New Acei Ngara

We popped to Southport today & picked up 3 more ngara to replace the 3 we lost. We got 1 male & 2 females, one of which is holding a mouthful of eggs

Oh - well done MC, hope they all settle in ok. Let us see the pics when you have them!

Hey!! I was in Southport today too MC!

Hope the fish are ok, you've got some beautiful fish. look forward to seeing these soon

You weren't walking your dog along Southport road were you??? I could swear it was your dog but have no idea what you look like!

No, it wasn't me Poor old dog hasn't been out today and keeps looking at me with sad eyes to make me feel guilty!

Here's the new lady with her mouthful of eggs..



The following aren't new today but just a few extra pics we took..

This is the male interruptus looking as happy as ever!

Very nice, M.C. I was in a new LFS the other day which had loads of Cichlids. I really should pay attention to the species names you've given so that I could try identifying them for real.

That fish has gone from blue to yellow! I expected the later photo to show him really deep blue but he's not at all :lol:

I feel sorry for the poor fish with the ggs - she does not look a happpy bunny at all!

More beautiful fish MC. Have you always kept cichlids, or did you start off with the more 'ordinary' fish and work your way up?

I would like to think that one day I could have some fish like yours but dont feel confident enough yet

Thanks We have a 180L community tank charley, we kept going into our favourite lfs who breed their own cichlids & have a massive mbuna display tank.
We'd stand for ages, watching their behaviour. Then it was a case of lots of reading & research into all of the different types. The vivid colours are what caught our eye mostly.
Ben kept fish before we met & so did I. When we both moved house, we parted company with our tanks. When we moved in together we just decided to get into the hobby again!
So, we're as mad as each other

Do all cichlids carry the eggs in their mouths MC, and is it always the female that does that?

More lovely fish MC, how many have you got now? I didnt realise you had a general tank too.

43 malawi's i think now, lol. I'm losing count..

10 Labidochromis Caeruleas
6 Aceii Ngara
8 Labeotropheus Fuelleborni blotch
3 Melanochromis Interruptus (1m/2f)
3 Labidochromis Hongi (1m/2f)
3 Pseudotropheus Zebra Gold (1m/2f)
4 Pseudotropheus Elongatus Mpanga
6 Pseudotropheus Socolofi

As they get bigger & easier to sex we will get rid of 4 Labidochromis Caeruleas, 4 Labeotropheus Fuelleborni and try and keep groups with only 1, maybe 2 males. The subdominant males stay duller in colour so it's best to only have 1. If 2 colour up, they have serious fights

Just took this of an Aceii Ngara..

tardis wrote:

Do all cichlids carry the eggs in their mouths MC, and is it always the female that does that?

Don't know about all cichlids tardis.. all the mbuna cichlids we keep do and yes, it's the females that hold the eggs. The female lays the eggs, the male fertilizes them, then she collects them in her mouth.
After about 10 days the eggs hatch inside the females mouth into fry. About 2 weeks later she spits them out and will collect them back up if she senses danger

That's great. How big do these fish grow to? They look about platty size in the pics, but that might just be the pohoto. Is that about right?

They'll max at 4" to around 7" I'd say some are a tad bigger than 'platty' size and some much smaller. They are all juveniles though so a bit of growing to do yet

I didn't realise they grew to be so big - I can see that if I ever want to have some I will have to invest in a BIG tank!!

i know.. the overstocking & over filtration are a must but if all my fish were 4" i'd have 172" of fish

I know you've mentioned before MC that you have to overstock with these fish, how much of an overstock do you do? I mean using the 1" per gallon I take it just goes out of the window, so what rule of thumb do you use?

Well as long as the filter can cope there isn't one as such.
When we add the new external we'll have 2400 litres an hour turnover & we do monitor it closely. We barely have a nitrAte reading and when we have, it's a faint tint.
The way we have stocked ours is to get groups of juvenile fish, we just chose the ones we liked & got larger groups. We have 10 labs but only really want 6, when they are sexable properly, we will take out 4. Ideally we'd aim for 1m/5f or 2m/4f. We had 6 Mpanga but lost 2. The same with the fuelleborni, we have 8 but only probably want 4. When we can figure out who is who we may need to swap a male out for a female or two.
The ones we have in 3's are sexed trios of 1m/2f as they are the ones that are sexable by colour. The rest, being monomorphic means we will have to wait & see how they change.
It can just be a case of removing the most colourful male for an hour & see who colours up next..chances are that'll be the next male. It sounds easy but when we take out the rock to try & catch the most colourful male..they all turn pale with the stress
The only sure way (apart from remembering who had babies) is to vent them. This is lifting them out of the water & looking at their 'underneath parts' & see what holes are where that's gonna be Bens job

So the ones you have that are going to be surplus, as in the labs, do you just take them back to the dealer or lfs?