Strikingthematch Cichlid Tank

First topic message reminder :

Well now everyone gets to look at my other display tank.
This is my 125gal tank. As seen ***HERE*** it has a DIY background. I changed the substrate from those pictures since it is now a dedicated Cichlid tank and the plant substrate in there won't do any good...

Now the substrate is just sand. The rest is slate. I laid one large slate at the bottom to avoid any problems with the Cichlids or the Pleco digging. All the other slate rest on the one large one to help distribute the weight and hopefully not collapses due to the digging!

I may add more slate in the future I only got for large pieces to see how I liked the look and so far I really enjoy it.

I adopted the fish from a guy who was moving and didn't feel he could provide them with the care they needed. It was good to see someone who cared enough to re-home his fish! A big thank you to him for allowing me to take over. The fish are for the moment very happy and content in their new home! Some pictures of them on here as well not sure what they all exactly are since he didn't know but I took some guesses.

The Tank




Pseudotropheus crabro(female)





Melanochromis auratus(female)


Pseudotropheus socolofi





Melanochromis joanjohnsonae (Looks to be one female, one male)
This is the female looking JJ you can see much less blue and more of a green color with orange/red spots.



The male nearly all blue with a few spots.



11 Labidochromis caeruleus












(Kenyi Cichlid --Lombardoi Cichlid both male and female now)


Also a shot of the Synodontis nebulosus. This guy only really comes out at night so this is about the best photo I can get haha.




And the leopard

Thanks ben. I was a little worried about the 2+ hour drive home and since it had at that point been in a bag for 6+ hours but it went well and after a little acclimation period she went in the tank and took right off. The next day she got some of the blue back in and the spots on the fins brightened up so i was very happy.

LOL, you have to tell them their names too. The Pleco is Buster. The Bumblebee is Lucille, with the Golden Mbuna being Lucille II. Tobias is our Blue Zebra and then the newest is Gob.

I would be willing to bet you picked those names and not Chris. I could be wrong but I had to put it out there.

Ben.. I'm with ya on that assessment...

LOL. Actually when we adopted the cichlids, those were already their names. I just decided to go with the flow and name the last one Gob.

Ash.. so let me get this straight. The cichlids were already named when you adopted them.. so you decided NOT to change their names out of fear of them not coming to you when called?

Lmao, I just thought the names were cute as hell. I never bothered naming my fish, except my Beta who I named Morpheus. But I couldn't take their names away from them. Cities would fall and there would be havoc throughout the land if I did that. :P

I hear ya.. I've only named 3 that I currently have.. well.. now 4.. the Agassiz I bought at the auction is named "my cichlid"... the three angels in my sig. are all from Vix... various swaps.. (with one more to come! a juvie marble)... Spike is a male that has participated in a few trysts in Vix's tanks, creating a number of progeny... Vix can add more details.. being the stud that he is, he got the name Spike.. Sparky is a blue platinum that was being excluded from a school of the same sort but has incredible shimmering sides. .hence the name Sparky... the last one, a DD angel naturally got the name Spook as in Spooky... scary... ya know...

Oh Ash.. if you do ever decide to rename one or any of your fish and it creates an issue... here is a link on CL - Richmond about a "pet communicator"... http://richmond.craigslist.org/pet/2250200127.html

Perhaps that person can explain things to the fish...

williemcd wrote:

I hear ya.. I've only named 3 that I currently have.. well.. now 4.. the Agassiz I bought at the auction is named "my cichlid"... the three angels in my sig. are all from Vix... various swaps.. (with one more to come! a juvie marble)... Spike is a male that has participated in a few trysts in Vix's tanks, creating a number of progeny... Vix can add more details.. being the stud that he is, he got the name Spike.. Sparky is a blue platinum that was being excluded from a school of the same sort but has incredible shimmering sides. .hence the name Sparky... the last one, a DD angel naturally got the name Spook as in Spooky... scary... ya know...

Hey Bill I've been around fish for a long time but I've NEVER seen an angel with Double D's this one I've got to see

I'm just repeating what the Vix told me... haven't a clue as to what I'm talking about! LOL... so my research brought this up! http://www.angelsplus.com/ArticleGenetics2.htm
I call it a girl cuz she's so sexy!

Well I have managed to adopt some more Cichlids (don't you just love free fish!!) from the area. Wanted to post up some of the latest pictures. They are small (around 2in) but getting along well with the larger ones in the tank. The albino ones add some nice contrast to the dark rocks and even through they are not all mbunas they do seem to not bother each other.

what a find! They look awesome! Bill

Nice find Chris. So whats Ash gonna name these ones?

Eenie, meenie, miinee and moe.. and moe and moe and moe?

Very nice job you did on the tank

Great looking tank and fish, very nice

Very nice. I like it.

Nice setup!!

Thanks everyone yet again!

I added some more slate to give some varied spots for everyone to hide. I'll have to get those pictures up at some point here. I am more or less planning ahead since I will be steadily getting more Cichlids if I am ever able to find more variety of Mbunas or at least some other lake Malawi Cichlids. My local stores here carry "a few" but most are peacocks, Hybrids, or SA.

very nice tank!!!

Well wanted to add some of the new Cichlids I got this past week. My LFS finally got some different fish in.

Pseudotropheus socolofi





Melanochromis joanjohnsonae (Looks to be one female, one male)
This is the female looking JJ you can see much less blue and more of a green color with orange/red spots.



The male nearly all blue with a few spots.



Also picked up 11 Yellow labs from a CL deal. The larger of them is a female that has raised fry a few times.

Here is another shot of the supposed female JJ



Also a shot of the Synodontis nebulosus. This guy only really comes out at night so this is about the best photo I can get haha.



And another shot of the Red Zebra fry.

It has been a very long time since I updated this. So long in fact that I have since got another pair to breed and how have free swimming fry from them haha. At out last chapter meeting I picked up a Male Metriaclima lombardoi (Kenyi). It was funny because the first meeting I attended I got a female Kenyi and she had grown up during that time!

Well this male wasted NO time. He is in many respects the king of the tank now(taking the crown from the "bumble bee". He has certainly claimed the largest portion of the tank to himself out of any other fish in there. It was not even a month after it went in the tank that I noticed the female was holding.

A few days ago I got my first glimpse of the new fry. Very small but already brightly colored!

Nice job on the tank. Let me know when you get some yellow lab fry.

Nice. Glad to see your Kenyi are getting along well.