Tropheus Questions

[New_Cichlid11]

Good point with the water changes my kirizas were breading at 3" like crazy but i also do daily water changes

All my fish are breeding like mad ever since the 200% weekly wc and soon with the shrimp mix will increase hopefully.

[jhenry]

All my fish are breeding like mad ever since the 200% weekly wc and soon with the shrimp mix will increase hopefully.

That 's fantastic obviously that is working great for you. I would never change something that is working

[newb]

For a beginner in trophs(imagining that you are with those questions), it seems like a lot to keep these fish with all the hobbyist talking about way over filtration and tons and tons of water change, but to be honest it's much simpler than that. First, how big is your tank? What's your filtration? How many fish do you have? These are the most important questions to ask yourself. From there you can setup your maintenance routine. Imagining you have some sort of 6ft tank( 125-215) gallons I would filter all of these the same. 1 good sized wet/dry with a decent return pump and 1 Eheim 2260/2262. If you have a carbon bottle I would just do about 80% weekly wc anymore and your really just flushing water down the drain. For breeding purposes back to back daily 50% will set them off. Get on a regular feeding schedule with staple pellet foods and all will be fine. These are simple to keep just do a little homework. My advice is search for some of Geoff's old "rules of thumb" articles. As for size of breeding and biggest seen...3.5" is about your average size breeder but its not about size it's about age of fish. Fshfrk is right on largest seen. There used to be a group of dubs that were around 7". I haven't seen fish like that in a while though. Hope that helps you.

[jhenry]

Damn we did go off on a waterchange tangent didn't we lol

[LordBarron7692]

yeah we did but back to the op everything that I have read has said as far as time and or age 9 months to a year after being spit is when the will begin to breed but I'm sure other people have more personal experience in that field

[newb]

Damn we did go off on a waterchange tangent didn't we lol

Lol

[New_Cichlid11]

most of juvies will breed and hold to term at a 15 months to my experiences, that is if your starting with an all fry colony. However i see that in my Chaitika colony the f1 that are raised in the tank breed with the dominant males in less than year or at a years time.

[jhenry]

Lol

I do go crazy on my wc i should just keep Discus lol

[Victorp]

wow insane I have a 180gal and only do 50-75% once a week I should probably step it up to 50% everyday. When you guys do water changes do you also suck the sand or just suck the water from the water column? I am running an fx5 a 40 gal trickfilter with little giant 2000gph pump? more or less and also have an automatic eheim feeder filled with nls which feeds 4 times a day 2 turns each feeding and feed spirulina flakes 3 times a day my colony is a pretty decent size 25 wc illangi and I have about 5 which are in the 5"+ range 3 are in the 3.5"-4" size and the rest are 4"-5" I've had the colony for a couple months and still no females have ever held I see breeding action constantly but not sure whats going on I'll see if the increased water changes will work thanks everyone who chimed in.

[TexSun]

I occasionally vacuum the sand if it looks abit dirty, but for routine WC I just suck H2O from the H2O column.

[SunnyHouTX]

Re: Tropheus Questions

With as much flow as I have in my tanks, detritus rarely collects on the sand so I never vacuum

[jhenry]

I have bottom drilled tanks so nothing settles on the bottom and the flow helps also doesn't it Sunny i

[moganman]

wow insane I have a 180gal and only do 50-75% once a week I should probably step it up to 50% everyday. When you guys do water changes do you also suck the sand or just suck the water from the water column? I am running an fx5 a 40 gal trickfilter with little giant 2000gph pump? more or less and also have an automatic eheim feeder filled with nls which feeds 4 times a day 2 turns each feeding and feed spirulina flakes 3 times a day my colony is a pretty decent size 25 wc illangi and I have about 5 which are in the 5"+ range 3 are in the 3.5"-4" size and the rest are 4"-5" I've had the colony for a couple months and still no females have ever held I see breeding action constantly but not sure whats going on I'll see if the increased water changes will work thanks everyone who chimed in.

So you have only had them a few months? When I went a few months ago, you said you had them for over a year. And none of your fish are over 4". Not unless you bought some since last time I was there.

[jhenry]

So you have only had them a few months? When I went a few months ago, you said you had them for over a year. And none of your fish are over 4". Not unless you bought some since last time I was there.

Damn bro you calling him out like that lol J/K

[eklikewhoa]

Drain it down 75% fill it up and then drain it down about half way again and fill it up and let it go

I'm not that good with math but that doesn't come out to 100%.

Just saying.