I've been thinking about this, trying to figure out the minimum number of fishes you might think about ordering. If you're just going for one breeding pair in your 40B, then I would consider ordering one male and 4 females. That way you would have a good chance of getting a mated pair, plus 3 extra females to occupy the rest of the tank, and occasionally provide distraction for the pair. There are other ways to do this as well.
Yup. That makes sense. Thanks for the insight. I'll start with one pair and see if they breed as readily as brichardi do.
Oh yeah, set up the tank to their liking and feed them well, and you should have no problem getting fry from them. Frozen brine shrimp really helps get them into spawning condition. I don't remember how big/old they were when they first started spawning, but I don't think it took all that long.
That's a lot of fish food!
Hopefully a year's worthThat's a lot of fish food!
Are there particular varieties you like?
I know you're not asking me, but I'm going to chime in anyway, because this is one of my pet topics. The staples in my fish room are Ken's Ultra Intense Spirulina Flakes, Ken's Ultra Plankton/Krill/Spirulina Flakes, and New Life Spectrum Algae Max Pellets. My featherfins/sand sifters get frozen brine shrimp once a week or so, and my Tropheus colonies get large leaves of fresh Romaine lettuce once or twice a week. I do not tinker with this diet, because it works, and many Tanganyikans are sensitive not only to what you feed them, but how you feed them (for the featherfins, that means a little bit at a time). I also have 'fast days' for all my fishes at least 3-4x per month. I'm convinced that we tend to overfeed our fishes, and fat fishes are not healthy fishes. This may not apply to big cichlids, but many fishes are ill-equipped to deal with the abundant diets we provide them with in captivity.
LOL, I love to hear what other fish keepers feed! I totally agree that aquarium fish can and do get overfed. I have resorted to measured out pill boxes for the 300 so that I am not heavy handed with the feeding. Plus its just a once a day feeding for these near adult fishes.
I order the premium krill pellets 3mm, premium cichlid pellet 1.5mm, and green protein fry pellet .5mm. I have fed flakes before and do when given to me but I prefer pellets as they don't turn into dust in the container.
That's true; I can't tell you how many bags of flake-food-dust I have in my supply closet. There are never going to be enough fry to get rid of all that stuff!
I soak the 5-6mm plus sized Ken's krill pellets before feeding. I will probably have to do the same with the smaller ones. They are a very dense pellet.That's true; I can't tell you how many bags of flake-food-dust I have in my supply closet. There are never going to be enough fry to get rid of all that stuff!
That said, I do not like pellets, except for large fishes. Grazers and foragers never encounter such a solid, concentrated food mass in nature, and many of them have a difficult time digesting such things. All of my fishes, whether strict herbivores or omnivores, have really long GI tracts, and are very sensitive to digestive overloading. Flakes are more gentle, and the only way to go with such fishes. I learned this the hard way.
That's a good idea; I never thought of that...
I thought 'Casper' was supposed to be friendly...
