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Showing results for tags 'shell dweller'.
Found 6 results
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This is going to be my Neolamprologus similis setup. The substrate is reused black diamond sand mixed with a some arogonite sand, with some flecks of fluorescent rainbow aquarium gravel that I could screen out of the black diamond. We'll see how that goes. I filled it today with San Diego tap water. The murk is, I think, from arogonite. I thought I had rinsed it sufficiently but maybe not. Hopefully it'll settle out. Fish: 0 Kh: 8 Gh: 13 Ph: 7.4 Temp: 76 Nitrates: 0 Nitrites: 0 Ammonia: 0 Deaths: 0- 6 replies
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- newtank
- african cichlids
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Both species are available from members of my local club. I know N. multifasciatus are like, the standard, when you Google shell dwellers, that's what will come up first. But I'm curious about N. signatus, what's up with them? Anything neat about them that I should consider before flipping a coin to decide or just going for the cheapest? Tank is a 29 gal with generic shellie set-up; deep layer of aragonite sand, XL escargot shells, some rocks for breaking up lines of sight, and I may add some floating plants later on. I'm an experienced fish keeper but this shellie set-up will be my first venture into African Cichlids. I'm most familiar with South American catfish and characins. -
Has anyone here ever seen a sex change in aquarium fish? Specifically African or Tanganyikan cichlids? Or have links to threads/articles/sites that discuss it as observed fact, not hypothetically? I know it can happen in nature, but references to it occurring in aquaria appear scarce. Reason for asking is one of my female gold ocellatus shell dwellers in a breeding tank may have changed to male. Appears to have. As a breeding tank, the environment/setup is very simple. There are only 4 adult ocellatus, plus a bristlenose. The 4 breeders include the original male/female pair, plus two daughter females that grew up and were accepted as additional breeding females. The 1+3 setup has only been going for like 8 months or so, but in that time I have seen all 3 females with new/tiny babies in separate shells, in separate territories. So there is no question that I had 1+3. What I'm seeing now, that makes me go "WTF OMG ETC" is one of the females is behaving like a young male I removed a while ago (went from 2+3 to 1+3). At that time, the young male lurked in the background and lived among the anubias/rocks, not so much in a shell. The "changeling" previously lived and bred in a couple different shells, but has now moved back to the rocks. Possibly because the dominant male won't tolerate him/it near the other females. I've also lost a number of babies in the past couple weeks, and that's something that last occurred when the younger (2nd) male was around, and ceased when I removed him. And now I'm seeing it again. So I have a "former female" that is lurking in the background, and missing babies. Ocellatus are hard to sex by coloration, but the changeling has gotten much darker in the face, ie between the eyes and around the snout/forehead area. And the whitish cheek is significantly more contrasty. These are traits I've observed in known or suspected males. Tagging @Zenzo as he's the only other member I know who keeps ocellatus. 🙂 -
I was thinking about doing a 20 gallon with shell dwellers at the bottom and guppies at the top. Is it possible to combine African Cichlids with Community Fish like that? Would they still be able to breed? Has anyone tried out a similar combo? -
Hey guys I'm looking for suggestions on a multie tank. I have a 10 gallon tank that I want to turn into a multie tank. Will a 10 gallon be enough room for these guys? Thank you for any help.
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Hi all: I'm drowning in multies! Some months ago I purchased 7 neolamprologus multifasciatus from my LFS, hoping they would breed. Boy did they ever! Now, I want to redistribute some and sell some back to my LFS (who wants them). Since catching shell dwellers is very difficult when using the more natural-looking escargot shells, I thought I should document the process I will attempt after having consulted Mister Internet: I will temporarily migrate the fish to PVC caves that are easier to empty. I originally gave my multies a 20-gallon long on my Home Depot rack all to themselves: They started breeding almost immediately. I fed the fry freshly-hatched BBS and Aquarium Co-Op Easy Fry Food, and they grew fast. After giving away 7 to a friend and moving 7 more to an office tank, they exploded again (over 20 juveniles just in the pic below)! There were over 30 in the last batch...maybe it was two simultaneous batches? Now that they've grown a little, it's time to find them homes. Extracting them from the shells, one at a time as I was instructed by my LFS (holding the shell out of the water on its side until the fish lets itself slide out), takes hours and can really stress out the fish. Instead, I plan to move the shells higher in the water and entice the fish over a few days to move into some PVC-based caves, from which it will be much easier to get the fish out. So I started by making my caves. Each one is simply a 1-1/2" length of 3/4" PVC pipe glued into an elbow, with a PVC cap that remains removable. I made fourteen: Next, I cut a couple pieces of "eggcrate"-style lighting diffuser, at roughly 4-1/2" x 12" each: My understanding is that shell dwellers prefer to live on the ground, not above it, and generally won't want to swim "upward" to get to their home. So tonight, I will suspend these two eggcrate sheets in the tank as "shelves", and move the shells up there, with the new PVC caves available below. More to come! Bill- 12 replies
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- multi
- shell dweller
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