# Lamprologus ocellatus in tang community tank.



## jamontoast (Apr 13, 2013)

Currently my tang community consists of 6 juvie N. brichardi, 1 Julidochromis regani, 1 Julidochromis marlieri and a Bristlenose pleco. My set up is a 55G 4ft tank with an Eheim 2217 and Fluval C4 for filtration.










After an abortive attempt at breeding ocellatus I've got 1 male and 1 female ocellatus gold in a separate tank. I was wondering if this would work [research suggests that it might, as the other tangs are rock dwellers not sand dwellers]. Once the brichardi mature and start breeding no doubt I'll have to shuffle things to other tanks, but for the moment would adding the 2 ocellatus to the tank be OK?


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## Fogelhund (Dec 3, 2002)

I would swap out the current Julidochromis, and get some of the smaller ones, they typically work ok with the shell dwellers. Pickup a small group of ornatus, transcriptus or even dickfeldi, and then your ocellatus should be fine.


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## triscuit (May 6, 2005)

It seems likely that the brichardi will clean house as soon as they get into a breeding mood. Brichardi can start breeding when less than 2" long. The smaller julies wouldn't last, though there's a chance that if you can get a group of one type of the larger julies (regani OR marlieri) breeding that they can fend off the brichardi.


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## Fogelhund (Dec 3, 2002)

triscuit said:


> It seems likely that the brichardi will clean house as soon as they get into a breeding mood. Brichardi can start breeding when less than 2" long. The smaller julies wouldn't last, though there's a chance that if you can get a group of one type of the larger julies (regani OR marlieri) breeding that they can fend off the brichardi.


They stated when the brichardi start breeding, they'll shuffle them out to another tank. :thumb:


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## jamontoast (Apr 13, 2013)

triscuit said:


> It seems likely that the brichardi will clean house as soon as they get into a breeding mood. Brichardi can start breeding when less than 2" long. The smaller julies wouldn't last, though there's a chance that if you can get a group of one type of the larger julies (regani OR marlieri) breeding that they can fend off the brichardi.


I never really considered this. The plan was basically to move everything out to a different tank and run a brichardi species tank once babies started happening.



Fogelhund said:


> I would swap out the current Julidochromis, and get some of the smaller ones, they typically work ok with the shell dwellers. Pickup a small group of ornatus, transcriptus or even dickfeldi, and then your ocellatus should be fine.


At the moment, the Julies are only 2 and 3.5". Is it their eventual size that will be an issue, or something behavioural that would make the combination of them and the occies unsuitable now?

Also, I'm unclear about intraspecies aggression in Julies. Will my 2 individuals end up going after each other, or would that only be the case if they were a same sex pair of the same species?


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## triscuit (May 6, 2005)

Fogelhund said:


> They stated when the brichardi start breeding, they'll shuffle them out to another tank. :thumb:


Ooops! 



> At the moment, the Julies are only 2 and 3.5". Is it their eventual size that will be an issue, or something behavioural that would make the combination of them and the occies unsuitable now?
> 
> Also, I'm unclear about intraspecies aggression in Julies. Will my 2 individuals end up going after each other, or would that only be the case if they were a same sex pair of the same species?


The bigger julies are known for pulling adult female shell dwellers out of shells in order to get at the fry. Smaller julies have different feeding strategies. There are three equally likely outcomes of having your two julies- they will ignore each other, they will kill each other, or they will breed with each other. They don't care that they're different species, but because of the prevalence of hybrid offspring (especially with julies), I always discourage keeping more than one julie species in a tank.


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## jamontoast (Apr 13, 2013)

triscuit said:


> The bigger julies are known for pulling adult female shell dwellers out of shells in order to get at the fry. Smaller julies have different feeding strategies. There are three equally likely outcomes of having your two julies- they will ignore each other, they will kill each other, or they will breed with each other. They don't care that they're different species, but because of the prevalence of hybrid offspring (especially with julies), I always discourage keeping more than one julie species in a tank.


Hah. ****. Well, let's try and avoid that outcome. The occies can stay in their own tank until the brichardi babies happen. Fingers crossed I get a breeding pair soon. Regardless of the horror stories of 'brichardi death squads' I'm way excited for some colony breeding action.


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