromis leptosoma Utinta and one small colony of
C. leptostoma Mpimbwe, and I would like to raise enough fry from these to populate all my non-
Tropheus tanks. Cyps are often viewed as dithers for other Tanganyikans because they are one of the few active, open-water fishes from the lake that are available (even though they are still quite expensive). That's a shame in my view, because these delicate, interesting fishes only show at their best when they are kept in large groups, fed appropriately, and have ample space. A maternal mouthbrooder whose territories are 3-dimensional open spaces without any reference to a substrate? It has to be one of the most interesting spawning behaviours I've ever seen.
I now have a couple of 45L tanks that serve as combination brooding/rearing tanks. These are shoaling fishes that do poorly in isolation, even for short periods, and I have found that the best way to handle brooding females is to place them in a tank with other similarly-sized females (midwives, of a sort) and/or fry (which they don't bother). Under these conditions all concerned seem to thrive.
A typical
Cyprichromis brood is only ~6 fry, so this project is taking a while, but spawning is now occurring regularly in both parental colonies. One would not generally keep two distinct
Cyprichromis populations together for fear of hybridization, but Utinta and Mpimbwe can be readily distinguished, even when young, so I will be able to segregate them appropriately before they reach breeding age. Eventually I would like to have 30-40 fishes in each of my 6-foot tanks.
Cyprichromis leptosoma Utinta-
Mpimbwe-
