My wife and I were out at the LFS last night. I had a crappy day and went to get some supplies for my convicts and the tank to cheer me up. While there we browsed the fish for fun and my wife fell in love with the P. Demasoni that were on display. All of a sudden she wants an African tank to add to our current setup so that she can keep some Africans, specifically these little guys. Does anyone have any info on them. I am totally unaware of these fish and hadn't heard of them until I saw them at the store. I had to actually do a lot of research just to make sure the name was right.
Psuedotropheus demasoni Help
- Thread starter polarbear
- Start date
Despite being small, they're some of the roughest mbuba out there. You'll need a 4' tank minimum, lots of cover and start with at least 12 juveniles. The dominant male may off some of the submales or you will have to remove them as they get beaten up. On the plus side though, they're great looking, stay relatively small and won't mess too much with other species in the tank.
I'd suggest at least a 55 gallon tank for starter but a 75 gallon would be even better, (tank footprint is key with these fish). Pseudotropheus demasoni are Mbuna, meaning rock dweller, so these fish prefer a cluttered landscape of rocks and rubble in order to stake out their territories. If your wife really likes P. demasoni, then I'd stick with Mbuna as they stay slightly smaller than the Haps and Peacock Cichlids who tend to desire sandy or open water habitats. Mbuna also tend to need a more plant based diet than Haps and Peacocks. I'd pick one, maybe two species for your tank to avoid hybridization from these baby making machines. Also, 12 juveniles sounds like a good starter number of fish. My tank is a conglomeration of Mbuna and it rather annoys me now because I wish I would have picked species from the same part of the lake, for a more natural feel.
Cool. Thanks for the information. They are beautiful fish thats for sure. She is a little excited and I may have created a monster by accident.
You got some great information already, but here is a link that can give a bit more info.
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/p_demasoni.php
Also, with demasoni I would probably stick with just that one species. If you do want to add some variety then just make sure you choose carefully. Lastly, I would start with a group of about 15-18 and then as they grow trim the group down to about 12. Most of the time you want to try for a ratio of 1male for every 3 females with mbuna, but that is not as important with demasoni when you have at least 12 - but as you trim the group I would still try to shoot for more females than males. Oh, and you can't have too much rock work for mbuna. You need sight breaks to ease the aggression.
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/p_demasoni.php
Also, with demasoni I would probably stick with just that one species. If you do want to add some variety then just make sure you choose carefully. Lastly, I would start with a group of about 15-18 and then as they grow trim the group down to about 12. Most of the time you want to try for a ratio of 1male for every 3 females with mbuna, but that is not as important with demasoni when you have at least 12 - but as you trim the group I would still try to shoot for more females than males. Oh, and you can't have too much rock work for mbuna. You need sight breaks to ease the aggression.
Agreed... P. Demasoni are extremely aggressive for their size. I've had a single specimen in my Mbuna tank housing some of the most aggressive Mbuna species, including P. Lombardoi, P. Crabro, M. Cyanerohabdos, M. Auratus, etc.etc. My Demasoni, being the smallest fish as well as female, held her own very well. This prompted me to obtain a few more females as well as a male, which prompted them to breed, which ultimately prompted my entire stock to be cornered (literally, of course) while the two smallest fish in the tank called the shots. What an amazing sight to see! Feisty little bastards...
How do you guys sex these fish? Everything I am reading says they are extremely difficult to sex. Another issue is, if we do get them, we have been looking around and usually find them pretty small. They are pretty rare here it seems. Only a couple of the LFS' we looked at had them.
One more thing we saw some fish that we are looking at that are labelled demaisoni but they are not as black as the first ones we saw and their undersides seem paler than the Demaisoni we are looking at. Could these be mislabelled saluosi? I have a thread with a picture running as well looking for an ID on the fish we saw.
