keeping tropheus discussion

although a lot of people keep tropheus nowadays the only big adults i have seen around are the ilangi group in petstop in blanchardstown.
the minimum tank size for tropheus is 400 l and 2 ft deep for duboisi and 600 l and 2 ft deep for moori etc. the depth helps to ease aggression as an attacked fish is able to escape up or down.
a fully adult tropheus is a big fish at 5 to 6 inches and is a fighting machine esp. at spawning time.
they will breed at around 3 inches and at this stage they are quite manageable and most of us think it is quite easy but very few keepers keep them alive to full adulthood.
dubosi are a deep water fish in the lake and and are much more tolerant than their larger cousins but are still pretty tough when grown.
water quality has to be really good to keep them healthy and as they hate large water changes good filtration is very necessary and ph etc. has to be kept stable.
the above applies to a lesser extent to mbuna re full adult size.
anyway these are some of my views on these species having kept them on and off for 30 years.

thanks derek for that i had a few goes at growing them on without success as you know but my last project with them seems to be triving .this time feeding right changing water correctly and all going well thanks for passing on the knowledge .ciaran

good to hear that ciaran. you certainly have the tanks for them and they are worth the effort.

once again the credits yours cheers

Hello Derek i had them years ago got them from Des 8 of them young in a 6 x2 x2 tank grew to be fine fish and bred no problem cheers Johney

Hi Derek,
Nice to see more people getting in to them.Main problems are as you above already mentioned the actually difficulty to keep them.Homework has to be done BEFORE buying.I followed the last coupple of weeks(returnes every so often) a discussion on the german forum about tank sizes and stocking.The most breeders over there stock 1 Tropheus to 25 litre,very small decoration,30-50% waterchanges,stabil conditions and no overfeeding.What they think is a good balance between overstocking and spreading the aggressions.The surrounding countries keep and breed them different with same success.They keep small groups of 2/5 in the same size tanks and a lot decoration and it works.So everyones choice as long it works out.I keep my groups in 5 foot tanks with 20-30 semi adults at the moment,small decoration and most important good water conditions.Another main common problem is the quallity of stock which is availiable.The best roof doesnt help when the foundations were done wrong.I say no more to this point.Not to highjack this thread but at the moment a lot of people go with Frontosas and are not aware of the adult size of them either.
Regards,Tim

tim, of course everything you say is correct and there are numerous ways to the same end. also i know that you research and work hard to keep your fish in the best possible conditions. but my main point is that unless we keep fully grown tropheus as in 5 inch plus then the sheer power and ferocity will come as a surprise when compared to keeping younger and smaller adults as in 3 to 4 inch.
johnny, the large tank size would have been ideal for tropheus and as i wrote earlier doubosi size and power is less than with moori. also what eventually happened to them and did they reach their full size.
cichlid guy, tropheus at an inch or less can react badly to movement or disturbance and change in water values, it is easier but more expensive to start with 2 inch individuals and keep the water and feeding at its best.
also i have found that tropheus are similar to loricarids in that by the time you notice illness it is too late to act. they incubate illness or organ damage without looking ill. so even though they look well at time of purchase the damage through transportation, and incorrect feeding and water quality can already be incubating.

Well Derek i had them for 2 years and a fair size too i moved on to other fish gave them away to a good home best fish i ever had

i know how cichlidguy feels the same thing happened to me i saw a pattern form when you see one hanging around on its own the damage had been done .i made the mistake of thinking that they were as forgiven as malawis and i found out the hard way that ther not i lost a right few of them you cant afford to take your eye off the ball with them .so good luck adi

to continue this topic, these are pics of an adult group of doubosi maswa, they were originally owned by chrism and i would estimate their age at 4 to 7 years old. the dominant males are 5 inch plus and are like armour plated goliaths. and i love them. hope these pics load ok.


this is some of the group it illustrates the power of these fish despite the bad pic.


this is the 2nd dominant male an idea of his size can be gauged from the fry in pic. which is about 1 1/2 inches


this is a mouthbrooding female. check out the look in the eye. intelligent and fearless.

Nice snaps Derek there some fish Johney

Nice pics Derek

Lovely bunch of Tropheus in those pics. I've a pair of Tropheus only. It is thrilling to see, almost like a switch has been turned on, when their head changes to this bright blue/grey and the yellow band glows. This normally happens when the female decides to spawn or fight. The male is henpecked a little (not the hubby the fish).

Sorry to bump this thread but I was wondering how long does it take to get a tropheus bemba to adult size?

hi roealdo, tropheus will probably start breeding at around 12 to 15 months but they are not fully mature till around 2 years or so. even after this they continue to grow in the aquarium. they can live up to 10 years plus in the aquarium but in the lake a lot less than this, maybe 3 or 4 years. females generally mature at a faster rate than males but young fish will only produce 2 or 3 fry.
in the lake tropheus eat almost constantly but their natural food has low value, unlike the manufactured food we give in the aquarium.
feeding nls as part of the diet is ok but their main food should be spirulina based as otherwise too much fat builds up around the ovarys causing poor or no egg production also a richer diet causes increased aggression. it is also good to give them the odd fasting day.

Hi all
My problem with which I'm having with Dubosi ,I started with 1m 3 f i since added 4juveniles ,ikept them with a group of 12 ikola but have since separated .I'm now left with 1 m 1 f 2 juv .the dominant male is vicious ,he always seems to kill the females when they are holding ,the fish are about 3 inches.any suggestions what to do next.ie add more juveniles or females or a bigger male
.i could also split the ikola group but that would just cause havoc.

I'm delighted this topic has been brought back up
John

There was a time when Tanganykan's were my main fish (they were the days when I think I would have called my self a bit of a nutter fish-wise).
I have since been cured.

When I moved to Ireland in the late 90s, I did re-start my fish collection again by getting some baby Tropheus duboisi, but the quality was a bit cack to be quite honest compared to my former collection (all wild-caught except for the ones I had bred).

I still have a soft-spot for the goby cichlids, but T. duboisi is probably my fav (certainly my fav Tropheus).

These are great upto a certain age and size, then suddenly when that male starts to push 6 inches and starts to look his age (slight change in the face morphology) then that is the time one has a brute in the tank. Breeding becomes very difficult and tends to be well down the priority list when compared to aggression.

In the past I have been lynched for saying that docile Tropheus are due to poor water quality (especially small ammonia spikes), I will, however, still stand by that.

There was once a load of rubbish about a mystery disease called "Malawi Bloat" and Tropheus tended to be reported as the main susceptible fish............no mystery really: they simply were not being kept correctly, and their weakened kidney and reduced swim bladder system could not cope too long with cack conditions: poor food, poor water quality, oxidising water (eg organic acids building up over time with lack of water changes), people were almost making Tang tanks semi-marine!!, and stress (with a lack of anti-stress food).

Never, though, before have we had such cheap Tropheus on the market.....you can pick up a Tropheus for around a tenner.
When I bought my first Tropheus, it cost about the same as setting up a decent sized marine aquarium (and when I first got C.frontosa, I thought the importer was billing me for the whole of the lake !! ).

Times have changed in some respect, but a full grown male duboisi standing proud in a tank is a pretty impressive sight.

ian

Have to agree with your last line Ian - I recently picked up some duboisis from Peteemax and the dominant male who is around 5 inches is a belter. They are a fantastically interesting fish to watch how their appearance changes from juvenile to adult. This large male rarely shows his cream coloured barring - he only shows a hint of it when spawning. Do you know if this is a common thing with dominant duboisis?

Cheers

Mark.

It is normal enough for doubosi to show more intense colour when displaying, fighting or mating but seeing as they do nothing else lol, the colours are mostly switched on except when sleeping and then the colours fade completely.
Males esp. dominants do show less yellow than females generally but the amount of yellow on maswas is extremely variable, even on wild caught specimens.

I found the Malawian chichlids to be more aggressive than the tropheus. I had a tank full of Malawain mbuna and it was constant action. Very aggressive and lots of hierarchical behaviour.

Today I keep 2 colonies of tropheus in a 600 ltr tank and it is my obsercation the aggression is a lot less than the malawian tank i had. there are about 40 adults in this setup and they spawn regularly.

I read an article once on this, when two tropheus fight it is known for the other trohpeus to circle below them creating a 'vortext' of swirling fish. The suggestion was this was the hierarchy of the colony in the vortex.

In your 30 years keeping tropheus, did you see something like this?

R

Just reading Ian's post there makes me think my water needs a check - but I dont believe the lack of super aggression is because of poor water conditions. The breed, there is some aggression, its just not as manic as its often described to be.