# New Ocellatus Gold



## Notorious (Jun 6, 2013)

They came today and seem to be acclimating well. :thumb:


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## ratbones86 (Jun 29, 2012)

Nice those are my favorite shellie!!! Can you pm me where you got them at? Im having trouble getting a hold of some of these guys.


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## Notorious (Jun 6, 2013)

Thanks for the compliment and PM sent


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## OFC4630 (Jun 2, 2013)

I can't wait to find some my self. Nice tank!!!


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## Notorious (Jun 6, 2013)

Thanks a lot these guys are exceeding my expectations. They are so much fun to watch. Always chasing, digging, displaying, etc and have some amazing colors. Really glad I went with ocellatus gold. You can't really tell in the video but they all have a gold base with a bright purple sheen to them. Truly amazing looking fish.


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## anthraxx4200 (Aug 16, 2012)

they can be VERY mean to tankmates until you have a pair or trio. pay attention every day for this as *** had them go and bury a fish before inside its shell or worse kill them inside of shells. made fixing nitrates a big issue till i figured whatever why not clean the shells too. found a big ole corpse in there. just my experience and trying to caution you so that your ready to remove/rehome as they settle in.

PS: its worked this way each time *** had gold occies (3 times now)


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## Mr Mbuna (Nov 16, 2007)

+1 on the aggression. I had a regular male occelatus that killed three females. He would bash them in the side when they were in the shell, pull them out by the tail and then finish them off. I put him in a tank of mbuna eventually and he held his own in there for a year at least. Most aggressive cichlid I have kept (for its size). 
Nice vid; hope they make many babies for you.


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## Notorious (Jun 6, 2013)

Thanks for the comments guys,

Well aware of the aggressive nature of ocies I have read much about them before I got them. I have also kept very aggressive large centrals before so I am fairly experienced with dealing with aggressive cichlids(as well as the whole buy 6 wait for a pair and remove extras routine). I have had the tank split into as many sections as possible using rocks and plants so as to provide many territories and scattered the shells everywhere so that no one fish can claim a majority of them and the reject fish have somewhere to go. There are also mollies in the tank probing in the ocie territory giving them something else to chase. Lots of chasing so far but everyone has a place to escape which is important. I am sure though, they will get more aggressive as they mature. Tank is only meant to hold a trio at most so once that happens the other fish will be removed.


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## 24Tropheus (Jun 21, 2006)

Couple of threads over on the BCA site you may find interesting.
Kind of got enough flack on my posts there without repeating em here.
http://www.britishcichlid.org.uk/phpBB3 ... =9&t=10694
http://www.britishcichlid.org.uk/phpBB3 ... =9&t=10694

Yep everything wrong can work. Everything right can go pairshaped. Its kind of the interest with these guys.
Never happy unless breeding but kind of like a good fight (and even better a killing or two) first.


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## Notorious (Jun 6, 2013)

Great read thanks for the links!

Hopefully keeping them in a 29 as opposed to an 8 or 2ft tank like the OP did in the thread helps things a bit. Again I have tried to divide the tank into as many sections as possible in order to let every fish have a claim to something. In fact there ares still parts of the tank that are un-used. Interestingly enough I feed my fish at the very front center of the tank(well that is not the interesting part) but I have noticed the more dominant golds have moved and taken up territory right in the front center of the aquarium abandoning the other sectors. Kind of interesting how they seem to have a sense of the prime real estate. The further back territories although vacant are rarely used at the moment as everybody tries to figure out who the top dog is and muscle their way to the front. Cichlids never cease to amaze me.

side note:I will probably upgrade this tank to a 3ft tank down the road which will hopefully allow my to keep several males.


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## malawimix (Oct 8, 2008)

I started with 7 in a 29 gallon and cut back to just a trio when they began to breed. I didn't lose any to aggression but didn't want fry getting picked off by the other adults. I still lose fry at about 3-4 weeks if I don't pull them out. For some reason the females pick them off when their next batch is ready to exit the shells.
I have shells spread across the whole tank but the two females chose shells close together in the center of the tank and seem to coexist fine for now.
I saw my first fry in early April and have about 35 pulled out to a 10 gallon grow out now and another round just peeking out of shells.
They are gorgeous fish and fun to watch!


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## Notorious (Jun 6, 2013)

thanks for the reply. Yea I have noticed that two fish do not claim territory and are not allowed to inhabit a shell. Once sits on a rock all the time and the other has dug a pit under another rock and sleeps there. Both fish are doing fine though. Interestingly enough, three golds are now sharing a roughly 6in diameter territory that was previously dominated by one fish. they flare at each other but all three live in the same are. It is probably way to early to tell but this might be my trio. Still... I am going to wait until I know for sure.

@malawimix-did you only remove the extras because you wanted the fry to survive? I am not as worried about that I would like to keep as many in this tank as I can. Defiantly not all 6 but maybe 4.


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## malawimix (Oct 8, 2008)

Yes that's why I removed and sold the extras. I want to raise a bunch of fry. Someday I think I will put together a tang community tank to enjoy and not worry about fry survival but for now my goal is reproduction.


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## Notorious (Jun 6, 2013)

I think I am more concerned with seeing behavior than keeping fry at the moment although i can always separate fish if I want to raise a batch. One of the shellies has somehow maneuvered the shell so the entrance is on the ground and has dug a little sand mound around it. These guys really pack a lot of personality into these little bodies. Then never hide from me and when I hold the little container of NLS in fornt of them, they begin darting to the top of the tank. They really remind me of the big amphilophus I used to keep.


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