# where to get these beautiful cichlid?!?!?



## borohands8593 (Apr 15, 2009)

Hey everyone. I look around at the pictures for profiles and at all of your posted pictures and wonder where do you find such beautifully colored fish? I feed mine variety diets of brine shrimp, blood worms, cichlid flakes, shrimp pellets, hikari gold, and soft krill pellets so i believe my diet is varied enough. I also attempt to buy colorful cichlid but they always seem to fade in my tank even though I have a million hiding spots and no two of the same species. The main problem is even finding a local fish store that labels them by their latin name since many places have an "assorted african tank" or some made up english name. Any tips would help thanks guys and nice fish to all of you


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## fancy diver (Mar 21, 2009)

Assorted tanks are usually the most common cichlids. There is only 2 reasons that their colors will fade after you buy them. 1.Getting bossed around, rearranging of pecking order or 2.unhealth. due to improper conditions/ diet,water quality,ph
It would be alot easier to help you w/ some photo's or species info, I can assume you have common mbuna .


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## fancy diver (Mar 21, 2009)

If they are mbuna I would stay away from all the blood worms, krill and things of this type are more for carnivores.Mbuna's are usually herbivorous I only feed vegetable flakes(such as ocean nutrition formula 2 etc) and new life spectrum cichlid pellets.


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## borohands8593 (Apr 15, 2009)

Hey my fish are as follows:
Botia helodes- Tiger Botia-around 4 inches and an effective cleaner!!
Pimelodus pictus- Spotted Pim Catfish - around 3 inches and no problems
Altolamprologus calvus-2.5 inches usually dark black but occasionaly white
Copadichromis borleyi-2 inch female
Aulonocara stuartgranti- 2 inch male (bright blue head but drab body)
Aulonocara "German Red"-3 inch male was beautiful at petstore but colored faded when brought home
Metriaclima lombardoi--1 inch female
Neolamprologus pulcher-2 inch male with vibrant colors(was recently bred and is much more aggressive than the petstore owner led me to believe
I also have 1 unidentified cichlid. I believe it to be from the same family as my Neolamprologus pulcher but it is less aggressive, has rounded fin, is pink/gray with a dark edge on its fin, and it will be a max size of 4-5 inches. *** compared it to pictures in profiles but its scales seem smaller.

My water test 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, and like 5 for nitrates (I have a million live plants. I also have a million hiding spots. My only problem with the water is the pH drops to the 6.5-7.0 range and i cant seem to keep it elevated.


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## borohands8593 (Apr 15, 2009)

Correction with the food, i do not use krill pellets but spirulina pellets sicne they are mroe vegetable based. I also occasionally use your regular flake food. I only really use brine and shrimp pellets because i know the calvus needs a high protein diet and the catfish love it!


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## fancy diver (Mar 21, 2009)

It looks like your mixing quite a bit of different lakes and species. I would decide on which of the types of africans you like best(malawi haps/peacocks or tanganikan or victorians). Do alot of research on this site about these topics. They talk alot about types of setups and how that usually makes for the best environments(mixing,behavior,aggression,water specs etc)Dont get me wrong, Mixed tanks, if researched properly, can work just fine.


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## borohands8593 (Apr 15, 2009)

yea im new to africans and have been reading constantly. I never knew how much was out there im used to south americans and other fish where u just worry about whos gonna eat who. My goal is to get a larger tank and have some nice frontosa and large syndotis catfish. Im not sure what else can go with those though. As for now i have purchased a big assortment just to break into african cichlid and experiment with what works. My main problem is i find a group of cichlids i like, but then the lfs doesnt carry many other from the same environment unless i go all peacock.


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## fancy diver (Mar 21, 2009)

I wish you luck. 
:thumb: :fish:


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## webgirl74 (Jan 30, 2009)

With the mix you have (some veggie eaters, some protein eaters) you're probably safest off feeding them a balanced, high quality pellet or flake food. New Life Spectrum is a very popular and quality food that will serve both types of fish. With the mix you have though, stress may be leading to some of the loss of color. I have juvenile calvus as well and they were in a tank with some more active dither fish. They became quite pale until I switched the tank over to just calvus and now they seem more comfortable, so have darkened up. You also have a lot of smallish fish, so they might not be showing full adult color yet. I see you have a few females with no males of the same species as well. Female fish are often very plain looking, so you won't get a whole lot of color out of those. If you are not doing a male-only tank, consider get 2-3 females for each male and that might get them to color up more as well. Most of the fish you have are not pairing fish, but are harem breeders, your neolamps and altolamps being the exceptions. Your PH is on the low side though, so it would probably help to get that up closer to an 8. Look in the library section on here for buffer recipes. Most pet stores also sell crushed coral and such that will bump up your PH as well. If you're thinking of switching to a bigger tank and want to get frontosa, you'll need a really big tank...like, most people wouldn't recommend anything smaller than 100 gallons. They easily grow to 10-12". You can keep lots of large fish with fronts. A local guy I buy from has about 6 big tanks with fronts and a mix of other fish like venustus and schools of cyps and paracyps.


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