# Demasoni



## Chief77 (Nov 20, 2006)

I bought 6 young demasoni and put them in their own tank. After a bit of time passed, I discovered I had several small, younger fish. I hadn't even noticed anyone holding (its hard to keep my eye on these buggers as they dart around the bank and under rocks). I counted at least twelve total fish. Now a few weeks later, I have even more (small, medium, and large now). I have kept other Malawi cichlids over the years and, without my intervention, I could count on one hand the number of babies that survived in an adult tank. These demasonis, however, just keep coming. I'm not sure how many are in there now (again it is hard to track them since they move so fast and hide so much), but I'm guessing I'm over 15 now.

Is it just the setup of the tank or are Demasonis more likely than other cichlids to leave the fry alone?


----------



## amcvettec (May 11, 2012)

How big is the tank? It may be that the females are surviving and are being tolerated. Demasoni typically need to be stocked in large groups due to their nature of killing off rejects.


----------



## AlphaWild (Apr 9, 2009)

For whatever reason, my demasoni are the most likely to have survivor fry in my mixed mbuna tank. It's not that they are being protected, they just seem more adept at hiding. Even so, it sounds like you have had alot more lucky ones than I have.


----------



## Chief77 (Nov 20, 2006)

I've never experienced anything like this. There are even more. They move quickly and there are a lot of rocks, so it is difficult to count them, but I'm sure my original six are now at least 15-20. There are some that are quite small and others quite large along with everything in between. I haven't yet found evidence of an adult casualty.


----------



## eeztropheus (Jan 10, 2010)

Most likely you got lucky and the original six had a m/f ratio of 1:6. Then again the dom male could have killed the competition and left you with a harem of 1:3 or 1:4... In any case sounds like typical dems to me, I've found that the bigger ones leave smaller ones alone as they are not yet viewed as competition.


----------

