PlanetCatfish.com

with the new availability of these fish in Australia, i would like to try some in my 3 foot mixed cichlid tank(ooh, that sounds horrible)

it is an ex-malawi reef tank so it has a lot of feeding space in the form of rock faces

parameters are:
PH; 6.8-7.2
temp;24-28
ammonia; 0
NO2;0
NO3;0

water change frequency of 50% every second week

tank mates are:
3 young black belt cichlids
2 electric yellow
2 Moorii (blue dolphin)
2 steatocranus (block heads)


i have 4 main questions

1) is the water fine?
2) will they get beaten up (the black belts are a bit scrappy towards each other)
3)will they need wood to nibble on or could they survive without for a few weeks
4) and how many shoud i get, i was only thinking of a pair (i'm a student, i.e. cheap ) is it better to have a male and a female, if so how do i sex them and would it be a possibility of breeding them later on down the track

thanks for any replies

According to the Cat-eLog, the water should be fine and you don't need wood.

thank you silurus,

thats 1 and 3 done

can anyone help with 2 and 4

This thread has some info on breeding etc.

It seems that non-conditioned (not ready to breed) L168 are difficult to tell apart when it comes to the sex, so you either have to buy 6-8 of them and see if they start looking different after some time, or buy 2 and hope for the best... [In my experience, buying two doesn't work, because it's 50% chance that you get two of the same... At 3 you have 25% chance, 4 = 12.5%, 5 = 6.25%, 6 = 3.xx% chance, etc].

As to being beaten up, that's something that is a bit hard to say. Plecos in general are pretty hardy, and they tend to hide if there are creatures about that beat them up. It'd probably be worth an experiment with a less expensive bristlenose before you try with more exotic variants, just to be on the safe side. Plenty of hidey-holes is probably a good idea...



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Mats

i have had both bristle nose and common plecs in there rescently to clean up the algae a bit, but i have moved them to other tanks since. the B.B. didn't do anything to those plecos but now that they are larger i thought that they might try

well i got them, at 6:15pm yesterday after work

6 @ $22 each

they moved in and overnight i have already noticed a big drop in the amount of algae

and so far no cichlid attacks