Dovii X festae update pics
- Thread starter BC in SK
- Start date
Some more updated pics, taken today, sept 13, 2010. Measured him on saturday. He's exactly 10" now. Gonna measure him again in dec. and take pictures beside the tape, as I have done the last couple years with all my fish. Anyways here's the recent pics:
![H]-[H](/forums/data/avatars/s/44/44128.jpg?1463640742){kind=avatar}
H]-[H;4467793; said:
Thanks for the compliment. Yeah, startin' to become a real beast. He's a hyper aggressive fish. In my original thread I had claimed I had 6 months or less that I would be able to house it with my cons ------ I was wrong
With in less then 6 weeks of my claim, he defeated the cons and had them held prisinor in a small cave. What really suprised me was the hybrid's ability to even nail the female con at high speed. In that way it sort of reminds me of a red terror; able to nail small targets at high speed with their pointed mouths. So then I moved him to the 125 gal. with my female BB, female kenyi, and very young female auratus. The mbuna were completely ignored, but the female BB absolutely hated the hybrid. I built a cave out of heay rock, very sturdy, that the BB couldn't fit into, to stop her from chasing him. They threatened and fought constantly, with the hybrid occasionally making head way , coming out of the cave and claiming space, only to eventually get pushed back into the cave. Twice the BB managed to plow her way into the cave, even though she did not fit! Lucky the falling rock didn't crack the bottom of the tank, as I do not use substrate! My next solution was to remove the BB but that was even worse. The hybrid instantly went on a seek and destroy mission, nailing the mbuna which he previously ignored. Had to put the BB back in, with in 2 hours of removing her as the tank was far worse with out her then it was with her. My next solution, figuring there was not enough fish in the tank, was to purchase 6 small mbuna. I knew there was a risk the hybrid could swallow some of them, but knowing his appettite at the time, knew it was unlikely. What I didn't expect was the female kenyi eating all 6 2"+ mbuna, in a matter of a few hours. She got a humungus belly and died less then 12 hours after purchasing the young mbuna
Here's a pic from last spring, of the hybrid in his subordinate colors:
So I moved him to his own 75 gal. The tank is adjacent to the dovii and RBP, so the hybrid is constantly attacking the side glass trying to fight them. Occasionally the dovii (his dad ) and even the RBP will threaten back, but they are much less intersted in him, then he is. I decided I needed a bottom feeder in the tank, so on saturday (sept 11) I introduced some fish. I placed him in a 5 gal. pale for most of the day and since i had to catch him, decided i might as well measure him as well. I added 1 young male P. crabo, 2 young male BB, 2 young mbuna hybrids (P. elongatus X Kenyi ?), 1 young female jewel, and one small newly purchased pleco. The whole point of all these fish was to distract him from the pleco. Seemed to have worked at first but by the next day the pleco was dead. Could also have been the hybrid mbuna that killed it, as the male is rediculously aggressive. Anyways , I should have looked around for a bigger pleco to introduce. So far the hybrid mbuna are doing quite well; they have bred since being introduced. The female is holding! The crabo is doing O.K., most of the time. The jewel is missing; probably got eaten as it was small. The BB are hiding all the time and will have to be removed.
I intend to move him to a 90 gal. later this year. Then to a 240 later next year. I intend to house him with tankmates. Maybe Hemichromis elongatus and/or other African cichlids, large tough non-cichlids or large sturdy predators. I sort of doubt I will have much sucess housing him with other CA, even females, though i don't rule that out entirely.
Just noticed that in the original thread ( link on 1st page, 2nd post in this thread) that for some odd reason, links to video footage of the cross breeding spawns no longer work ( on 2nd page in original thread). They worked innitially, but for some strange reason no longer do. So, in order to show the parents of my hybrid fish, here is video footage of the 1st spawn,from june, 2007:
http://s192.photobucket.com/albums/z116/Bern-C/?action=view¤t=BerniesFish-June2007084.mp4
And 3 videos of their 2nd spawn, november, 2008, from which my current male hybrid comes from. You have to look closely to see their few remaining fry. Had to go out of town for a number of days, so in the absence of regular feeding, the larger fry will eat the smaller, leaving small numbers remaining. The one I ended up with was noticebly larger then his siblings, when I removed the fry:
http://s192.photobucket.com/albums/z116/Bern-C/?action=view¤t=fishnov2008298.mp4
http://s192.photobucket.com/albums/z116/Bern-C/?action=view¤t=fishnov2008300.mp4
http://s192.photobucket.com/albums/z116/Bern-C/?action=view¤t=fishnov2008299.mp4
http://s192.photobucket.com/albums/z116/Bern-C/?action=view¤t=BerniesFish-June2007084.mp4
And 3 videos of their 2nd spawn, november, 2008, from which my current male hybrid comes from. You have to look closely to see their few remaining fry. Had to go out of town for a number of days, so in the absence of regular feeding, the larger fry will eat the smaller, leaving small numbers remaining. The one I ended up with was noticebly larger then his siblings, when I removed the fry:
http://s192.photobucket.com/albums/z116/Bern-C/?action=view¤t=fishnov2008298.mp4
http://s192.photobucket.com/albums/z116/Bern-C/?action=view¤t=fishnov2008300.mp4
http://s192.photobucket.com/albums/z116/Bern-C/?action=view¤t=fishnov2008299.mp4
