Tropheus Question

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A

Aussiedogs

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Feb 11, 2009
20
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Rockford, Illinois
Hello all,

I have a group of 20 Kaiser II Tropheus I have had for about 2 years. I have had zero casualties (knock on wood) but they still haven't colored up as much as I thought they would be by now. They are 2-3 inches in size and only two or three males are showing their yellow very well.

Tank mates are 8 or so Syn Petricolas (not sure, could be more as they are impossible to count in and out of the rocks) and, this may be the reason they aren't coloring up, one yellow lab. He was a baby I had from another tank and I couldn't find anyone to take him so I let him hide out in there. Now he is 4 inches long and really stunning to look at. He is in no way the dominant fish in the group, more like one of the school.

Any thoughts would be helpful. I don't want to remove the lab if it will screw up the tank dynamics. I have seen tropheus colonies get wiped out by removing a fish before and I want to be very careful about changing anything.
 
Have your fish ever spawned I don't know how yellow these tropheus get but it might help to remove the lab as he may appear as dominant male due to size and color. Some of the problem maybe the petricolas I think they lay their eggs in the way before the tropeus can get it right and up holding the petricolas instead of their own eggs. This could be enough to intimidate your males. We have our tropheus in a species only tank they are only a year old and are already breeding and at least2 to 3 inches long. I don't know a lot about tropheus each kind could be different. Also are you feeding them a veggie diet they really need that.
 
Although I haven't seen any fry, they are constantly doing the spawning dance, so I am not sure if they have actually spawned.


As for food, I feed them spirulina flake and New Life Spectrum cichlid formula only.

I will check ph and try to get a picture up asap. I am the worst fish photog ever, but I will do my best.

I may be underestimating their size as well.

Thanks for the interest, I will update soon.
 
Are kaiser 2 the kiriza varient? If so, they aren't as flashy as the ikola. With ikola, color throughout the entire colony can be strong compared to other troph varients. I had a group of wild sp. red "ndole" a while back. The 2 dom males looked AMAZING, the rest of the group, not so much. A bunch of brown fish.
 
swk;4849887; said:
Are kaiser 2 the kiriza varient? If so, they aren't as flashy as the ikola. With ikola, color throughout the entire colony can be strong compared to other troph varients. I had a group of wild sp. red "ndole" a while back. The 2 dom males looked AMAZING, the rest of the group, not so much. A bunch of brown fish.
Click to expand...


agreed
 
If they're kiriza, the yellow will extend all the way through the top of the dorsal fin, and the band is usually narrower then ikolas. The top of the dorsal fin will be black if they're ikola.

I would guess that if they did produce fry that they would be eaten by your synos. Their size is a bit small for their age. What size tank are they in?
 
Couple of things, first, they are Ikola. There is black on the dorsal, and I found the email from when I got them. I bought them at around a half inch size 18 months ago and they are probably all closer to 3 inches, not 2-3. But they do seem a little small, I had some years ago that seemed to be bigger.

Currently they are in a 75 gallon, but I am looking to move them into a 6 foot tank shortly.

Also, since I first posted this I have become way more interested in that tank, and have notice that I have roughly 5 or 6 showing their yellow regularly.

I am determined to get a decent picture of the tank and will soon. I put it in the wall of my basement and it has black quartz pool sand mixed with crushed coral for a substrate.

Thanks again for your help, if they aren't all colored up by May I will be worried.

Oh, do you all think I should pull the yellow lab out or not? He seems quite inconsequential to the Tropheus, but if he's holding back their colors, I will give him to my LFS.
 
I think I would pull all the other fish if you do qant to try and raise some of your tropheus. I don't know about your area but around hear apparently any tropheus will sell good. May want to just try them on the veggie flakes for a while thats all we feed our nodli bay red and the have great colr and are breeding well at less than a year of age also give lots of small meals they seem to like that.
 
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