For $125 it's a good deal. Quality is nice as well. Head is good, pearls and body shape is nice. Hard to tell the color potiental of fish due to stress.
Just Three Quick FH Questions
- Thread starter littlewangzfan
- Start date
FH are said to be hardy but to me they are very delicate...seems the fish changes with water conditions...a friend of mine lost his FH bcuz his brother did a w/c without chemicals!!!
As far as tank size a 10" FH will need at the least 100g...I would look for a tank around 4ft or longer deeper and wide would be ideal....FH are fierce swimmers and are known to jump....I have only heard storys of jumpers none of my FH have ever jumped out of a tank but who knows y risk it....BTW nice pic...if u like the FH the buy him!!!!!!!!
As far as tank size a 10" FH will need at the least 100g...I would look for a tank around 4ft or longer deeper and wide would be ideal....FH are fierce swimmers and are known to jump....I have only heard storys of jumpers none of my FH have ever jumped out of a tank but who knows y risk it....BTW nice pic...if u like the FH the buy him!!!!!!!!
Thanks again. I will buy him, actually he was priced at $250 but the lfs owner needs to make room for an upcoming shipment hence the price drop. He'll be going to my 120g (4x2x2) that I recently moved the stock to a bigger tank but is now holding my pal's convicts just to keep it cycled (they will be served an eviction notice and will be sent back to their orginal owner). I'm pretty excited! Hope he's still available. I appreciate all your inputs.
That sounds like a really good deal.
From what I've seen in my FH, they are very similar to the temperament of Os. They like attention and are always hungry. Like Os they are sloppy eaters.
The only heartiness issues I've had have come during water changes when my FH seems to get stressed out. He is usually back to normal shortly after. So far no signs of ick, fungus, or other bacteria/illness.
As others have mentioned, they do not have the stamina of other fish and will tire quickly, at 7" I've never had a medium cichlid that was as easy to net as my FH. It's almost like he gives up. My Os would throw a fit and flow and splash and cause themselves damage when i would need to net them.
That being said, they can jump, so a lid is recommended.
At 10" (and knowing that he's been in the LFS for around a year)I would venture to guess that he is around 1/3 of the way through his lifecycle, maybe a little more or less. I have mine in a 150gallon tall tank and he loves it, still trying to get him to grow to his maximum length by doing lots of little water changes to keep the water fresh.
Good luck, hope you can give him a good home.
From what I've seen in my FH, they are very similar to the temperament of Os. They like attention and are always hungry. Like Os they are sloppy eaters.
The only heartiness issues I've had have come during water changes when my FH seems to get stressed out. He is usually back to normal shortly after. So far no signs of ick, fungus, or other bacteria/illness.
As others have mentioned, they do not have the stamina of other fish and will tire quickly, at 7" I've never had a medium cichlid that was as easy to net as my FH. It's almost like he gives up. My Os would throw a fit and flow and splash and cause themselves damage when i would need to net them.
That being said, they can jump, so a lid is recommended.
At 10" (and knowing that he's been in the LFS for around a year)I would venture to guess that he is around 1/3 of the way through his lifecycle, maybe a little more or less. I have mine in a 150gallon tall tank and he loves it, still trying to get him to grow to his maximum length by doing lots of little water changes to keep the water fresh.
Good luck, hope you can give him a good home.
That FH looks like an overall very good quality FH, he would deffo make a nice intelligent pick. Regarding the tank you said it would be very adequate to host him for life.
FH are hardy but just dont get overconfident and dont get slopy with his caring, as many ppl have told you they can have some issues because they are hybrids although talking about the fish you are going to get as he is already 10" I guesss he has passed thought the critical stages of his youth and now he should be a strong healthy bastr, so if you keep his water clean and do weekly parcial water changes you wouldnt have big issues.
FH arent as oscars in the sense oscars are more sociable, FH are not as sociable as oscars they are aggy and you would have to keep him solo unless you want to provide him with a punching bag that eventually is going to get killed because that is what a tank mate would become into..
Keep us posted.
Thanks everyone. A couple more questions, if they are sensitive to WCs how much should I change weekly? I do 50% weekly WCs on my other tanks. Also any suggestions regarding acclimation?
It is not advisable to perform such big WC not even to your other tanks. If you have good filtration and do not overstock just do 20%/30% Weekly WC and that's it.
When your setup is new what you have to do is cycling it before adding your fish. You can do it just by letting the filters do their job per a month.
Google "nitrogen cycle" and make some reading, the fact that you ask aboutr acclimatation makes me think you dont even know about this.
Cheers.
What Armand just said about your water change schedule is a bunch of bs. If your water params are the same coming out of your tap and in your tank then changing large amounts of water is NOT bad. FH are genetically weak fish. They are more prone to diseases, even if you keep your water good and feed a good diet. This is the main reason I got out of the hybrid game. I had so many FH's, and I always did at least 30% every 2-3 days to make sure the water quality was top notch, but they still came down with hex/internal parasites. Discus breeders do 100% water changes on their fry tanks and nothing bad comes from it, only good. If anything, you should change as much water as possible a week. 50% a week will suffice. As far as acclimating goes, treat them like you would any other fish when you acclimate.
You have just said..."IF" param are the same.
But what happens when your tap water contains chlorine in a quantity that your fish and your bio media couldnt deal with????...If you make a 30% weekly WC that chlorine in the water wouldn't represent a big issue but what happens if you just refill half of your tank with chlorinated water? maybe that would be more than your fish and bio media could take....
