starting a tropheus tank

[Delock]

Re: starting a tropheus tank

Starting out of your garage aint bad...Hell, Alex started out of a one bedroom apartment.

[eklikewhoa]

Re: starting a tropheus tank

The answer could have been answered as simple as that but being guilty of it myself impulse buys happen all the time....hate to see such beautiful fish become victims of that.

But now you have a general idea of it in case an impulse buy were to happen so you won't be out in the dark about it! :wink: If I can force this bit of info on you and you remember it because of that then I feel that I helped.....and working out of a garage is probably gonna be much better then a storefront....less overhead.

[oldgeezer]

Re: starting a tropheus tank

those of you who have been answering my question thank you and the rest of you please continue yor store front or garage thing.

[mrairportjunke]

Re: starting a tropheus tank

well was tryin to help you find out if he had a store front you could go look around at the fish instead of just seeing them online.

[rrocket2002]

Re: starting a tropheus tank

If you send Mike an email, I'm sure he would setup a date and time for anyone to come see the fish first hand.  Yes, his setup is in his garage.  Mike keeps his fish inside the house.  I think Mike does alot of his business through internet/shipping sales.

[eklikewhoa]

Re: starting a tropheus tank

He will let you see them if you ask.


Me and screenname was there the other day and all we did was gawk around.

[geoff_tropheus]

Re: starting a tropheus tank

Welcome to the Fishbox Oldgeezer and to possible start in the most addicting avenue of fish keeping called Tropheus.

The key to keeping strong healthy Tropheus is first reading all that you can and finding people that you trust to give you good information.  There is still alot of opinions on Tropheus, and what I can best tell you is get published information on them, and then find people in forums who have been keeping them for a very long time and get some information from them and learn from the good and bad things that happened to them.

In my experience with keeping the fish, I have found that the absolute best tank size for a single variant colony is a 125 gallon aquarium with 7-10X hourly filtration turnover if using canisters and Hang-on-the-Back Box filters, and or sponge filters.  If your using a wetdry, you need a pump with a flowrate, and overflow box that will handle about 4-5X turnover of the aquarium per hour.

If you have this kind of filtration, and you perform weekly 30% or bi-weekly 50% waterchanges, a 125 gallon aquarium can be stocked with 40 Adult Tropheus maximum.  At a number of 40 fish, your fish will reach a their maximum size of 5-6" depending on the variant, and produce about a dozen fry per month if the 40 fish are in the proper sex ratio for the variant you are keeping.

You also need to provide lots of rockwork, if you intend on keeping fry.  Otherwise you will loose a good number of fry.

The best thing for diet is to first findout what food the person selling you the fish has them eating.  Get some of that and feed that for the frist week, so that you know if fish are not eating or spitting food it is not because they dont like your food.  Then blend in over the next week the fish food you are wanting to feed.

The Food you need to select to feed them depends on your habbits.  What I mean by that is what you are comfortable feeding wether it be pellets, flakes, fresh foods, or live.  You need to go with what you are comfortable with to not overfeed and maintenance schedule.

Most people start off with flake foods and use that.  You can feed just about any flake food for Tropical fish or Cichlids as long as it has a high vegtable content.  I would be leary of flake foods high in protein that did not contain large vegtable elements in them. My personal favorite flake food is Aquarian Tropical Flake Food.

Pellet foods are excellent foods for water quality, and for your Tropheus.  The key here is to not overfeed using pellet foods, and to select a good pellet food that meets the specs as the flake foods.  The only pellet foods I recomend are:
New Life Spectrum Cichlid Formula 1mm pellet size, Hikari Cichlid Excel - Mini Pellet, and Dainichi Veggie FX or DX baby pellet size.  My personal favorite is NLS Cichlid Formula.  You can also feed from time to time the Thera-A forumula but I would not feed it more than 1-week every quarter.

Live foods and Fresh Foods are messy, and need to be used only as a treat 0-3 times per week, and it really depends on you.  The best Fresh Foods are seaweed, romaine lettuce, zucchini, un-salted frozen peas, parched zucchini, and fresh whole shrimp.  The only live food I would suggest is Mysis Shrimp.  I do not feed Live foods to my Tropheus, but people do and have had success with it.  I do feed fresh foods as treats about once a week just be certain you clean all the fresh foods just as if you were preparing them for yourself to eat.  

I think that about covers it.

You got any questions please do not hesitate to post or PM.

Take care,

Geoff

[ImaGuyGeek]

Re: starting a tropheus tank

Geoff,

You are the man. Thank you for your willingness to always share your knowledge and experience. I know it has helped Girlgeek and I a great deal. We love our Trophs and they are happy and healthy in no small way due to you.

Thank again,

[geoff_tropheus]

Re: starting a tropheus tank

I want to help people learn more about them, because nothing makes me more mad that to hear I lost my entire colony what did I do wrong?

Then you find out they didnt do their homework, and someone gave them a load of crap.

That's why Tropheus have the reputation they have, because people didnt take the time or find the resources they needed to do it right.

Trophues are KeWL fishes, they have the face only a mother could love.

[eklikewhoa]

Re: starting a tropheus tank

I hate reading about losses too....saddens me.

[CichlidFan]

Re: starting a tropheus tank

Well, guess what....I've got more babies at work,

All I do is:

(A) Water Change of 20% on Monday Wednesday Friday.
(B) Feedings 3 X's a day. generous portions of 1mm cichlid Formula NLS, along with some spirilina flake.
(C) Clean filters 2X's a month. (2 Emperor's 400's & 1 XP350 w/dual sponge filters)

And most importantly, I try to spend a little time with them every day. During feedings and inbetween, I talk to them and let me get to know me and feel comfortable having me around.

I now have maybe 20 fry or more since mid October.

CF

[eklikewhoa]

Re: starting a tropheus tank

I got another huge mouthful today....


Saw a few tubes drop so I went ahead and did a 50%  water change with this cooler water we got and sure enough.....wake to go to work and they are still going at it!