My Tropheus Kaizer tank

Hi there guys

About 3 months ago I decided to spoil myself and bought a Juwel Vision 260. Very happy with the tank so far:bigsmile: I have become kind of a tanganyikan freak so I decided to put in a small colony of Tropheus Kaizer. I bought 16 of them hoping that Ill have some room to strip 1 or 2 overly aggressive males. I'm hoping to end up with a minimum of 12 adults.

I would like to keep this thread as a kind of a journal for this tank : ) The tank was setup the 31 June, the fish were added around the 21 July just after the cycle was completed.

These pics were taken +- the 30 July, please excuse the quality. I'm a mik n drik photgraper : )

 

I like it, very simple yet effective. Keep us updated

 

THAT is very very nice. I just love the clean look.
one day... one day

 

Thank you for the kind comments guys! Makes all the hard work worth it. Even if the comments come from the interweb. All my friends and family think I'm crazy. I do a 30% water change once a week and clean all 4 panels of glass. It's the pretty much the minimum I can do or it starts looking icky

The basic look actually happened by accident. Tropheus are very territorial, this tank is actually a little on the small side for them so I tried to avoid any caves or anything claimable. I even removed the small cave in the middle of the tank. You will see what i am saying with the new pics.

 

ooohhhh.... NICE!!!!!

 

So here is a more recent update. I took these pics today. They have all picked up allot of weight wich is nice to see. I am suprized no one has noticed the yellow Lab in there? He was a give away so I decided to chuck him in and see how things go.

Intresting note, the tropheus are constantly fighting amongst themselves, the yellow lab is treated as if he never existed! I'm just worried he becomes a hassle when they get there first batch of fry. Only time will tell. I wanted this to be a species only tank so any k@k from him and he will be looking for a new home

A couple of FTS

This first pic is from 1 or 2 months ago, check out how well they grew : ()

 

Excuse the bad quality, but I tried : )

 

Here's a "bad quality" video I uploaded onto youtube : ) I think it might be time for me to buy a decent camera.... hehehehe

My Tank

PS: I moved a couple of pics around in photo bucket... can a mod please remove the dead links: (

 

Looks good, cant believe those little guys grow that much in 2 months!!!

 

Thanks allot! I know, I cant believe it myself... They suppose to be slow growers : ) A few of them have doubled in size. I feed them Omega One kelp pellets. I have always used Omega One! They make awesome foods!

 

That looks great and they really have grown quite a bit in the time you've had them!

 

Thanks whipme, I am very chuffed with them.

 

@Reedfish thanks for the interest in my thread! I’ll try explain my experience as best I can. Large rock piles can work in larger tanks. With tropheus I have a much greater success rate scattering out the rocks to avoid the aggression all together.

In my experience each male tropheus wants to claim a territory, if you put in big piles of rocks there will only be 1 or 2 territories to claim in the tank. Once they are claimed there is a massive imbalance in the tank and the fighting just doesn’t seem to stop till they are the only fish left. When you scatter the rocks like I have, each male is happy to accept 1 rock instead of half a tank. Each of them then seem to be in there "happy place" and peace seems to last longer. They also seem allot more forgiving about their 1 rock territory. You could also leave out rocks all together but that is not very appealing.

There is no text book way to maintain peace in a tropheus tank. Many people compare a tropheus tank to running a full time riot. You always have to change your strategy. This one seems to be the most effective I have used so far so I will use it until it fails. None of my fish even have as much as a fin nip on them. They are always trying to establish their pecking order but nothing serious is happening, which is what I want.

An interesting observation I have made with tropheus is it seems like there is an "alpha male" or leader. Call it what you want. When that male decides to fight or target a certain individual the whole colony follows suite. You can imagine that if things don’t stay balanced you would lose that individual in no time at all. Luckily it is easy to spot though, the singled out individual will always either be dead, half ripped apart or hanging at the top tank waiting to be ripped apart : )

The moral of the story is, if there are a bunch of tropheus swimming around your tank and no one is dead, dying or hanging around the top of the tank it’s working for you.
I must say, I am lucky with this group though. They don’t seem even a 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] as aggressive as my duboisi tank was even though according to the interweb duboisi’s are the most peaceful. Time will tell though, they only a couple of months old.

PS: If you watch my video, you will notice there is little to no agression in that tank ; 0

 

I'm not 100% sure on why they so pricey but I believe that most of them are not very easy to catch because they swim on the banks of the lake and dart into the rocks when threatened. As far as I know duboisi are the only ones found deeper in the lake.

They are not easy to breed but if u have a healthy colony and keep the parameters in check you will have fry at some point.

I think they so pricey because there market is so small. Most people start out with 1 or 2, when they die they get scared off. These fish need a species only tank or at least be in large groups of at least 12. They also need to be introduced to the aquarium together. So the initial investment is high Which intimidates some people. I nearly gave up on tropheus myself. I bought 14 of them, within 2 days I had 3 left: ( horror stories like that are not uncommon. Usually due to the lfs feeding them the incorrect diet causing bloat.

 

It's those first couple of days after buying a colony that leave me a little rattled. Once they have settled they are very rewarding!

 

@Reedfish..tropheus are actually very easy to breed once they settle down..the high costs come due to the numbers you have to keep in a colony..breeders will often have to bring in 30 fish per a box from the lake..at an average price of R200 per fish..adds up quickly...a friend of mine has a 2m with about 30-40 wild caught tropheus ikola..looks awesome..fish are about 5 or more years old..breeding like flies..the trick is a good vegetable based diet and good stable tank conditions with a emergency supply of metronidazole on hand to treat bloat immediately

 

Nice input! The problem with tropheus is they are very sensitive to the effects of bloat. By the time you notice the bloat they are usually too far gone

When is your friend going to post pics of that gem : () pleeeeaaaase !

 

Unfortunately he does not have access to internet and is always busy as he works long hours in family business.he also keeping and breeding tropheus duboisi,tropheus brichardi,tropheus ilangi,tropheus chimba red and tropheus sunset..tropheus make for awesome show tanks as they are colourful,active and always displaying