Trophues Duboisi Masawa (F2) species tank

@nodac The fish are looking in great condition. What are you feeding them and how often?

If you ever get tired of using that set-up as a background you can lay them horizontally (one diagonally maybe) and make some pretty cool rock dweller set-ups using that as a base and a bit of experimentation and imagination to complete the territories and hide the piping as best as possible.

Regards getting fry to survive in the adults tank, while stripping will bring better numbers, for best survival rate in the tank you first want to add a lot of small nooks and crannies for the fry to be able to escape from the adults and secondly you need to get enough food to the fry for them to grow, thick algae growth and a bit of live baby brine shrimp will go a long way!

As Broder mentions, a large pile of rubble offers ideal protection for smaller fish, grab a bunch of smaller rocks and build yourself a pile near the pipe caves so females can isolate themselves in the cave and then spit their fry where they have a chance to orientate themselves before any larger fish see them. Make sure the rubble is not so small that the adults can accidentally topple the pile.
@Broder - Good to hear your Taiwan Reef are doing well!

 

@Jack Stone , Thanks those are some really good ideas, laying them down could look quite nice. I think Ill fetch some rocks from the mountain in a couple of weeks and do a pile in the middle of the tank so that the smaller fish can dart into there. Ideally id like as many to survive as possible but at this stage im just enjoying the show. if i can catch a female to strip when i see she has fry i might do that and get some of those suction cap breeding baskets to put the fry into.

They are being fed, Omega One Veggie Flakes, twice a day and usually 3 pinches at a time.
Im swopping over to the Sera Veggie pellets in about a week or two when this food is finished, I might actually go pick up some of that food this afternoon from the LFS. My fish seem to have really coloured up over the last month or so, about 3 of them have hit a growth spurt and are notably larger than the rest of the group.

Today is water change day

 

@nodac if I was you I'd leave the female in the tank once she has spawned until about 3-5 days before she's going to spit the fry out(not sure how long tropheus keep their fry in the mouth). Catch her then, strip the fry, put them in something separate and then she can go back in the tank. Your survival rate of fry will be much larger!

 

@<<Nemo>> Thats kind of my plan, leave them be until i see her carrying fry then probably move her into a seperate tank and wait for her to spit and then move her back to the main tank. Ill have to break out the spare tanks after exams....

 

Cool, good plan! When I bred malawis I had to strip the females a bit earlier as some females were still a smallish and if they kept the fry in their mouth the full amount of days they become to big to spit out and even sometimes to big to get out when you strip them. Just think about that as well in terms of the size of the specific female. I'm also busy with exams atm, goodluck to you!

 

@<Nemo>> goodluck for exams and thanks for the advice!

 

really like this set up
good luck with the breeding

 

@top dog Thanks!

cant wait until i start getting some fry going!

 

lol, different, but very cool.

 

@nodac - You noticing increased breeding activity with the new set-up?

 

@Jack Stone i have honestly hardly been at home but when I was home I noticed alot more dug out holes in the tank, there used to only be 1 hole, this weekend i noticed 6 or so which i think is a good sign. I think mostly courting right now, i cannot wait for fry!

Going to really enjoy the learning experience of breeding my first fish, i havent managed to breed anything yet.

 

Sounds positive enough @nodac - Hopefully they will start producing soon. Might be time to sex the colony and see what you're working with. Sometimes removing a couple excess males will help them get going. Very cool first breeding project, mine was Neolamprologus buescheri, still don't know how I was lucky enough to find them at the time.

 

@Jack Stone , I was considering sexing the colony but my experience in that is very limited and theres noway to replace those males with new females is there?

I saw you mention your first breeding experience about how you didn't realise the eggs you were lucky enough to see or something along those lines, you are very lucky man. I have yet to breed anything of my own. Neolamprologus buescheri are stunners I have never seen one in person before. back at home today and the fish are looking great on the new food, changed them over to the Sera Granugreen pellets which they are nuts about, going away for 3weeks on the 25th of this month will pop into home when I can. How long roughly from all this behaviour do you think i might see some fry? im hoping before the end of this year.

 

Hi @nodac
You have a very nice setup there. Love the colony. With regards to breeding just give them time remember with tangs it all depends on the age of a fish. Also with regards to removing extras males I wouldn't you already have an established colony by removing males you will upset that and have to start from scratch. Also having extra makes means your dominant male won't show all his aggression on the females which is a good thing. Granugreen is a very good food, just remember tropheus don't do well on protein and even green foods have protein so just monitor that. I personally only use a green flake from a certain supplier on tropheus which has worked wonders for me in the past. But I only feed sera garnugreen and granured to my frontosas.

I hope this helps
Regards
Sean

 

# Closing thread, It can be deleted. Fish have been sold and moved onto another home. Will post again once I get the new fish and Tank