Retirement and forum shutdown (17 Jan 2022)
Hi,
John Howell who has managed the forum for years is getting on and wishes to retire from the role of managing it.
Over the years, he has managed the forum through good days and bad days and he has always been fair.
He has managed to bring his passion for fish keeping to the forum and keep it going for so long.
I wish to thank John for his hard work in keeping the forum going.
With John wishing to "retire" from the role of managing the forum and the forum receiving very little traffic, I think we must agree that forum has come to a natural conclusion and it's time to put it to rest.
I am proposing that the forum be made read-only from March 2022 onwards and that no new users or content be created. The website is still registered for several more years, so the content will still be accessible but no new topics or replies will be allowed.
If there is interest from the ITFS or other fish keeping clubs, we may redirect traffic to them or to a Facebook group but will not actively manage it.
I'd like to thank everyone over the years who helped with forum, posted a reply, started a new topic, ask a question and helped a newbie in fish keeping. And thank you to the sponsors who helped us along the away. Hopefully it made the hobby stronger.
I'd especially like to thank John Howell and Valerie Rousseau for all of their contributions, without them the forum would have never been has successful.
Thank you
Darragh Sherwin
tropheus
- lampeye (lampeye)
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can anybody give me their experiences? especially if they broke your heart! where u think u went wrong, whats worked for you etc.
im thing of a 4 foot 250-300 litre tank, with maybe 15 fish.
first off is that big enough? i dont want them to look cramped. then of course which tropheus? i know dubosi are more peacefull than the rest, but what would be the next most peacefull ??
thanks in advance.
fran
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- sheag35 (Seamus Gillespie)
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Fishkeeping the Only way to get wet and wild
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- sheag35 (Seamus Gillespie)
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www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/tropheus_ten_tips.php
www.thecichlidgallery.com/article_rightwrong_tropheus.htm
users.bigpond.net.au/steve.corbett/steve...us/tips/for_you.html
seamus
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- Darkrin (Damien Kane)
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I don't claim to be a tropheus expert, but i'll share with you the advice given to me by an expert and my own opinions..
Firstly they are not hard to keep.They just require that maintenance schedule is strictly kept to.
300l won't hold 15 full grown adults.
Add them all at the same time to reduce stress.
IMO keep only 1 type in a tank. I feel that mixing them you just don't get the best from them, colour and breeding is effected by mixing.
Maintenance, i do 40% water every week, heating the water to the same as the tank,any temp change is bad for them.I use a Wheelie bin for this and add buffers to make sure water is V.hard.I
feed only NEW LIFE SPECTRUM and I have no real problems.
I had to move house with them, used ORGANIC AQUA to ensure water quality was not effected, some fish went a bit off, some had whitish poo , a course of OCTOZIN and they were as right as ever.
Some where still going through breeding motions when all this was happening so breeding is not an indication that all is ok.IMO.
I like the black sp. group, although aggressive, have the best colours IMO.
If i was setting up another group I'd go with 'Kiriza's'
Males are different colours to females and it looks like 2 groups... check these out
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- derek (Derek Doyle)
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i have kept several species and variants and these are my thoughts in order tough to tougher.
doubosi. great fry and can be kept in smaller groups in smaller tanks. no pussys though.
reds; moliro and chimba. more peacable but did not keep them to large size.
blacks; the kaisers. ikola and kiriza, magnificent in large groups but really tough.
bemba and cherry spot. almost as above.
reds; chipimba, grew huge and matched tretocephalus for sheer power to kill even other species.
i have to go out now, but i will finish this post at another time.
30 tanks specialise in african cichlids, angelfish and various catfish
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- lampeye (lampeye)
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sheag35: i have a filter running for about three years and would use mos tof the water from that tank so no worries there. thanks also for the links but i was hoping to hear from members who keep/.kept them and get a discussion going, articles can be great but you cant ask questions! what size tank have you got those groups in?
darkin: do you think a group of 10 in a tank that size would work? agression wise i know more i s better but dont want to get a huge tank as ive moved a few times in the last couple of years and its a pain in the swiss roll! having said that if the only way to keep them well is in a 400l+ i might just leave them be for now. they are amazing ones in the video.
derek:thanks for that info and i look forward to see what you'll add later. when you say the blacks were really tough...can you go into a bit more detail?
and finally a question about decoration. ive read bits and pieces but it seems for some people loads of rocks works best and for others just a small pile at each end was better and made them less aggressive. whats has your(plural) experiences been?
thanks again everyone
lampeye
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- lampeye (lampeye)
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- sheag35 (Seamus Gillespie)
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its powered by 2x 300l heaters and filtered by a eheim 2026 and a 2060 external filter so loads of filtration, using carib sea african cichlid substrate mixed with crushed coral and i also add seachems african cichlid trace, tanganyikan buffer and african cichlid salts.. find these seachem products brilliant;)
Fishkeeping the Only way to get wet and wild
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location:Limerick
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- Darkrin (Damien Kane)
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I think a group of 8 is too small,for blk sp., they breed away but the inferior in the group take a whippin !!
I've got 25 fry living with these adults and it makes for a great diplay:) .
The display with the ilangi's is 2m and 600+ L, there are 15 ilangis which i think is the best group size, these are adults and not as aggressive as the blk sp.
There are 12 duboisi in there also and although sub adults, this is also a good group size as aggression is minimal.But these are duboisi and classed as the least aggressive.
It all depends what size fish you plan on starting with. If its juv's 2" fish i'd get more than what you would plan on keeping,in case of losses etc.. down the road its near if not impossible to introduce new members to a group.
I use 2 rock piles either end of the tank.
The main reason for big losses ( US sites) is bloat. This is down to food..shrimp mixes, spirialina etc IMO.. I think NLS guarantee their food won't cause bloat..1 less thing to worry about..just up to us to provide good water..easy !!
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- Darkrin (Damien Kane)
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i have them in a 780l tank so loads of room for them...
NICE !!!
any pictures or vids ?
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- sheag35 (Seamus Gillespie)
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Fishkeeping the Only way to get wet and wild
currently 25 tanks, and breeding is the aim of everything i keep
location:Limerick
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- lampeye (lampeye)
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if they really need a 5ft + tank i might leave em alone for now. what are your thought s derek?
lampeye
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- derek (Derek Doyle)
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wholesalers and breeders keep them in packed holding tanks with no rocks and there is virtually no fighting even though they sometimes breed in these conditions. they are all voracious eaters who will eat any food presented, even protein which is dangerous to them as it cannot be properly digested.
they can be a challenge, but get it right and you'll have a great all action display.
moliro or chimba are about the easiest of the moori to go with and although bigger tanks are best i have seen them do ok in smaller groups and tanks when 1 male only is kept.
Doubosi are the best starter trophs as they can even be ok in pairs sometimes.
doubosi can be safely kept with any of the moori group as they appear to largely ignore each other.
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- derek (Derek Doyle)
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variants just sold as the species t. moori. As far as i remember the variants in the shops then (usually not named) were the blacks, kaisers and bemba and some poorly coloured ones. Most people bought them in ones and twos and put them even into community tanks with barbs etc., and there was no real knowledge of their water or food or tankmate requirements. Imagine the havoc.
T.G. the hobby has come a long way since those days.
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- 2poc (2poc)
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They are just reaching adulthood now, & hyper is a good word to describe them.
They seem to do well with mbuna, in fact it even mentions it in the Aqualog book on Tropheus that provided the diet is right they tend to go well together.
My Moliro are breeding at the moment, no sign of the Kipili spawning but I wouldn't really expect a pair to do very well.
Great fish, I would love to have more - there are some stunning variants.
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- derek (Derek Doyle)
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at the moment i have 4 3 inch doubosi and a single 3 inch t. moori in a large holding tank with various large and medium sized tangs and malawis and cats and am feeding mostly nls and everybody is behaving. although i have to supplement feed the synos by torch or the trophs try to gobble the lot.
trophs are such voracious feeders and will nearly eat till they burst. inexperienced people sometimes mistakenly assume the result of overeating is bloat which they immediately treat with a cocktail of drugs and when the fish s....s and reduces back to normal girth they assume the drugs have worked.
i strongly believe that real bloat is not fully curable. a fish having had a bad bloat infection and made something of a recovery will be weak.
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- zebadee73 (John Carty)
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I had 15 wild JUVENILE Ikola Kaiser in a 240L which after 3 months became too small. I subsequently bought a 500L 5 foot to house them in. I lost 10 of the Ikola to Bloat not over feeding, managing to save the remaining fish through a very intensive dose of octozin. I was lucky that of the the remaining 5 fish four were female which subsequently went on to hold 30 fry before I sold the adults.
My 5 foot 500L tank is 2.5 feet deep, 2.5 foot tall and obviously 5 foot long. I have a 2 to 3 cm deep substrate bed of play sand with some crushed coral sand added for buffering. The tank is filtered with a Tetratec 2400 (2400 lph), lit by two 59W T5 and heated by two 300W heaters, one at each end of the tank.
My background is made of pvc roof guttering into which I have drilled 4cm diameter holes along the length of the guttering. I place these on the substrate and over them layer pieces of slate. Up that backwall of the tank I have used a premade, shop bought, fibreglass Liverock imitation background usually used in Marine Tanks. To the forefront of the tank are two large pieces of slate that act as boundary dividers.
And now to the stock, currently the 5 foot tank holds 9 wild Moori Moliro, 14 Wild Duboisi Maswa, 8 Leptosoma Unita and three Wild Compressiceps with a cleanup crew of some 3 ancystrus. I find that while the TRopheus en masse are boistreous, as long as there is sufficient hiding space and individuals in the group the agression is shared amongst the total group. That said males (and occasionally females when males are absent) can get hyper agressive to the point of damaging/killing members of the group. At that point the best thing to do is move him along to your LFS. For the same reason, be careful when buying lone Tropheus in a LFS, they usually come with a rap -sheet and an ASBO!

My 240L tank is used as a fry grow out tank and currently holds about 20 Duboisi and 30 Ikola fry. It is filtered by an Eheim canister and a Fluval. The substrate is coral sand and the internal decoration is a pile of shale.
My 80L has about 25 Leptosoma fry with an internal filter with no substrate. The second 80L is being set up in advance of the Moliro coming into the family way.
ALL my fish are exclusively fed on 1mm NLS pellets apart from the small fry which are fed on NLS flake. There is no better food irrespective of dietary requirements in my opinion. All my tanks receive a water change of 25% every week. All tanks get a good hoover and susbstrate disturbance once every 3 weeks.
I would agree that the minimum tropheus set up should be:
1) Ideally in a tank with a minimum of 400L with 5 foot tank length.
2) Only feed Tropheus with NLS
3) Ideally in a smaller set up, a single species group is preferrable
4) The minimum number in a group should be about 12 to 15
5) If possible have 3 or so females to males
6) If you can get your hands on Metronizadol or Clout do so.
7) Do regular water changes, check your filters
8) Spend time watching them,
They are demanding fish, however, the crap that is written about them being impossible to keep and being very succeptible to sudden deterioration is untrue. People just don't do the research. I'd say you have the potential set up for a small group of Duboisi such as Maswa, give it a lash.
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- lampeye (lampeye)
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love to see a few pics shea!
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- derek (Derek Doyle)
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large tank, large group, stick to one variant, 1 or 2 males only, specific diet, v. little to none fry predation so no need to remove brooders.
what i am saying is there are other ways.
the following are the facts that everybody whos ever kept them would hopefully agree about tropheus.
1. eating machines. anything that goes in to tank is voraciously consumed. even wrong (for them) food.
2. first to the food. will outcompete any other species at feeding time.
3. breeding machines. even when unwell they keep breeding.(as mentioned by dakrin)
4. need very good water quality. no ammonia or nitrite, v. low nitrate, no pollution, high gh, kh and ph. best to add trace elements. almost like marine. good filtration and thoughtful water changes are required.
5. hard to add individuals to established group.
6. dreaded bloat, the only health problem the otherwise hardy species is really prone to.
7. nls food seems to be a great asset to keepers.
just to add from my personal experience that having kept and bred a dozen or more tropheus variants through the years i never had a single case of bloat. but i have seen it many times elsewhere, even in shops.
i have kept and bred tropheus in pairs, trios, smaller and larger groups at times.
at a certain age tropheus males can become hyper dominant and if this happens nothing is safe.
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- Sean (Fr. Jack)
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Some readers may already know I set up a mix carnivor mix Malawi with T. Dubusi etc, about 18 months ago, desite sceptics saying you cannot mix them together. It continues to work fairly well. Apart from been fed once a day on frozen shrimp they are all fed ever hour during a 12 hour day (by a machine naturally) green sinking pellets the winter temp is only 22C with 3 months spike of 27C (with the air con on!) I believe the reason I have not got bloat could be the frequency of feeding plus low temp???
Water Quality Aha!
Despite no water changes since the 18 month set up. I am Farly happy, the pH is 8.1. N02 O.0 N03 less than 10ppm. The only problem is the water has a tainted colour and carbon does not really help much.
The other problem is you can smell the bacteria in the trickle filter in the room from up to 2 metres from the actual sump approx after 20 minutes post feeding frozen shrimp, plus a constant genral sweet smell.
Before Christmas I bought a Tunze redox meter (it was reading 277mv prior to dosing)The system has been dosing Ozone Into the sump since then , the water has return to Cristal clear:laugh: and there is no smell any where near the sump. AS its in a T.V Hi Fi shop its important. I have set the redox now to 310mv, when it goes up to 311mv it cut the power to the air pump and the ozone generator.
All the fish look exactly the same except the T.Duboisi the fins have improved, they are more extended almost as if they were pulled from all directions they over 6 inches(T.Duboisi) in size. I will post it here when my experiment are finished at.
www.irishfishkeepers.com/cms/component/o...mit,10/limitstart,0/
Qes in the mean time whats the Redox level in the wild and temp at 25meters down in lake Tanganika:huh:
That would be a ecumenical matter!!!
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