We scaled back, and are only running 5 grow out tanks right now! We've got two 25G, two 10G, and a 5G up and running...

Here's what we've got growing out right now...

Cynotilapia sp. Mbamba Chitende Island, about 40 of them

F1 Cynotilapia sp. Mbamba Mphanga Rocks, about 6 of them

F1 Ps. zebra Long Pelvic Galireya, 60-70 of them!

F1 Cynotilapia White Top Galireya, about 40 of them

Ps. acei Tanzanian black, 10-15 of these

Did I say we scaled back??? Giggly

What's in your grow out tanks?

Kim

Lab. Hongi (the Dad is my avatar photo), about 12-14

Yellow Lab. The 1 survivor of my leave-mom-in experiment

Ps. Socolofi Albinos 5 guys from my first-ever spawn, now in the 1"-1.5" range

I have about 60 odd Tropheus moorii 'ndole red' fry growing up in a 4 foot 300L tank. I know that's a big tank as a growout, but boy they love it!!

Are those the Ndole reds in the first pic on the left in your signature, kilroy? They are really beautiful!

Don, do you have any more pics of your adult hongi? That is one fish that you don't see too often around here, I don't even know if I would recognize them if I saw them!

Kim

P. flavus
P. demasoni
M. auratus
albino M. greshakei
S. fryeri
L. caeruleus

This is ridiculous! I have to stop saving these fry. I don't know what I'm going to do with them. dumb dumb

Kim, it's a good thing you scaled back! :blink:

Yep they sure are. I have 10 WC adults in a 5x2x2 with 12 F1's about 12 months old.
Cheers
Shane

I'm working on some sort of fishy birth control. I think I'll win the Nobel Prize or something once I get it perfected... worry wart!

This is a "Catch 22" for me...

The males don't look good unless they have females to show out for.

You don't have the action and personality that mbuna are famous for without males and females.

If you separate them, the female tank looks drab, and the male tank looks very frustrated.

Meanwhile, I just keep salvaging fry... Blush

We can't get rid of them at all this time of year up this way, so I suppose we'll sit on them til winter! Canadians tend to throw themselves into the hobby a bit more when there's 3 feet of snow on the ground and they can't do anything else! fishy

Kim

OK, I'm starting to do a little better at fish imagery. Kim, this is the first time someone asked me for a pic and I actually came up with a decent image!

Here are two shots of my male Lab. Hongi -- more of Mom and Fry to come.





Same fish 5 minutes later displaying to a challenging Mbamba M -- you can see the bars are much more prominent.

What great shots, Don! Don't you just love it when you get one you don't have to delete? I'm proud of you!

They are beautiful! Larry gets some juvies in every once in awhile, but it's hard to imagine them growing up to look like this. I wanted to see your pics of your adults just in case I ran across them again! Now I want some!

How do you find their temperament?

Kim

Beautiful fish and nice camera work, Don! the Clap

Pseudo, that is a really pretty fish!

Does he ever show any dark barring?

I'll see how well they came out, but I have pics from the same session 5 minutes later where his bars are ultra-visible.

The female does LOTS of color changes with her moods -- I suspect I did not get shots of her that will come out as well. She will be a drab purple much of the time, but can mimic his lavender when she wants to.

I took like 50 Lab. Mbamba shots... and the best is off-focus and not great. dumb dumb

The Lab. Hongi patrol the very top of the tank to be first in line for food. If you don't enter that territory they're cool with you. If you do bother them, you get a short, efficient chase that returns you to your rightful spot. If they think there are pellets on the substrate surface they simply go to where they think the pellets are and you will have to get out of the way.

I'm hoping to keep a number of the fry from this group so I get a real community. Pretty striking difference from when I got this pair as hollow-bellied refugees from an LFS in mid-April!

Don

Aura, I edited the pic with dark barring into the prior post above so the before and after would be next to each other.

As requested, Hongi Mom and fry -- I think they have their mother's eyes, don't you? Giggly

Ok,
Here's what's really in my 4 foot fry growout tank....

Some Tropheus ndole red fluorescent fry (40-50) - Too cute!!




Some freshly spat ndole fry in a floating fry saver


A holding mum


Cheers
Shane

Nice fry Don and Shane!

F1 Placidochromis spec. Phenochilus Tanzania
F1 Altolamprologus calvus White
F1 Aulonocara spec. Lwanda
Protomelas spec. Steveni Taiwan
Tropheus moori Red Moliro
F1 Tropheus duboisi Maswa

Pseudo, those are pretty good shots of the fry. It's amazing how those colorless little things will grow up to be so nice looking.

And kilroy, they are cute!

I dont have any pics right now, but I have the following...
18 Hypsophrys nicaraguensis, they are about an inch long right now.
08 Albino Aulonocara stuartgranti (Ngara)
03 Albino Protomelas sp. "Steveni Taiwan"

My strawberry peacocks just spawned, its their first spawn...so keep yourfingers crossed.

First of all, I edited the image of the Hongi Mom into the fry post above, so you can scroll up and check her out. Dad images are farther above in this same thread.

Here are some images of my albino Socolofi fry, the first cichlids I ever spawned (since buying a holding female tilapia mossambica doesn't count!), who are now 1" - 1.5":





Here are Dad (with mom in background) and Mom -- hard to shoot albinos without overexposed images!

How do you find the albino socolofi, Don? Pretty high on the aggression meter? This is the only albino that I really like the looks of, and we've kept them twice, but I found some really intense conspecific aggression with them.

Here are my fry grow out shots:

Cynotilapia White Top Galireya


Ps. zebra Long Pelvic Galireya


Cynotilapia sp. Mbamba Mphanga Rocks (This ones going to be a stud!)


The aceis and Mbamba Chitende Island are being uncooperative!

kilroy, that female looks fantastic! You and Klaus are killing me with these Tropheus pics. I've been considering trying again, and initially thought maybe I would go with Ilangi, which were my first dream Tropheus, but the red variants just really look appealing to me!

Kim

I have only 1 growout tank running at the moment. It's a 20 g with some leftover Kenyi and some polits I rescued from when I switched the 90 g over. The Kenyi will be going to the fish store VERY soon! The polits will join the others in the 90 g. Then the 20 g is coming down! Then the 90 will be the only tank set up! I'll keep the 20 and my 10 just in case!

I have some yellow labs growing out and some ps zebra long pelvic gallereya. They will be going to the upcoming auction in RI this September.

I also picked up some polit fry over the summer. Alas yet another growout project.

Dave you will be surprised how quickly those polits will begin to mature! You will likely have females holding at an inch, so your babies will be having babies! Males won't stay full on colour until about 2 inches, but boy, will they show off for breeding time earlier than that!

Kim

Kim: Re Albino Socolofi conspecific aggression, my initial netfull yielded 2M, 1F. I thought the dominant male was going to kill her with the constant chasing.

I searched all over for an LFS that a) had this species, and B) didn;t have tanks with sick or dead fish. All the ones that had them had serious health issues in their tanks.

Finally I got a pair that I thought were Albino Socolofi but were actually (I think) Albino Greshakei. As long as they're together I can't have fry unless I saw the spawn, and I do plan to separate the species. But the presence of more pure-white fish stopped the excessive aggression towards the one female. A also suspect that both of the Greshakei are female.

Dave: Too bad we're 3,000 miles apart. I'd have loved to buy or swap for some of your polit fry!

Pseudo, with your new found talent for fish photography, perhaps you should take some photos of your suspected greshakei. :D

I've had the albino socolofi in the past and have albino greshakei now. I'll have to look through my pics and see what I can find.

Have you noticed that your albino fry grow more slowly than the others?

I had not thought about them growing more slowly -- since they were my first spawn I have no data for comparison.

I'll see if I can get a decent Albino Greshakei shot -- they overexpose so readily that it's hard!

Okay, just spotted this.

rough numbers

200 yellow labs
120 Ps demasoni
120 Copadichromis Trav
150 Aulonocara Ruby red
75 Ngara Flame tail
170 Aulonocara eureka albino
20 red fin compres.
150 Aulonocara sulpher head
50 Victorian ruby green hap
30 Ngara albino
75 Ps Polit

Don't you hate growing out those polits, Patrick? They seem to take forever to grow! You've got a great list! What do you find grow the slowest of yours?

We've started going into real "overstock" mode with some of our juvies by throwing them back into the main tanks once they reach a certain size that they can't be eaten. We're hoping to wind up with more males that can "play nice" and new females to take the pressure off the older ones this way.

Kim

Oooooh, busy busy people!

150 Mbamba 'Chitende Island'
80 Yellow Labs
50 Cobalts
100 Estherae 'Minos Reef'
60 Tropheus 'Orange Flame' Bemba
30 Placidochromis Electra
30 Bicolors
15 Afra Cobue
10 Pseudo Longior
20 Borleyi 'Kadango'

I WANT MORE TROPHEUS

Steph, I might take some of the Ps. Longior off your hands when they are ready to go!

Sounds like you're busy, too!

Kim