# Tanganyika cichlids again



## nijlpaard

Hello, I am a bit new to this board. My name is Sibrand. The last 7 years I kept Centrals, but now I keep Tanganyika cichlids again.
Some years ago I posted a photo and desription about my L-tank at the "Aquarium Gallery" here. 
I tried to edit it today. I had some problems with updating the photos :-?

I kept them Tanganyika cichlids for over 30 years. Mostly Tropheus, but also other species.
The seize of our tank is: 4.10 x 1.00 x 0.73m.

My wife Anneke likes to shoot photos and I like to make movies of our fish. Some of you might recognize some of my movies at my 
YouTube-account.










Above a picture of some months ago.

The cichlids we keep today are:

2/6 Cyathopharynx foai "Magara" F2

14/14 Cyprichromis microlepidotus "Kasai"

1 proven couple Lepidiolamprologus attenuatus F0

3 Mastacembelus ellipsifer F1

7 Neolamprologus multifasciatus (with some fry)

7 Synodontis polli white Zambia

Here a movie I shot almost 3 months ago.






And some photo's :wink:
















































And another movie.


----------



## nijlpaard

And a photo of one of the foai males.


----------



## Fogelhund

Great tank and size. How much territory do the attentuatus take when they breed? I've bred them, and found them to be very aggressive at spawning. Brave keeping them with the foai, but then you've got all that space.


----------



## nijlpaard

Fogelhund said:


> Great tank and size. How much territory do the attentuatus take when they breed? I've bred them, and found them to be very aggressive at spawning. Brave keeping them with the foai, but then you've got all that space.


I still have to find out about that :wink:

We only had a batch of eggs once... and they were all eaten by the male.

This couple is a proven couple and F0. They had a lot of fry when someone else kept them. The fry was sold to different stores in Holland.
I hope they will not be to aggressive, but so far so good.

The male measures about 15cm and the female about 10cm.

I bought them because the multifasciatus had a lot of fry, about 50. Today only 10 of them survived. So it works out fine for me.
I don't want to catch fish from this tank, because it is very difficult.


----------



## Fogelhund

I kept mine in a 180cm x 45 cm tall x 60cm wide tank.

I ended up having to take everything else out.


----------



## nijlpaard

Fogelhund said:


> I kept mine in a 180cm x 45 cm tall x 60cm wide tank.
> 
> I ended up having to take everything else out.


Thank you for your comment!

Not all the fish of one species have the same behaviour.

It might work out fine here, because the tank is bigger and other fish can easily get out of the way.
But we will have to wait and see what happens.


----------



## nijlpaard

One of our Cyprichromis microlepidotus males has a bit of a head injury the last few days.

This wound is cleaned by a Synodontis polli white Zambia.

The photos were shot during daytime with a flash at a dark spot in the tank. The quality of the photos is not that good, but it 
shows that the microlepidotus moves into position and that the polli cleans the wound.

The white spot at the background is where the polli hides during daytime.


----------



## DJRansome

Interesting behavior.


----------



## nijlpaard

DJRansome said:


> Interesting behavior.


Just natural behavior :wink:


----------



## Razzo

Magnificent tank!


----------



## nijlpaard

Enjoy :wink:


----------



## Iggy Newcastle

I remember this tank with CAs. The sheer size of it is amazing. I have not gone on YT much lately and missed you switching to Tanganyikans. So awesome...


----------



## nijlpaard

Iggy Newcastle said:


> I remember this tank with CAs. The sheer size of it is amazing. I have not gone on YT much lately and missed you switching to Tanganyikans. So awesome...


Thanks a lot, Iggy!

We switched this month, 1 year ago.


----------



## nijlpaard

We decided to add a group (9) of Xenotilapia spilopterus to our tank. They are still small (between 4 and 5 cm). The attenuatus 
male and female tried to attack them from the start. When they found out that the spilopterus are simply too fast for them, 
they stopped the attacks. Probably only a waste of energy for them :roll:

Some more pictures by my wife.










































And a foai "Magara" male in the sunlight this afternoon :wink:


----------



## nijlpaard

This afternoon the attenuatus were courting.

Here is a photo shot by my wife Anneke :wink:



And another photo of a foai male.


----------



## noddy

Beautiful tank and pics.
P.S, are you sure the Cyathos are Foai and not Furcifer?


----------



## nijlpaard

noddy said:


> Beautiful tank and pics.
> P.S, are you sure the Cyathos are Foai and not Furcifer?


Thanks a lot!

The Cyatho's were sold to me as foai Magara by a breeder of this species (in Germany).


----------



## noddy

nijlpaard said:


> noddy said:
> 
> 
> 
> Beautiful tank and pics.
> P.S, are you sure the Cyathos are Foai and not Furcifer?
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks a lot!
> 
> The Cyatho's were sold to me as foai Magara by a breeder of this species (in Germany).
Click to expand...

They are very nice. I have a group of C. Foai Moliro myself.


----------



## nijlpaard

noddy said:


> They are very nice. I have a group of C. Foai Moliro myself.


The Moliro is also very nice :thumb:

Here a photo of the attenuatus (male).


----------



## nijlpaard

Some pictures of the spawning process of the attenuatus.









Some days ago I added a big shell (almost as big as a fist) to see what will happen. After some digging in the sand and hiding 
the shell a bit (the way ocellatus does). The attenuatus gave us a big suprise yesterday.

It is the first time that the male didn't eat the eggs from the start. I moved the shell with the female to a smaller tank. So that 
the fry can be raised by the female. That might be better.


----------



## Fogelhund

Congrats... probably best to have removed the female... a well defended cloud of attentuatus fry in the main tank may have spelt trouble for the other inhabitants.


----------



## nijlpaard

Today there was a bit of fry visible inside the shell


----------



## engotski

4m long tank?! wow. looks awesome!


----------



## nijlpaard

Without words :wink:


----------



## nijlpaard

Today I managed to shoot a video of the spawning of the attenuatus.


----------



## nijlpaard

We replaced our foai "Magara" for the Ophthalmotilapia nasuta tiger (Moliro or Chimba) last Friday.






Our only foai male died


----------



## nijlpaard

A new overview of our tank :wink:


----------



## Fogelhund

Nice


----------



## nijlpaard

@Fogelhund: Thanks a lot!

Here another movie...

From 1:07 till the end you can see the Synodontis sp. polli white Zambia making some kind of circuit.

First upside down and then they make some kind of looping downwards. They swim above the colony 
of multifasciatus. And then up again along the side of the tank. They repeat this behaviour every evening.

Sometimes just 1 polli, but most of the time 2 or 3 polli's swim this kind of circuit. It looks like they make 
a lot of fun this way.

They never swim in the opposite direction. They swim with the current only. The strong current right beneath 
the surface and the weaker current right above the sand.


----------



## noddy

It's a shame that your Foai died but the Nasutas are beautiful. I miss mine.

I just found this:

Ophthalmotilapia nasuta "Chimba" and Ophthalmotilapia nasuta "Moliro"
These varieties are known as the Tiger Nasuta. Both have dark brown spots all over the body and tail fin. The difference is the Chimba variety has a silvery base with other fins being a light yellow. The Moliro variety has a light yellow base with the other fins being a drab grayish yellow color.


----------



## nijlpaard

noddy said:


> I just found this:
> 
> Ophthalmotilapia nasuta "Chimba" and Ophthalmotilapia nasuta "Moliro"
> These varieties are known as the Tiger Nasuta. Both have dark brown spots all over the body and tail fin. The difference is the Chimba variety has a silvery base with other fins being a light yellow. The Moliro variety has a light yellow base with the other fins being a drab grayish yellow color.


Thanks a lot for this helpful information! :thumb:

Then this might be the Chimba... The fins are yellowish.

That makes sense, because the fishstation is located in Chimba.

The store also told me that the fishermen took a trip by boat. Probably to Moliro to catch fish.

Why should you catch a tiger nasuta at Moliro, when you can also catch them at Chimba?

May I ask you, where you got this helpful information? :roll:


----------



## noddy

I thought Chimba also.

http://animal-world.com/encyclo/fresh/c ... Nasuta.php


----------



## nijlpaard

noddy said:


> I thought Chimba also.
> 
> http://animal-world.com/encyclo/fresh/c ... Nasuta.php


Thanks a lot! :thumb:

There's good information on that site :wink:


----------



## nijlpaard

A new photo of the male Lepidiolamprologus attenuatus "yellow".


----------



## nijlpaard

And a photo of our dominant O. nasuta male.


----------



## nijlpaard

One of our two ellipsifers


----------



## wryan

Very neat ... quite the handsome fellow ... :thumb:


----------



## nijlpaard

@wryan: Thanks a lot!

This time the attenuatus female managed to protect the eggs at night, against the 2 ellipsifer's.
She probably learned to be alert at night

Last time the eggs were eaten the first night by the ellipsifer's.


----------



## nijlpaard

And most of the fry is out!


----------



## whalebite

This is such a beautiful tank.
So I am really curious about the eels and the little shell dwellers, I am thinking about possibilities with Starry Nights they seem to have a relatively small tubular mouth, not moori with their big mouths, because multies I know are really small, and I assume lots of fry are lost to all the predators, or would a larger shell dweller be a better choice?


----------



## nijlpaard

@whalebite:

The multi's know how to handle the predator attenuatus in our tank.

Many years ago I combined them whith Lepidiolamprologus hecqui. The hecqui caught some of the multi's and ate them, but not all of them.
I never saw this in combination with the attenuatus.

I also combined them with Neolamprologus pectoralis. All of the multi's were gone after some time.

Here a new photo of our tank.



And some older pictures because the photobucket-issue :x









_Lepidiolamprologus attenuatus yellow F0 (male)_









_Mastacembelus ellipsifer F1_









_proven couple, Lepidiolamprologus attenuatus yellow F0_









_Lepidiolamprologus attenuatus yellow F0 (male)_









_"Lamprologus" ocellatus (male)_









_Mastacembelus ellipsifer F1_









_Ophthalmotilapia nasuta F0 (male)_


----------



## nijlpaard

A new movie after a long time...


----------



## nijlpaard

Last week we added 5 young Neolamprologus tretocephalus to our tank :wink:


----------



## nijlpaard

A video of the nasuta's just after spawning...
I was a bit too late :?

And a close-up of a female spilopterus with eggs.


----------



## nijlpaard

I shot a video yesterday, a bit in a dark corner of the tank.
So not much color and not so sharp...


----------



## nijlpaard

An update of the tank. We added more rocks...


----------



## nijlpaard

Our dominant male Petrochromis famula Kigoma red fin :wink:


----------



## nijlpaard

Some pictures of today


----------



## wryan

Just beautiful ... :thumb:

Thanks for sharing.


----------



## nijlpaard

A picture of our tank, shot yesterday.


----------



## nijlpaard

In a month or 2 we will move to another house and this tank will be stripped.

We use the glass to built another smaller tank, because of a wooden floor in our new house.

The new size of the tank will be 2.70 x 0.85 x 0.60m.


----------



## Tom's Tanks

That tank is amazing such a shame to strip it. Undoubtably you'll do an excellent job on the next!


----------



## nijlpaard

Our new smaller tank after stripping the old tank :wink:


----------



## Deeda

The new tank is still beautiful despite being smaller!! I love the look of the rock work and the way you have hidden the outflow from the filters at the top, very natural. :thumb:

The fish are also looking great and I thoroughly enjoyed some of their close ups. :fish:


----------



## punman

I am impressed! Which variety of tropheus do you have and at what temperature are you running the tank? Hey, any tips on the great photography (stills and video)?


----------



## nijlpaard

Thanks a lot!



punman said:


> I am impressed! Which variety of tropheus do you have and at what temperature are you running the tank? Hey, any tips on the great photography (stills and video)?


We keep Tropheus moorii "Lufubu", 5 F0 + 5 F1 and 2 youngsters. The temperature is 27 degrees Celsius.

I use iMovie to edit the images. I got a Canon Legria HFS-21 and I use a tripod.

My wife makes the photo's. She uses a SONY DSC-HX200V.


----------



## nijlpaard

I like to share a photo of 1 of our Tropheus moorii "Lufubu"


----------



## wryan

Very nice ! ... :thumb:


----------



## nijlpaard

Some pictures of our tank today :wink:


----------



## Deeda

Nice update! The fish are looking great and I love to see the algae returning.


----------



## nijlpaard

Deeda said:


> Nice update! The fish are looking great and I love to see the algae returning.


Thanks a lot!


----------



## nijlpaard

A lot has changed the last month.

The Tropheus moorii Lufubu are all for sale.
And a lot of fish were already sold.

The remains in the tank are:

1/1 Mastacembelus ellipsifer F1
1/1 Petrochromis trewavasae (with 6 youngsters)

The new cichlids are:

6 Eretmodus cyanostictus "Kigoma" F1 (all youngsters)
10 Ophthalmotilpia boops "Nkondwe" F1 (all younsters)


----------



## DJRansome

Nice!


----------



## sir_keith

Beautiful tank, in both iterations. :thumb:

Please keep us posted; I'll be interested to hear how the _Petrochromis/Ophthalmotilapia_ mix works out in a tank this size.


----------



## nijlpaard

Thanks a lot!

No problems so far with the combination of Petrochromis trewavasae "Moliro" and the Ophthalmotilapia boops "Nkondwe Island".
But soon the trewavasae's will leave too.

We had some fry of the boops already, not much just 4 survived at the moment. Fry from 2 females.


----------



## Deeda

Congratulations on the fry! Long time no see and hope you have been well.


----------



## nijlpaard

@Deeda: thanks! I am doing well :thumb:

Today the trewavasae's were sold and tomorrow some new fishes will arrive from France, 
3/3 Neolamprologus mustax Mbita Island (wildcaught)


----------



## nijlpaard

Our 3/3 Neolamprologus mustax Mbita Island wildcaught.


----------



## Deeda

Nice looking fish and they appear to have settled in well!


----------

