Are Shell Dwellers High Maintenance?

[Man fish]

All above advice is great but i strongly advice getting a sandy substrate , classic coral sand even. It brings out the true character in shell dwellers ie, robbing burrying shells , making sand mounds around there shells for homes and also for breeding. Most females will need to bury the shell untill only she can fit in it to protect her fry as they are not mouthbrooders Look forward to the pics , Goldys get mean with other shellies

 

[Razor7Music]

Kind of hard to add captions with this upload format, so here's an explanation of what I posted generally.

I've got a pic of my tank post Malawi and still draining the water.

I've got a pic of a trick I learned for washing substrate. I put it in a pillow case and it gets most of the dust off, but you still have to work at it.

After the pillow case, I still use the hose-in-the-bucket trick to get the rest of the dust off.

This is what I got. Crushed pooka shells. VERY dusty substrate--but settles quickly.

Putting the rocks, then substrate in--steamy!

Dust settled, and the new tenants are in their bags adjusting to the new water temp

Got a plant

A few pics that I could take of the new fishies--hard to take pics when they are so small and I have a smart phone.

Will post new pics when I get the main attractions. Cyps!

PS. More snail shells are in now, but no pics yet.

 

[Razor7Music]

Sorry those pics are so bad. I've never been able to take good fish pics. I'm also having a little lime deposit problem that I need to deal with. Got my scraper--just waiting for the next water change.

Hey, one of my LFS had petricola catfish so I bought a tiny one. They say I may need more to get more of them to get them to come out of hiding. All I can tell you is this cute little guy went in the caves and other than a brief sighting of him switching caves, he hasn't come out!
He better come out if he expects to eat! Kind of expensive little buggers.

I'm leaning towards getting rid of my killifish. It was a mistake to get them. I'll trade them in for something else like another petricola.

Cheers

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[Texchappy]

I wouldn't worry about the catfish, he'll find what he needs to eat. I'd suggest strongly that you NOT get Cyps for this three foot tank and that you get more of the fish you have in there - six of each species will give you an excellent chance of getting pairs in the shellies and make the Paracyps happier. What kind of shells did you get for the shellies?

 

[Razor7Music]

Yeah, I'm not worried about the catfish. It would just be nice to see him though!

Ideally I would like a 150 gal tank where one side wall is rocks and the rest is open water where I could have 2 or 3 different types of cyps.

The fact is that everything in my current tank is for cyps. The paracyprichromis and the shellies were bought as tank mates and nothing more.

I'll probably end up with just 2 cyps total. But I'm ok with that because it's their bright and beautiful color that interested me in them in the first place. Nothing else in my tank has color.

Maybe someday I'll be able to get that big tank and add to my cyps then!

Thanks

 

[Razor7Music]

Forgot this pic.

I don't know why this forum flips my pics, but hopefully you're viewing this from your smartphone.

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[Razor7Music]

Got my new shells.

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[Odstar]

Where did you purchase your tanganyika cichlids at? Especially your shelldwellers and cyps?

 

[Razor7Music]

Where did you purchase your tanganyika cichlids at? Especially your shelldwellers and cyps?

I bought mine from Strictly Fish in Lakewood, California.

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