patrick

They are now 2/3" and very nice quality

If it's a 3' tank then you can have either 10 Haplochromis sp. "ruby green" or 10 Paralabidochromis sp. "redfin piebald". You could possibly mix the two species as well, keeping two smaller groups with one male in each. In larger groups the male/female ratio is less important.

If it's a 2' tall tank then maybe a small group of ruby green and then some other fish for the upper layer.

Neochromis onmicaeruleus male is showing a Ptyochromis sp. "Hippo point salmon" who's the boss.

Two juvenile Paralabidochromis sp. "redfin piebald" are having a heated debate

Looks great Brian, I think that the group you got will work really good in that tank

Nice!

How's the aggression with the mbipia?

I keep 6 males and 4 females 3"-3.5" in a 45 gallon species tank and there are no issues, but I don't know how they do with other species.

Just 'cause I want to play devil's advocate:

What about the little spaces in between the gravel? Was the driftwood previously waterlogged or dry? At what rate will your plants be photosynthesizing (they use water for this.) Also as your plants and fish grow, the added mass will displace more water... :smokey:

Let's not forget filters, an FX-5 for example, holds alot of water

Would just like to point out an extremely Scandinavian thing just for my amusement... Februari :shifty:

He he, I fixed it

Astatotilapia nubila are being transferred to a larger tank.

Astatotilapia nubila male

Here I have just stripped two Haplochromis sp. "Ruby green" females.

Here is a picture of a male Mbipia cf. lutea, Yala Swamp

Here is a reason for not stripping a female

I love this part, when the female let out the fry and then keep an eye open for predators. Once in a while she will scoop them up and move them to a safer place. This is one of my older females and she is about 4 inches. She is a very good mother that will not spit the fry no matter what. She will even pick figths with other females and even males, headbutting them since she can't really use her mouth. I moved her to the spit tank a few days ago. There is about twenty fry in this batch which is pretty good for this particular species.

..unless there was unusual high amounts of chlorine in the water when you did the water change on saturday, not enough to affect the fish, but enough to kill the filter bakteria. This could have caused the ammonia levels to slowly rise. The 25% waterchange on tuesday would have diluted the ammonia temporary, until this morning when it was high again. If this is the case then you are going through a new cycle. Prime will bind the ammonia but you could end up with a nitrit spike... maybe adding some seachem stability to be safe?

I don't think it's your water supply. You said it started yesterday (tuesday) and last time you did a waterchange was saturday. If it was the water you would have noticed something earlier, and it would have gotten worse when you did another 25% change yesterday. It seems far fetched to me that it could be the wood, but if that's the only change you've done... Was there fish in the tank where you had the wood?

Ammonia poisoning is damaging to the gills and other organs, which causes the fish to breath heavily. Nitrite will irritate the fish and it will start shaking and rubbing itself against objects. Did you check to see if maybe you have a dead fish somewhere in the tank that could potentially build up ammonia faster than your nitrification bakteria can handle? Gill flukes also cause heavy breathing. I don't think your oxygen levels are low if you have good surface agitation, unless your temperature is really high.

I was practicing my fish photography, so I figured I'd throw up a few updated pics of the inhabitants of my 46g corner tank....

Any comments are welcome!

Nice and crisp shots

Neochromis omniraeruleus

Closeup

Paralabidochromis sp. "redfin piebald". One of the juvies for sale. This is a WB male.

Paralabidochromis sp. "Rock kribensis".

Xystichromis sp. "Kyoga Flameback" (Haplochromis sp. "all red nawampasa") spawning.

By the looks of your set-up you are headed for disaster. You don't have an overflow (we're talking about a portion of the display tank sectioned off where water can only enter from the top). It looks like you have a direct siphon, which means that if the power goes out or your pump fails, most of the main tank will be siphoned into your sump, which of coarse can't handle that volume of water and will flood.

Have you tried unplugging the pump to see what happens?

Boom :boom:

Yeah.... from the looks of it, if the power goes out, almost 2/3 of the water will end up on the floor :shock:

In general, only females are OB. Blotch colour genes are on the W sex chromosome (males are ZZ and females are WZ). If a fish lacks the W chromosome it grow up as a male, otherwise it will grow up as a female. In most OB fish from Malawi and Victoria cichlids males are plain, females are blotched. In some species males are blotched as well. In these cases the males are actually females but they also have a gene that blocks female development, so they grow up as males.

In some rare cases, such as with the vic Paralabidochromis choromogynos, the blotch coloration is more advanced with one gene deciding wether the fish is OB or not, and an another gene that controls the size and intensity of the blotches.

That is one amazing chromogynos! He is very stunning, how about pics of his son?

Thanks everyone

That is one amazing chromogynos! He is very stunning, how about pics of his son?

I don't have a recent shot of his son but he looks very similar

Congrats to some really awesome fish Taylor. I hope they will spawn for you so we get to see some fry

It's been a while since I posted any pictures of my dominant male. Yesterday I captured this picture right after an intense battle that he had with his own son! Big daddy won this one but from the looks of it his son will soon outgrow him, and then we might have a power shift :boxer:

Thanks guys

I love those Matumbi's! Nice videos Patrick, it gives us a better look at the way the fish are than just pics- really makes me want to get mine! Can you get any video of the Red Fin Piebalds? I'd love to see some footage of them.

I'll try to get some piebalds but I got a crappy light in that tank, yellowish and not very bright.

Quality could be better, but click "watch in high quality" to the bottom right- it makes a difference

Here is a short clip of Neochromis onmicaeruleus

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=y0RDoAB-GQ0

Paralabidochromis chromogynos

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=8RoqRcPTJ90

Here is the 75 gallon tank with Lipochromis sp. "matumbi hunter". They decided to rip the horthworth apart so there are pieces floating around...

About 20sec into the movie a male in the left corner start flashing trying to lure a female down to his hideout.

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=NVqwQQQNEVE

Looks like a Haplochromis sp. "Thick skin". If you were to give him a few females he would color up significantly.

Here are a few good pictures of Pundamilia nyererei. Check out the typical barring on the sides.

http://www.ciklid.org/artregister/artreg_visa_art.php?ID=190

This is how "Thick skin" normally looks like:

http://www.ciklider.se/viktoria/haplochrom...hick_skin.shtml

Beautiful nyererei tydus!

Here is a picture I took of my kyoga flameback male last night. He did not want to pose so I surprised him in his hideout.

Beautiful fish Jorg