I heard from Jeff Rapps that these fish have no tolerance for their own kind. He said one he had a male in female in a tank divided by a sturdy egg crate and somehow the male got through and killed the female over night. And I believe someone else stated they have heard them to be the most aggressive cichlid around. obviously not the same size as a dovii or Midas or anything but the attitude can be vicious. Dont want to see you lose any due to aggression.
Beani conversation thread.
- Thread starter dirtyblacksocks
- Start date
Well, we need to get some concrete information going - I'll start it off, but everyone who wants to contribute to the thread and has beani in their tanks should try to follow suit:
Tank Size: 180 gallon 6'x2'x2'
Number of fish: 8
Dividers: ?
Feeding: ?
pH: 7.8-8.0
Water Changes: 10%-20% once a week
Nitrate: Shooting for under 20 ppm at all times
Notes: ?
If anyone has any information they'd like to add to this to try and get a profile of how everyone is doing their thing - go for it.
Tank Size: 180 gallon 6'x2'x2'
Number of fish: 8
Dividers: ?
Feeding: ?
pH: 7.8-8.0
Water Changes: 10%-20% once a week
Nitrate: Shooting for under 20 ppm at all times
Notes: ?
If anyone has any information they'd like to add to this to try and get a profile of how everyone is doing their thing - go for it.
The Cichlid News issue is April 03,there's a pic of a Cyprichromis on the cover.
Jose, what kind of temps are you finding in the river? in the Cichlid News article, Dan states his were almost frozen during shipping and survived. Wondering if because of their northerly distribution, they may need a cooling off period to stimulate reproduction similar to Gymnogeophagus, and maybe temper aggression during that period.
Jose, what kind of temps are you finding in the river? in the Cichlid News article, Dan states his were almost frozen during shipping and survived. Wondering if because of their northerly distribution, they may need a cooling off period to stimulate reproduction similar to Gymnogeophagus, and maybe temper aggression during that period.
If anyone could dig up this article that has the issue and scan it, I think it would help everyone out a lot.
I ordered it - but it's going to take a month or two to get here...so that doesn't help much.
I ordered it - but it's going to take a month or two to get here...so that doesn't help much.
Got this information from a man who I trust and know has a vast amount of experience in care for fish - while some of it is written out for beginners, I had not considered or heard of the ABS PVC technique...
Our water in Southern California is perfect. Generally speaking flake, pellet and live food will be relished. Just makes sure non is left to rot. No feeder fish. They will put out a large amount of waste as they grow so frequent water changes will be a good idea, especially if they're not in a very large tank. I will give you my recipe for success with Central American Cichlids. Others will do it differently so keep an open mind.
If they are small and highly prized I would keep only non-aggressive fish with them (no cichlids)! For me the best way to handle raising a large group of Central Americans is to raise them together until the first one is beat up or you see chasing behavior. Get some large black ABS pipe from Home Depot and cut off sections big enough to for the fish to hide in. They will float. If you see a fish in one of the pipes remove it as it's not natural for these to like floating caves. In other words this is an indication of aggressiveness.
The only fool-proof way to raise super-aggressive cichlids is to raise them separately. I use a centralized system with many dividers, allowing me to raise aggressive fish to breeding size without losses. Breeding can then be attempted through an egg-crate divider.
As for bloat, it's my opinion that it comes from diet or maintenance and I suspect in most cases with this fish it's tank maintenance. Big fish pollute their tanks quickly. Also, when the fish are about 4 or 5 inches cut down on the protein level of the feed and try giving them some vegetable based food. This has worked with some other cichlid species.
Raise them up and when they get to the aggressive size let me know and I may be able to help with the housing.
Last of all, for first hand experience, join the yahoo group CentralCichlids and post a question to:
"‎CentralCichlids@yahoogroups. com‎"‎ <centralcichlids@yahoogroups.com>
Best of luck, Brian
Dithers won't help until breeding. Aggression will be centered on the other Beani only at this point. 2 inches are a good size and the tank is of sufficient size. Any object placed in the tank will eventually be claimed as a territory. Make sure you put in some floating black abs pipes and scan the tank daily for problems. Brian
Our water in Southern California is perfect. Generally speaking flake, pellet and live food will be relished. Just makes sure non is left to rot. No feeder fish. They will put out a large amount of waste as they grow so frequent water changes will be a good idea, especially if they're not in a very large tank. I will give you my recipe for success with Central American Cichlids. Others will do it differently so keep an open mind.
If they are small and highly prized I would keep only non-aggressive fish with them (no cichlids)! For me the best way to handle raising a large group of Central Americans is to raise them together until the first one is beat up or you see chasing behavior. Get some large black ABS pipe from Home Depot and cut off sections big enough to for the fish to hide in. They will float. If you see a fish in one of the pipes remove it as it's not natural for these to like floating caves. In other words this is an indication of aggressiveness.
The only fool-proof way to raise super-aggressive cichlids is to raise them separately. I use a centralized system with many dividers, allowing me to raise aggressive fish to breeding size without losses. Breeding can then be attempted through an egg-crate divider.
As for bloat, it's my opinion that it comes from diet or maintenance and I suspect in most cases with this fish it's tank maintenance. Big fish pollute their tanks quickly. Also, when the fish are about 4 or 5 inches cut down on the protein level of the feed and try giving them some vegetable based food. This has worked with some other cichlid species.
Raise them up and when they get to the aggressive size let me know and I may be able to help with the housing.
Last of all, for first hand experience, join the yahoo group CentralCichlids and post a question to:
"‎CentralCichlids@yahoogroups. com‎"‎ <centralcichlids@yahoogroups.com>
Best of luck, Brian
Dithers won't help until breeding. Aggression will be centered on the other Beani only at this point. 2 inches are a good size and the tank is of sufficient size. Any object placed in the tank will eventually be claimed as a territory. Make sure you put in some floating black abs pipes and scan the tank daily for problems. Brian
The idea of switching to veggie-based foods later in life is the opposite of what I've been told and practiced myself. I like high-quality foods that have things other than grain by-products in the top five of the ingredient list. I think this cuts down on fish waste, thuse cutting down on tank foulage. Anyway, I wouldn't feed them for a day or so after putting them in their new home. The stress of being shipped or being moved will sometimes bind up their intestinal tract. I'd do one or two 50% waterchanges a week instead of one 10-20% waterchange. If I had enough tanks I'd separate them all, but if not use dividers, and if that doesn't appeal I'd use at least one clay pot/hiding place per fish in one tank. Personally I don't consider beani a fish that will tolerate much of any type of fish in it's tank, especially not beani. I generally don't mess with dithers much, mainly because they usually come from an LFS and may carry disease to your exponentially more expensive beani. I look at dithers much the way I look at feeders now, cuz my fish usually kill dithers pretty quickly and they both potentially carry disease. If I had a super-rare fish I'd be afraid dithers from an LFS would transmit some type of disease. I'd stick the young beani together since their small and let them pair off, then separate them. If you put enough hiding places in there that may be enough. I've had good success using hiding places with young grammodes and istlanum, to the point that I rarely lose one to aggression. I'd say that beani are probably not much, if any, more aggressive than istlanum. Young grammodes and istlanum actually begin to "find" mates and dance a little, which helps identifying pairs for separating. This is all my limited experience and opinion. And keep some metronidazole handy for use at the first sign of white, stringy poop.
I use Jungle Labs Parasite Clear with great success.
Those e-mails I posted come from a man with well over 30 years of experience, who spends his life traveling across the world collecting fish, he remembers when beani were a common fish in the hobby.
As far as dithers, I wouldn't recommend anyone ever put anything in a tank without QTing first, the ones I plan on using are large red hook silver dollars that I've had for months.
EDIT: Everything I've been told in terms of beani is that they're sensitive to changes in water chemistry, and so small more frequent water changes may be better than one large water change every week.
Those e-mails I posted come from a man with well over 30 years of experience, who spends his life traveling across the world collecting fish, he remembers when beani were a common fish in the hobby.
As far as dithers, I wouldn't recommend anyone ever put anything in a tank without QTing first, the ones I plan on using are large red hook silver dollars that I've had for months.
EDIT: Everything I've been told in terms of beani is that they're sensitive to changes in water chemistry, and so small more frequent water changes may be better than one large water change every week.
After talking with Joe a little bit on the phone he says these fish may have a misconception of being delicate - locals at Mazatlan where the fish were collected claim catching the fish and leaving them in buckets for a few days before eating them. The fish alive all the time.
Apparently last years batch of beani were collected from an area that was being polluted - so bad that the collector paid some people to go collect the fish for him. So the high death rate in that last stock may have been the result of already genetically impure fish thanks to chemicals.
I'm passing two of these fish onto Reiner where he will be performing his own experiments with varying amounts of water changes. The fact that they are a riverine fish would indicate that they NEED a fresh source of water on a consistent basis to see any real growth.
As far as foods - in my experience, which has mainly been with SA and CA cichlids - but includes some of the more delicate SA cichlids. A high protein diet is important in younger fish to ensure maximum growth potential - especially since these are wild caught fish that have been under Clout treatment.
I'm going to keep mine in with some green texas cichlids of the same size to spread aggression out - don't much care if the texas cichlids end up as a meal or not.
I'm basically just dumping driftwood in the tank with no rhyme or reason to aquascaping to try and make as many hiding spots and line of sight breaks as possible.
Picking them up tomorrow, I'll post more after they get acclimated into the tank.
Apparently last years batch of beani were collected from an area that was being polluted - so bad that the collector paid some people to go collect the fish for him. So the high death rate in that last stock may have been the result of already genetically impure fish thanks to chemicals.
I'm passing two of these fish onto Reiner where he will be performing his own experiments with varying amounts of water changes. The fact that they are a riverine fish would indicate that they NEED a fresh source of water on a consistent basis to see any real growth.
As far as foods - in my experience, which has mainly been with SA and CA cichlids - but includes some of the more delicate SA cichlids. A high protein diet is important in younger fish to ensure maximum growth potential - especially since these are wild caught fish that have been under Clout treatment.
I'm going to keep mine in with some green texas cichlids of the same size to spread aggression out - don't much care if the texas cichlids end up as a meal or not.
I'm basically just dumping driftwood in the tank with no rhyme or reason to aquascaping to try and make as many hiding spots and line of sight breaks as possible.
Picking them up tomorrow, I'll post more after they get acclimated into the tank.
