# My African Cichlids....



## fishbguy1 (Feb 29, 2008)

Here's some pics of my African Cichlids. They are Psuedotropheus saulosi, and I love them.

They are all females, I started with 3 males and 4 females, but then, all of my males got some mystry desiese, and something started eating them from the insideout, and they all died.

So I was left with 4 females, and 5 or 6 babies, from which I am dependant for a male.

Then, for some reason, one of my females actually started turning into a male. She's no where near as pretty, but is starting to get egg spots, and is blueish gray and black striped, like a male.

But anyways, I cleaned the tank last night, and it was really clean today, so I took some pics.

Here ya are...

The tank: That's a piece of lettuce. They ate it in about an hour.









This is what happenes when they eat alot of veggies: Yes, that's poop.









Adult Females:

















Oldest babies, some starting to get egg spots (MALES!!!):

































Enjoy!


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## Chrisinator (Jun 5, 2008)

Aww! I want some of them! Their so cool lookin!


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## fishbguy1 (Feb 29, 2008)

Thanks...they are cool. They stay small too...4 inches max. I've had the adults for a year and 2 weeks now, when I got them they were about the size of my largest fry now.

They are some of the only africans I would reccomend for a 29 gallon.


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## macclellan (Dec 22, 2006)

The mystery disease was probably bloat. There are a bunch of articles at cichlid-forum.com about bloat and Malawi cichlids and some more or less successful cures. You many want to look into a more appropriate tank, dimension-wise (i.e. more floor space/surface area) over the long term to increase territory space and hence reduce stress, and in turn, bloat. I lost several P. demasoni to bloat due to stress-related causes (not water quality) in a smaller tank. It sucks.



fishbguy1 said:


> But anyways, I cleaned the tank last night, and it was really clean today, so I took some pics.


That's clean? And all of the algae etc.?


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## Chrisinator (Jun 5, 2008)

If he builds the cave thingy all the way to the top, would that give the cichlids more room (hiding places) or will they stay at the bottom no matter what?


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## fishbguy1 (Feb 29, 2008)

You should have seen it before  The algae is on the back of the tank.

It wasn't bloat. They grew a welt on their sides, then it started getting eaten away, almost becoming volcano like in appearence. 

It was not bloat, I know that for sure. I feed almost no meat foods anyways. They get Omega 1 super veggie flakes and pellets, supplemented with zuchinni, romaine lettuce, peas, and grean beans. The only animal protien they get is a chunk of krill or something I drop in for my female albino bristlenose.

I do weekly 5 gallon waterchanges, and they aren't that aggressive of a species. There is occasional chasing, but no torn fins, no starvation (look at the pics, they are fat pigs  ) nothing.

But the illness struck ONLY MALES. One at a time. One male got it, then it died. A week later, another male got it, then it died. Finally, all the males died, and it just went away, like that. I treated the tank with stress guard, and melafix, as was directed by the people at cichlid-forum.

I *might* have some pics of it somewhere, I think I deleted them though.


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## macclellan (Dec 22, 2006)

Chrisinator said:


> If he builds the cave thingy all the way to the top, would that give the cichlids more room (hiding places) or will they stay at the bottom no matter what?


That helps to an extent, but there's really compensation for floor space. That's why cichlid-heads like 125g, 75g, 40B, 30L etc. and not 40H like that, 20H, etc.


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## fishbguy1 (Feb 29, 2008)

I am wanting to add more slate within the next few weeks, but it's not a major concern because there isn't all that much aggression in the tank.

The tank is 2 feet tall...I don't want that much slate to some pouring down on the glass if it collapses...haha It would also make cleaning a %#*@. I already have enough algae issues in it...haha


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## fishbguy1 (Feb 29, 2008)

I know bigger is better, but all I had room for at the time was the 40 tall. I paid next to nothing for it, and it's working out fine except for the algae, which is from my water (off the charts phosphates and nitrates out of the tap)

Like I said before, these things only get 4 inches max. And they aren't that aggressive, even for Africans. I've never before in the year I've had them had anyone suggest a larger tank for them.

They aren't zebras that are mean as hell and get 8 inches long. They are saulosis. Little, dwarf mbuna, that aren't aggressive as far as african cichlids go.


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## macclellan (Dec 22, 2006)

Regardless of what it was, disease sucks. It's not surprising that it was only in males though. That's happened to me too. They fight more trying to get their shag on.

Not feeding meating foods doesn't mean you won't get bloat... the causes are comples and frankly, no one knows... but you can definitely still have problems even with just spirulina flake, zuchini, etc.


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## fishbguy1 (Feb 29, 2008)

But feeding too much meaty foods to africans is a helper to getting malawi bloat. Malawi bloat, so I've heard, is gotten from eating too much animal protien.


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## macclellan (Dec 22, 2006)

Yeah, salousi are pretty mild _as far as Mbuna go_, but 6-8 is probably the limit in that size/dimension tank.


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## macclellan (Dec 22, 2006)

fishbguy1 said:


> But feeding too much meaty foods to africans is a helper to getting malawi bloat. Malawi bloat, so I've heard, is gotten from eating too much animal protien.


That's 1/2 true. Or maybe 15-25% true. My point was that your fish can get bloat even without animal protein in their diet, which obviously means that excess animal protein is not necessary for your fish to get bloat.

http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/malawi_bloat.php


Do you do anything to bring your nitrates down from "off the charts" tap levels?


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## fishbguy1 (Feb 29, 2008)

That's all I had...I had 3 males(was supposed to be 2, but one female turned out to be a male) and 4 females. 

Now I have 4 adults, and 5 or 6 babies.

I watch them all the time, the tank is at the foot of my bed for crying out loud. If there's issues in the tank, I see it almost as soon as it happens.

I took the whole size thing into account when I was deciding what to do with it. The reason that I got the saulosi is because they stay small, and aren't aggressive, as far as mbuna go. I knew what I was doing. I put these pics up to show all y-all my fish, not to be hounded on about how the tank is too small, and the disease was brought upon by stress and whatnot, because it wasn't.

I know what I"m doing with them. I've been keeping them for a year, with no issues other than the all male illness, and I did more than 4 months of research on them before I even got them.

I'm going to bed now, I'll talk again in the morning.


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## macclellan (Dec 22, 2006)

Yeah, picking P. saulosi and keeping the numbers lowish make the best of the space constraints you mentioned above. Not many options for Mbuna that would work in that size tank.

I've always been jealous of this 400g Saulosi-species tank w/vals and anubias:
link


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## fishbguy1 (Feb 29, 2008)

I miss typed, my phosphates are off the charts. My nitrates are high, but not bad enough to hurt anything.

I use allgone pads in the filter. They are an ammonia and nitrate reducing pad.

That tank is SWEET looking. I tried to put vals in my tank, but my fish ate it all...200+ combined feet of it, within a day. I tried vals, but the algae covered them. Once I get algae under control, I'm going to try them again.


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