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"the Dark Side" Of Tanganyika


TaraBrad
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Hey all,

So a few weeks ago, I'd put a down payment on a pair of Green Dragon Flowerhorns at Gold's Aquarium in Calgary, with the intent to pick them up the following week and pay the remainder of the balance. So anyway, my girlfriend needed urgent dental work that seriously belted me in the pocketbook(stupid insurance company won't cover it, apparently), and unable to contact Dennis, he sold the fish to another party. Now, this is not an angry rant. For the record, I hold no problem with Gold's for taking this course of action and will actually stop into Gold's to apologize to Dennis for jerking him around like that. To my shame, he and I have not spoken since the down-payment.

That's beside the point. Anyway, my girlfriend was seriously second-guessing my decision on the flowerhorns anyway. She's discovered Tropheus. Now, I'm not much for African cichlids, and haven't done much with them in years, but I must admit, these things got my attention. So, like a good fish geek, I started doing my homework. And, I have to say, I'm a little shocked on some of my discoveries.

Firstly, the setup I maintain is a standard 75-gallon, lit by 2 6700K T5HO bulbs and filtered by a Fluval FX5, which I bought specifically for my now-dead flowerhorn project. It is sown with experienced bio-media, and I'm quite happy with it. Thanks to these lights, I can grow algae like no other, as well. In my initial stages of research, I figured that I had enough filtration, and could grow enough algae to supplement a group of perhaps 6-8 fish, which seemed like roughly enough, given their size, for a 75-gallon.

So anyway, I did some reading on a few different sites(I'll provide links if you're curious), that are suggesting colonies of between 25-35 fish for a tank this size! When I read the first one, I initially dismissed it as a self-made expert writing an article, but I found several that actually support this view. That set off alarm bells in my head! As a cichlid guy, I learned to have 2 inches of adult fish per 5 gallons, and a filter rated for 2x your tank volume. I also learned that with Africans(specifically Malawis), to overstock a little bit to spread aggression around, which all makes sense in my mind. However, 25 5-inch fish in 75 gallons seems absurd to me. Does anyone in here actually maintain stocking volumes like this? I understand that it's more fish for the aggression to go around, but this seems a little overboard. It seems to me that the actual physical fish mass in the tank begins to crowd in on each other here, even if you do over-filter to the point that you can maintain proper water quality.

I also did some reading on bloat, and how susceptible these things are to it. I also saw a lot of guys listing a 100% vegetable diet as a necessity, whereas some others were suggesting the addition of brine shrimp. And, by and large, all of them were talking about flake food. Now, for a largish aquarium cichlid, seems to me that flakes just don't cut it. I've been pretty big on NLS, and several live/frozen/fresh foods in the past, but no one really mentioned too much about that, aside from frozen brine shrimp.

The other major question that I found was the issue of domestic vs. F1 vs. wild-caught. For most of my previous fish, I've never been big on wild-caughts. Blame it on my inner environmentalist(tree-hugger!). However, I've heard that F1 is a seriously abused term regarding Tropheus, and that all of the domestic stuff is inbred to the point that they're in terrible shape. Now, having never encountered too many of these in my regular LFS circuit, I'm not sure what to make of it. The most common place I see them is on Spencer Jack's order lists, and everything currently is listed as F1. I'm familiar with Spencer's outfit and don't believe him to be BSing, but, of course, I could forsee him passing along misinformation unknowingly.

So, I appeal to the local Tropheus guys for their wisdom and experiences. Let's have it, guys.

Cheers,

Brad

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I have kept tropheus, some successfully and others not so. The minimum group would be 12 fish hopefully more males than females, ideal ratio would be 1 male for 3 females. When I had my tank set up I had 2 or 3 rock piles with the females roaming the tank and a male setting up base camp at one of the rock piles. NLS is a good food for tropheus. NLS is a good food for tropheus, I have kept a group solely on that. I also have a friend that fed them NLS and brine shrimp once a week.

With tropheus, make sure you have an established tank, keep up with your water changes, they can handle large water changes as my friend changed 50% of the water twice a week.

And when feeding keep an eye on them and keep Metronidizole on hand in case you get bloat.

I know punman, doc polit and darrin88 have kept or are keeping tropheus now.

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When it comes to keeping tropheus there is a ton of BS on the WWW.

Bloat is caused by stress, and almost never triggered by dietary stress, unless the food is full of difficult to digest starch/grain fillers.

I've lost count as to how many people I've seen feeding NLS exclusively & never once encountering bloat. Don Gross here in town probably maintained more tropehus tanks & species of tropheus than you will ever see in one room, and he also fed NLS, and had zero issues with bloat even when keeping adult breeding groups in 24x24" tanks. At that time he was keeping & breeding Kambwimba Red Rainbow, Ilangi, Bembas, Duboisi Maswa, Ikola Kaiser, Kiriza Kaiser II, and Bulu Point cherry spots. I grew out a dozen of his T. Kambwimba in a 50 gallon bare bones tank & also never had any bloat issues. About the only thing that growing algae in your tank will accomplish is assist in keeping the fish busy, and occupied on something other than each other. :)

IMO the vast majority of bloat cases with herbivorous cichlids has nothing to do with the diet, but with other stressful factors, such as aggression, lack of shelter, water quality, etc., which in turn can cause a 'normal' amount of intestinal pathogens to proliferate to harmful numbers. Ad Konings & many otthers concur with this. In some cases it may be nothing more than survival of the fittest, which is what takes place in Lake Malawi & Lake Tanganyika every day. A fish with a weak immune system will obviously be the first fish to succumb to illness if/when stress becomes a factor, no matter what you feed them.

These are definitely not beginner fish, they can be nasty pieces of work & if by the luck of the draw you end up with too many dominant males, or some smaller weaker specimens, the stress from aggression can end up triggering bloat within the colony.

The secret to keeping tropheus successfully is as follows.

1. The larger the tank the better.

When conversing with Mark Young (at that time a collector & exporter living on the shores of Lake Tanganyika) he told me that in his experience dom males would stop chasing at the 6-8ft mark, so he built all of his concrete vats 12 ft. End of aggression problems.

2. The more fish that you can accommodate in your tank the better, it helps spread aggression so that no one fish is ever singled out and chased or harassed relentlessly.

Mark kept hundreds of tropheus together in his 12 ft vats, but they also held several hundred gallons of water. In a 75 gallon, I would go with a min of 15 adults, 20 is doable and probably better, so if buying juvies get 25-30, which will allow you to remove extra males as the fish mature.

3. Massive water changes on a regular basis, and high levels of 02 at all times.

These fish are found in the surf zone, where there is lots of current & high 02 levels. If you don't like water changes, pass on tropheus, as the more fresh water that you can throw at them the better. Even in Mark's massive tanks he had a constant 24/7 flow of water being exported out of the bottom, and a constant 24/7 flow of fresh water coming in.

4. The less territory there is for dom males to fight over, the better.

While not many people like bare tanks with no rock work, with tropheus less = more. Mark's large vats were typically void of any type of structure that a dom male might claim as being his. Sometimes he would add a few boulders when adding a new group of wild fish just to help calm them, once the fish settled in then out the rocks came. Other than a sand substrate, Don G's tropheus tanks were always bare as well.

5. Keep the diet simple, feed small amounts 2-3 times a day, vs one big meal a day.

Personally I would not feed them brine shrimp to tropheus, but that's just me. These fish thrive on the KISS method of fishkeeping.

The more that you deviate from the above, the more risk you will have in stressing out your fish, and potentially having them come down with bloat. Sometimes you can push the envelope and it's all good, and sometimes it can end up a disaster.

Below is a pic of one of Mark's tropheus 'tanks".

mark3.jpg

HTH

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I have kept tropheus for three years. My first group were 30 juveniles in a 90 gallon which I pared down to 20 as adults.

I am now on my second group of juveniles (almost adults) also 30 in a 90 gallon. In both cases they were (are) fed NLS only and have never lost a juvenile or adult. PM me if you want my phone number to discuss.

Both groups were via Spencer Jack. I will eventually have fry for sale but have only 5 at the moment and that is not enough.

Edited by punman
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Thanks RD, lots of good advice.

Punman what type of tropheus are you breeding?

I have a 6' 125 I am looking to use for some nice Trophs. I actually managed to breed a single pair of Tropheus moorii "Green Murago" in a 55g with mixed Tangs about a year ago. Must of been a big fluke. They came from a big group and the male eliminated all the others except this one female. They spawned several times to my surprise, but he eventually killed her when I moved things in the tank.

Good luck with Trophs Brad. They look great in a big colony. You can watch them for hours.

Cheers

:beer:

Edited by Burbot
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Thanks RD, lots of good advice.

Punman what type of tropheus are you breeding?

I have a 6' 125 I am looking to use for some nice Trophs. I actually managed to breed a single pair of Tropheus moorii "Green Murago" in a 55g with mixed Tangs about a year ago. Must of been a big fluke. They came from a big group and the male eliminated all the others except this one female. They spawned several times to my surprise, but he eventually killed her when I moved things in the tank.

Good luck with Trophs Brad. They look great in a big colony. You can watch them for hours.

Cheers

:beer:

It is the Chimba reds that are just starting to breed. I might consider splitting my group of thirty and selling half of the adults.

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Community tanks (and the varying species) take on a whole new dynamic. Even species tanks depend on the species. Mbuna can be crowded, others cannot.

For Tropheus in particular, I'd be hard-pressed to find better advice than that provided by RD.

Good luck with your venture into Tropheus, Brad.

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