# General Info Help: Xeno. Ochrogenys 'Ndole'



## Cooder (Jul 19, 2011)

Hey all,

After doing some searches for information on this fish, *** come up empted handed, so i thought i would ask here...

Size for males and females and at what size is considered matured enough to breed?

Diet? (NLS is my staple)

Can these get aggressive and hard to house with other bottom dwellers such as shelldwellers?

Water Parameters are obvious....

4 ft tanks are all i have access to at the moment, so with suitable sand space cleared is this size sufficient for a decent colony of say 8 fish?

That brings me to the size of groups they prefer to be in, anyone know?

M:F Ratio? (as males are the coloured ones, the more males the merrier the tank will LOOK, not so much in harmony)

Spawn Size and Incubation period? (lets hope they grow quicker than bloody calvus fry!!! :x )

General behaviour and maintenance tips/tricks? are they a fragile sifter like furcifers? or a bit more hardy? ( do they get the dreaded slimming disease that makes me want to go slim and pull my hair out?)

these tangs are real stunners and *** wanted my hands on them for a while, and *** got the chance soon so need some more knowledge, so all experiences welcome.

Thanks in advance for any answers


----------



## dmiller328 (Nov 17, 2008)

I keep the variety called Mzuri which looks very similar to Ndole but found across the lake in Tanzania.They are now classified as Xenotilapia singularis but I still call them ochrogenys like many others.

The males get up to 5 inches and the females around 3.5in.They will start spawning with small # eggs at 3 in more males and 2 inch for females and the growth is slow but much faster than A.calvus.Once close to full size the females will have on average 20 fry.One thing important to mention is once they start breeding they seem to only have 2-3 years of breeding,so I would recommend growing out some more in the future to add to the group as their life span for females seems shorter than males.It could be also that the males are constantly wanting to entice a female to breed.

In a 4 foot tank you will be fine with one male or 2 if you are very lucky depending on the aggression of the males.Use a rock pile in the middle to define a barrier for 2 territories may help.It also gives a place for females to get away from the male and have as many females as possible,so I would start with 10-12 or more and then move out extra males.They tend to have a 50/50 ratio.

They are very hardy and benefit from large water changes.They are from more shallow sandy areas that are more prone to quicker changes in temp and hardness than C.furcifer.Mine tend to breed after a large water change.Also having high water quality with low nitrate water will prevent them having the slimming disease.

Mine do well with Dwarf Sumbu Compressiceps but I would not recommend many other shell dwellers in a 4 foot tank,maybe a pair of similis.Most are too aggressive while breeding and rearing fry.


----------



## Cooder (Jul 19, 2011)

Thank you for answers, they are much appreciated.

I will have to try these beauties in a different tank, instead of a sort of community of a group of shellies, cyps, a calvus pair and the ochrogenys.

I have no experience with raising mouthbrooder fry, will i have to tumble after stripping at day 20? ( found some info =P )

So for the tank i mentioned before with the cyps and shellies, would keeping lamp. speciosus as well as gold occies, on other sides of the tank with a barrier in between, be possible? I know its not recommended to mix shellies but with space, plenty of shells and a rock pile in between?

Thanks again for answering some of my questions...


----------



## noddy (Nov 20, 2006)

They can be jumpers mate, make sure you have tight fitting lids. Great advice from dmiller, I can't add much more to that.


----------



## dmiller328 (Nov 17, 2008)

No need to tumble fry if you wait close to 3 weeks to strip.I catch the female at night after some time in the dark and then turn on the room light to net her much easier.Then use a deep bucket not too much water to strip, like Noddy said they are jumpers.Sometimes the female will release all of the fry without having to use a tooth pick which I prefer to use the plastic ones.


----------



## Cooder (Jul 19, 2011)

Great, thank you...

Tight lids are compulsory anyway, but yeh thanks for the reminder.

Are specific parameters reccomended to help with spawns? all my tangs run at around 8.5, i dont test for kh or dh though i use buffers and salts, so im guessing they should be up to scratch aswell?


----------



## dmiller328 (Nov 17, 2008)

Your pH is fine

My temp runs around 78 degrees F

Main thing is too keep the nitrates low with water changes.


----------



## Cooder (Jul 19, 2011)

Awesome, thanks...

In a smaller tank like the 4ft, should i not really have any rockpiles? maybe in the corner with a julie pair? I know 4ft is minimum and i hate getting even close to minimum tank sizes...


----------



## dmiller328 (Nov 17, 2008)

If you only have one male in the tank, a rock pile in one corner will work but if you want to try having 2 males I would go with a small pile of multiple small rocks or one big rock that goes vertically in the middle to break the line of sight of the 2 males.

Cyprichromis regular and Paracyprichromis are great tank mates for Xenos too.


----------



## daharmon1 (Jan 21, 2013)

I got 4 of these yesterday. They are currently in a 125 gallon with a group of 6 N. brevis and 6 Cyprachromis leptosoma. I have the tank broken up with quite a bit of rock, though.


----------

