so here's the story
got a pair of cutteri from TUIC a couple months ago
had them in a 29 with a couple pairs of amatitlania sp., x.doadrioi and some swords
having them in with the other cichlids didn't turn out to be too good for them, all the amatitlania pairs seemed to hate them with a passion so i moved the pair to a bare bottomed 20 long with my breeding group of l144s
with that they had twice as many places to hide, but the unlit bare bottomed tank didn't seem to do the pair any justice, because the female just sat in one of the pot caves on the far left side of the tank while the male droned around on the right
I thought the main problem at that point was the pair not seeing eachother (or other moving fish), so temporarily I put them in a 10 (which has a 2 inch layer of play sand and a single terracotta pot cave and a small piece of dragonstone) with the mindset that they'd be in more contact with eachother. the pH in that tank is also slightly higher than that of the pleco tank's, so I thought that would help somewhat.
I also got a little school of about 6 variatus platies, which seemed to help bring the pair out more, and I thought I was starting to see the male dig little pits and got my hopes up in regards to breeding activity, but then he killed all the platies over the course of a week and the pair went back to hiding behind the sponge filter.
They're still in that 10, and i'm sure that based on how indestructible and forgiving the species is (having past experience with a cutteri that lived for about a decade in my 55) they'll be fine in the 10 for a little bit before I get a bigger tank set up for them. Thinking I might just bring my 30 out of storage for them. I love the species and I'd like to breed them, I just don't know what to do at this point. It might be a space thing now but then I feel like if I do give them alot of space they're just gonna keep away from eachother.
The male is about 2.5-3 inches and the female is about 2. I don't think the size gap matters for cichlids that size, and I know they're both at breeding size.
got a pair of cutteri from TUIC a couple months ago
had them in a 29 with a couple pairs of amatitlania sp., x.doadrioi and some swords
having them in with the other cichlids didn't turn out to be too good for them, all the amatitlania pairs seemed to hate them with a passion so i moved the pair to a bare bottomed 20 long with my breeding group of l144s
with that they had twice as many places to hide, but the unlit bare bottomed tank didn't seem to do the pair any justice, because the female just sat in one of the pot caves on the far left side of the tank while the male droned around on the right
I thought the main problem at that point was the pair not seeing eachother (or other moving fish), so temporarily I put them in a 10 (which has a 2 inch layer of play sand and a single terracotta pot cave and a small piece of dragonstone) with the mindset that they'd be in more contact with eachother. the pH in that tank is also slightly higher than that of the pleco tank's, so I thought that would help somewhat.
I also got a little school of about 6 variatus platies, which seemed to help bring the pair out more, and I thought I was starting to see the male dig little pits and got my hopes up in regards to breeding activity, but then he killed all the platies over the course of a week and the pair went back to hiding behind the sponge filter.
They're still in that 10, and i'm sure that based on how indestructible and forgiving the species is (having past experience with a cutteri that lived for about a decade in my 55) they'll be fine in the 10 for a little bit before I get a bigger tank set up for them. Thinking I might just bring my 30 out of storage for them. I love the species and I'd like to breed them, I just don't know what to do at this point. It might be a space thing now but then I feel like if I do give them alot of space they're just gonna keep away from eachother.
The male is about 2.5-3 inches and the female is about 2. I don't think the size gap matters for cichlids that size, and I know they're both at breeding size.
