The video shows the poor female Taiwan Reef cichlid with nibbled tail and the new (smaller and less colourful) female swimming nearby. She has been followed by a male and a bit harassed by the dolphin but I hope she will make a difference…
The new three have only been added this afternoon so I hope they all get along. Even though they are cichlids and a bit moody. Or a lot moody.
Please excuse the footy commentary, etc in the background. Not very professional I know…
I’ve been doing a partial water change and ‘hoovering’ the fine gravel in my African cichlid tank once or twice a week. They are doing well, always hungry and active and I’ve got two breeding nets hanging on the tank; one has my first baby fish, the other more recent triplets, found when doing a tank clean. I only have a big mopani root and lava rocks in there so I move everything to one side, clean, then do the other side. This is how I discovered and netted the slow moving fish babies.
I have only seen evidence of the blue Acei breeding, the male chasing the females and the larger female with a mouthbrood of eggs. Last night I noticed she has another mouthful! A least she seems to get 3 or 4 weeks between eggs to eat and recover. She is the blue one in the pics with a slightly baggy chin.
The flamboyant male Strawberry Peacock rammed into my arm the last time I was rock moving and nibbled at me. Unfortunately I didn’t have any mark on my arm to show off but really it is a good thing he has such small teeth! I have read online about cichlids attacking human arms in their tanks if they are protecting young or territory. It made me shriek and laugh a lot! A brave fishie.
The original peaceful community tank is doing well. The male Lace gouramis have lovely skirts and seem to be defending territories, the clown loaches pile up together, hide in the tubes and generally mill around. The shrimp are still with us, popping into view occasionally and the rainbows, cory, bristlenose catfish and scissor tailed Rasboras are all living well.
A while back the male bristlenose Stephen was wedged into a smaller ridged tube I had in the tank. I had to cut the tube with scissors to free him which was a bit scary and he suffered nibbled/shredded fins, the poor thing. He took a while to calm down afterwards and has miraculously GROWN BACK his missing fin parts! I can only imagine they are like re grown skin over the structure of his fin bones. Good boy, Stephen.
We had a trip to Maidenhead Aquatics today primarily to return the light tube unit from the canopy of the new tank (Fluval Roma 200). One of the tubes has been flickering and now doesn’t come on at all. The shop fella tested it and will be ordering a new one tomorrow. In the meantime, the old one is back on top of my tank.
I did a partial water change this morning and tested the water. I was pleased to see the Nitrate level was 10-20 ppm, kH was 6 (so I added a generous scoop of the powdered buffer) and there was no evidence of Ammonia or Nitrite…hooray!
I half filled an old clean mayo jar with tank water to double check my chemistry at the fish shop and was told it was all good and Nitrate was low, kH 7. How could I resist a few more fish while I was there? How I ask you?!!
The new tank mates are 2 x female and 1 x male Zebra Obliquidens Astatotilapia latifasciata and 1 x Cuckoo Catfish Synodontis multipunctatus
. The Zebras are milling around happily with the others and the Catfish has found a cave to hide in.
I am very happy with my fish and I hope you have a happy Sunday everyone! 😀🐠🐟
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