Boulengerochromis Microlepis question

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lophius said:
I currently keep B microlepis in a 10x3 x 3 community tank and have never had any problems with jumping, diving or fright response.

I started with 7 and have found intraspecific aggression to be amongst the worst that I have seen in any cichlid - I had a pair form at about 16" after removing all other conspecifics - anyway all was fine until one day the male decided to kill the female - she was 22" at the time.

I keep my B microlepis with pbass and have no problems at all with aggression, both species are actually very similar in their habits and seem to get along fine - the only problems occur when the bass are getting ready to spawn.

Personality wise - pbass have more, B microlepis are a big fish that in my opinion have the personality of an arowana - they know that you exist but don't exactly care .

Males certainly have more colouration - mine has a lot of yellow and blue on a silver base - the fins have interesting spotting pattern, detail on the face is nice too. my male is about 24" currently.

Feeding has never been a problem - they eat like pigs .

carl
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My experince with them was similar to yours. I kept them in a trio and the domiant male would rough up the other two. I guess if you kept them in a shoal like oddball did then the male would be able to spread his aggresion out over many fish. They do mostly ignore other. Maybe an occansional chase. They are by no means dovii or umbie. I think you will do fine with them.

They will eat pellets if they are brought up on them when young.
 
I currently have a group of 8 B.microlepis. They range in size from 6"-9" the smallest one ebing blind in one eye due to aggression. They are very aggressive to each other and I see a lot of missing scales and wounds every now and then. They will sometimes show aggression to other fish as well. I had a 6" Cichla Temensis living with them and was raised with them since they were smaller, but the B. microlepis eat like pigs and eat pellets and grow much faster. I was planning on letting Neal (Peacock Bass) grow the temensis out for me but the next morning it was too late. The Emperors had ganged up on the temensis. Emperors are eating machines. All the do is eat and sh@t. and they sh@t a lot!!!!! My tank is 250Gs and I do roughly about 175G-200G of water change every 4 days just to keep up with the waste they produce.
As for personality, I agree that Cichla have more personality. I like to play the coin toss at the tank game with them with their lightning fast attacks. Emperors are just impressive to look at. They act more like a Giant Oscar.
 
1 thing you will realize is most aggressive cichlids are usually Hyper aggressive when young, and then quickly mellow out.

In the case with Micros they are extremely aggressive when young, especially to each other.. but when they start to grow up, you will see a decline in aggression... This does not mean they turn into puppy dogs though. Everyone who posted is right.


it really depends on the fish you have. I have had hyper aggressive cichla! which is weird!

get a couple and see how it goes.
 
Oh BTW- Your tank is quite large, You should have virtually little trouble with aggression.


When I had my 10x10 foot system, I was seeing NO aggression even with extremely aggressive fish.
 
lophius,
I've seen your fish posted elsewhere and they are indeed very impressive. Please post some updates here when you get a chance. I'm sure you will have a lot of fans. Thanks for your insight.
 
The Trust-
Where did you pick-up your B. Micrlepis? Rapps doesn't currently have them in stock. You sure do some massive water changes. Do you have a wet/dry filtration system? I do realize that you like to overstock. Thanks.
 
National geographic channel has a show about emperors and other african cichlids(all tangs) they show a pair of emperors defending their eggs from a 15 pound turtle.They knocked it on its back and drove it away. They also showed frontasa,T.dhonti,L.elogatus, and many others.


I plan the order the DVD from them.
 
It was on living wild. I think it might be coming on again today...If you want to see it you better check..
 
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