Sals are awesome - tough lil' buggers with visable large teeth and a multitude of color. They can usually stand their ground with all types of fish - Best Part - they don't dig! Sals choose caves, wood, rocks, even other cichlids pits to call their home. They will defend the home but generally aren't thought of as loose cannons making them somewhat community safe. They do not get obnoxiously large - males being larger than females @ a robust 6" giving their owners the ability to be kept in smaller (55gal) tanks. Because Sals don't dig they will likely not uproot plant material if you keep them in a planted habitat.
salvini experiences
- Thread starter bbortko
- Start date
Since the nic and ebjd are still new I'm gonna let them grew and start looking for the salvini later in the year, it sounds like it should work unless I get a jerk which is pretty much the case with most cichlids except for the always surly ones like haitians and black belts. I'll probably add a few branches and some more caves but hopefully this setup will work
My salvinis dug all the time. My male dug up gravel in one tank and sand in the other, all the way to the bottom of the tank. In the breeding tank they liked to rearrange the decorations too; placing sand and plants towards the front of the tank...trying to block my view!
I had a female that wasn't aggressive at all. I hear males can be much more aggressive. It is pretty easy to sex them-females have a blue blotch on the dorsal fin.
Well, I guess I'll share my (maybe) worst case scenario... I wanted to add a female sal to my 75g tank. She was then maybe 3". In the 75g there were three 5" ebjds, three 6" clown loaches, and some other dithers. By the end of the day, every other fish was huddled at the far end of the tank in fear for their lives. At night it got worse; splashing sounds, thumping. Next morning, half the other fish had shredded tails. So now I have a 36" tank with one female sal who hides all the time. Beautiful fish, though...
Sals do dig. My female dug right before she was going to lay eggs. Although she dug around her cave only. Thats really all you need ot know is that the sal will want a territory of its own. And it will compete for it.
My little female sal is a hellraiser.She is only about 3inches and has alreday took out my two 4in jack dempseys.But thankfully she is not big enough to take on my oscar...and she has some nice color on her also.
I started out with 7 Salveni from a good friend of mine and they started out @ 1". They were placed in my 210 with a full grown Oscar, 20-30 full grown Africans(Malawi and Tang.), A 13" sailfin pleco, a 10" regular pleco and a 6" red tail blue botia loach. These fish grew FAST!! Before I had them 6 months they had reached 6". All but two that is. The largest of the group killed one and the Oscar killed the smallest. Now they are part of the community. I think they think they are Africans. They dig, guard their territories and basically stay "busy" all the time. I really enjoy them and they have become my favorite fish. The "mixed bag" that has become my aquarium hasnt seemed to be a prob for the most part. Salveni are cool fish! I like that its easy to tell the sexes apart.
I had a female salvini that was one of the prettiest fish in the tank, but she got killed (not sure by whom) . . .
I had a male salvini that hid all the time and only came out when he was attacking the other fish; he went back to the LFS
never kept a pair . . .
I had a male salvini that hid all the time and only came out when he was attacking the other fish; he went back to the LFS
never kept a pair . . .
Yeah I forgot to mention that about the digging: it's really only their territory that they customize.
My female kicks my male's butt sometimes, but nothing life threatening.
My female kicks my male's butt sometimes, but nothing life threatening.
