# I need more saulosi females!



## bwestgsx06 (Sep 21, 2011)

In all honesty I love these guys and had two of my three females holding at the same time - within days of each other! They both spit into a 55 but I need more females (preferably 5) so that my two males will cool it.

Also, need some recommendations for making this 125 a mbuna tank if I decide to keep the saulosi. My wife likes their colors and their little babies too much to just get rid of them so most likely my other assortment of fish will be sold.

I am also interested in getting some syno. Multi if I can find them for their breeding behavior.

Anyways - can anyone help me out here? Offer some species groups that will work? I had wanted to do demasoni and yellow labs but these practically fill that slot already. Let me know please


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

Acei. Maingano. Albino socolofi. I'd probably do enough saulosi to fill two species slots to get a bunch of males.


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## bwestgsx06 (Sep 21, 2011)

What do you mean by that? What would your ratios be?


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## cantrell00 (Oct 30, 2010)

bwestgsx06 said:


> What do you mean by that? What would your ratios be?


I think DJ means that if you are buying more, buy a bunch. 3-4M/7-9 females long term


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## bwestgsx06 (Sep 21, 2011)

What would my numbers be for the other species? Can someone PM me a good source to get sexed female saulosi and other mbuna?


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## cantrell00 (Oct 30, 2010)

Maingano 1/7, Everything else 1/4.


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## cantrell00 (Oct 30, 2010)

Finding mature, sexed mbuna can be difficult. Saulosi are getting harder to find also..


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## b3w4r3 (Dec 14, 2012)

Since you already have saulosi fry just grow them out and pick some females for your main tank. They mature pretty quickly so just remove extra males from the main tank for now if they are a problem, then add some back when your fry are around 1.5 inches.


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## bwestgsx06 (Sep 21, 2011)

Ya I have some fry growing out but it'll be months before they're ready to be in the tank and I have a feeling the females will be holding again by than - the male is relentless!


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## cantrell00 (Oct 30, 2010)

bwestgsx06 said:


> Ya I have some fry growing out but it'll be months before they're ready to be in the tank and I have a feeling the females will be holding again by than - the male is relentless!


All things considered (including cost), this is going to be your best bet..

Thy should be close to 1' long in 3 months..


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

What we do is buy unsexed juveniles, and buy 2X as many fish as you want females. So if you want 9 female saulosi, buy 18 fish. Then rehome extra males as they mature.


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## bwestgsx06 (Sep 21, 2011)

This whole rehome thing is pretty difficult around here because no one will give credit for returning fish bought there and no one will give credit for bringing in good fish for their store


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## timbo6684 (Aug 29, 2010)

Last Sept I bought 19 saulosi fry hoping to get close to a 50/50 ratio in order to do a 3 male 9 female setup. So far I've sold 5 fully colored males via craigslist and have selected the 3 males to keep. Unfortunately it looks like I have an additional 5 or so sub dom males....my female stock seems to be dwindling. I plan on moving any suspected males to another tank to verify their sex without venting. I've heard the unique water in my area produces more males than normal but this is my first experience with that. As far as the difficulty to rehome/sell, I suggest craigslist and direct your potential buyers to the C.A.R.E.S. program so they know how unique p. saulosi are.


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## bwestgsx06 (Sep 21, 2011)

Ya that doesn't sound like too bad of an option - right now I have 20-25 little guys growing out but they were spit within the last week and won't be ready to help grow the population for awhile.

In the meantime I also have to try and find space for my CA/SA's that I have in the tank because they will eat any mbuna fry or youngsters


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## Floridagirl (Jan 10, 2008)

Saulosi are very male heavy for some reason. The least expensive option is to buy fry/juvies of all the species you want and grow them up with your Saulosi fry.


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## Mschn99 (Dec 24, 2012)

Mine just started breeding. Earlier this year i purchased 34 of them at around 1.5". I had a heck of a time finding them in volume. I could find a ton of places that had a few, but nobody had a large enough volume for what i wanted. I want a colony with 10-15 females.


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## bwestgsx06 (Sep 21, 2011)

Do you have any pics of your set ups? I shouldn't add any pseudo. To this because they might cross breed, right?


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## 7mm-08 (Jan 12, 2012)

There are definitely other Pseudotropheus you could have. Pseudotropheus is a catch-all that many fish are put into before they're really looked at and classified. You'd want to stay away from blue-barred fish and solid yellow ones. As long as they look significantly different and don't vary too much in temperament they should be fine. I've mixed saulosi with Ps. elongatus, Ps. perspicax, and Ps. elegans just to give a few examples off the top of my head.


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## bwestgsx06 (Sep 21, 2011)

Melanochromis cyaneorhabdos (formerly known as Melanochromis "maingano" or misspelled as "manigano" might be under the Pseduotropheus name as well)
Pseduotropheus Flavus
Pseduotropheus Elegans (any variant of these Acai would probably suffice)
Metriaclima sp. (Zebra Chilumba) from Luwino Reef
Metriaclima estherae from Minos Reef (Red Zebra's)
Labidochromis caeruleus Nkhata Bay ''White Lab''
Iodotropheus sprengerae (Rusty's)
and also Synodontis multipunctata (cookoo catfish)

Let me know what you guys think - I'm currently trying to grow out about 25 fry that are about a week old right now in a 55 in my garage.


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

I'd avoid all the zebras. Some are blue barred and the estherae females are orange...too close to the saulosi females being orange-yellow for my taste.

The maingano and acei were posted earlier as recommendations. The white labs would be nice too.

So if you did 3m:12f saulosi plus 1m:7f maingano and 1m:4f acei and 1m:4f white labs that would be just right.


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## bwestgsx06 (Sep 21, 2011)

and skip the rusty's?


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## IanR29 (Dec 13, 2012)

Personally I think rusties would be one of the best to put in with saulosi.


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## bwestgsx06 (Sep 21, 2011)

Ian what kinda fish is in your profile pic? Cyno. White top hara or something? Any chance they'd work with saulosi?


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## Jmanolinsky (Jun 4, 2010)

I have a saulosi, red zebra, rusty tank and I like the mix. I don't think the male or female zebras look like the female saulosi. Just giving my experience.

Jman


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## bwestgsx06 (Sep 21, 2011)

DJRansome said:


> I'd avoid all the zebras. Some are blue barred and the estherae females are orange...too close to the saulosi females being orange-yellow for my taste.
> 
> The maingano and acei were posted earlier as recommendations. The white labs would be nice too.
> 
> So if you did 3m:12f saulosi plus 1m:7f maingano and 1m:4f acei and 1m:4f white labs that would be just right.


And no rusty or white top hara?


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

I like 5 species in a 125G and with saulosi in two species slots plus maingano (extra fish due to aggression), acei (big fish) and white labs it would be just right for me.

You could do 1m:4f of saulosi plus the rusties.

IDK if I would do hara and saulosi. The reason they work with demasoni is demasoni have a LOT of black...more than saulosi IMO.

If you want 6 species I would not have a problem with rusties.


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## bwestgsx06 (Sep 21, 2011)

well since I already have 2 male saulosi I would need to do a bigger group of them. I'd be fine with a big group of saulosi and mainganos and than maybe acei


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## Super Turtleman (May 21, 2007)

As for the Saulosi issue, grow out some of those fry. That's what I did. Grew out a couple batches and now I have a nice big group. 4M 16F in my 55G (I did get some unrelated males to mix in new blood). With some White Labs and S. multipunctatus. Busy tank.


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## bwestgsx06 (Sep 21, 2011)

Do you have any pics of this setup?


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## Super Turtleman (May 21, 2007)

Here's a video of the tank.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vsf9V1h ... ata_player


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## Super Turtleman (May 21, 2007)

Here's a video of the tank.


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## Paragon (May 24, 2010)

Those white labs look amazing. I've just been forbidden from buying some because we're worried about overstocking the 75.


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## NJmomie (Jan 17, 2013)

I like your tank SuperTurtleman. How big is it? How many saulosi/white labs do you have in there?


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## bwestgsx06 (Sep 21, 2011)

Do any of your batches get stolen from your multi's?


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## Super Turtleman (May 21, 2007)

NJmomie said:


> I like your tank SuperTurtleman. How big is it? How many saulosi/white labs do you have in there?


It's a 55G. About 20 Saulosi, 6 White Labs and 5 S. multipunctatus. 1 Albino BN Pleco and 1 P. nigripinnis are in there too.



bwestgsx06 said:


> Do any of your batches get stolen from your multi's?


I haven't gotten any Multi fry yet tho they have been interfering with the breeding for the past few months.


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## bwestgsx06 (Sep 21, 2011)

So you haven't produced saulosi fry in months? I've heard that multi's need a bigger mouth for their eggs to incubate


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## Super Turtleman (May 21, 2007)

bwestgsx06 said:


> So you haven't produced saulosi fry in months? I've heard that multi's need a bigger mouth for their eggs to incubate


Oh no, I've got several batches of Saulosi fry. I've shipped some out and have more growing. Lol.


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