12 replies to this topic

[Peckoltia]

I have been dating my photos of my Malawis just so I can track their progress for my own personal interest.

First photo taken on 4/10/10 the second photo 1/3/11

C borleyi "kadango"

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Edited by Peckoltia, 14 March 2011 - 09:57 AM.

[cichlid4lyf]

very nice pic mate.

lots of colour on him.. well done.

phil

[Sarah Jayne]

Looking good Alex. Are you breeding them?

[Peckoltia]

Nope, not breeding them. Have 8 in my display tank. Looks like 1M 7F. May pull them out into their own tank at some stage and get some fry out of them.

[Cawdor]

Nice male, my young ones are starting to colour as well, the old boys are getting some competition
I've bred them before, the females hold a massive amount of eggs, so be prepared in terms of tank space for the fry.

[gibbs]

Nice mate, very nice.

All done without cheating to. I don't rate the use of jiuce

[Peckoltia]

Nice mate, very nice.

All done without cheating to. I don't rate the use of jiuce

Cheers buddy.

I'm not a fan of juicing either.

[danotaylor]

stunning fish bro...obviously happy and well loved...I am particularly encouraged cause I have a kadango male juvie just starting to get a blue head & rougey behind the gills...excited yours went from silver to almost full colour in 5 months...hopefully my guy will look like yours in the next 3-4 months...i don't juice my display fish eitherget the girls out and prevent crossing...I love your big tank mate...looks great!
Cheers, Danny

[Peckoltia]

My tank has changed a lot since my last pics. Removed most of the mbuna, its is dominated with large growing predatory haps. Cheers for the compliment though.

I noticed with my male Borleyi that he went from juvenile colourtion, to full adult colour in the space of about a month. Very quick colour change. Some haps take much longer.

I do water changes three times a week, and pump a phenomenal amount of food into the tank on a daily basis. Only problem is that the fish have become very food orientated, i have to turn the lights off in the room and watch from a distance otherwise they will just be head slamming the glass looking for food. I even had a venustus leap clear out of the water at feeding time a couple days ago. Lucky he landed on the cover glass and didn't suffer the 6' drop to the tiles below.

[danotaylor]

sweet bro...love to see some update shots of the tank then...i feed fairly heavily too...in my 400 litre display I do WC's weekly but have 2 separate filtration units with a combo of 2200 lph with tons of biological media to handle the increased bio-load from heavy feeding and high stock rate.
I have been thinking about removing the mbuna from mine too but my wife loves the chisumulae, ey's & the male hongi...it's great she's interested...helps keep a bit of coin trickling my way when things are tight
what do you feed your guys on?

[Peckoltia]

I have packed my tank full of filtration. I didn't really have much current flowing around my tank to begin with, just what was being produced by 3 large cannister filters. Since adding a couple large internal powerheads it seems like the fish have really stepped it up a notch, just seem much healthier stronger swimmers.

Always a good thing if the mrs shows interest. I'd keep the mbuna as long as they aren't causing you much grief. I ended up with 4 male lombardis and a very angry lions cove, tank is much more harmonious since shafting them.

Staple diet is NLS cichlid formula and thera A. Bought two buckets of the stuff, one of each. So they mainly get a mix of that. Plus regular feedings of frozen 'fish store food' mysis shrimp, brine and marine green dinners (only one that doesn't contain beef heart).

Once a week I'll also feed up all the predatory haps with a feed of prawn or whitebait, I find it helps them grow a little quicker.

[danotaylor]

cool man...i feed my guys the same dry foods...do you dice the prawns & white bait? never thought to feed that to haps...I am just starting to realise that my understanding about the feeding habits of malawi's was a bit narrow...is it right that mbuna have a long gut for digesting low nutritious algae & therefore can't handle high protein?
Would love to see some whole tank shots and some of your haps.
cheers bro,
Danny

[Peckoltia]

I mainly feed prawn, only sometimes whitebait as it's quite messy. I dice it up into bite sized pieces. I don't have many mbuna left in my display tank. But yes you are basically right in your understanding that they should be fed a little less protein than haps. My mbuna don't get much of the whitebait/prawn as the hungry haps nail most of it first.

Some people may disagree with my feeding regime, but it has worked a treat for me and I will continue in my ways until I see a problem with what I'm doing.

Will get some updated pics when I get a chance one night soon.