tropheus

im thinking of setting up a new tank, was going to be a new marine tank but i dont think i can justify spending the cash on it. tropheus have been catching my eye for a while, but they seem like a difficult fish to keep.
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

Hi fran, they should be ok in that size tank, only thing i'd say is have the tank very mature, everything as perfect as you can before adding them (had my tank running 6 mths before adding mine) and add them all together if possible if not get 7 first, then the other 8 as they can be aggressive to conspecifics... for me i have duboisi maswa, t. moorii bemba, t.moorii morilio and tropheus brichardi in the same tank with little to no aggression. my substrate is crushed coral, with limestone and coral rocks, ph is 8.5, v hard water and thats about it. they're breeding away like this have the brichardi and a morilio holding at the moment so something must be going right

heres some links that may help
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

Ive found a lot of info about TROPHEUS on the net as 'old American crap'

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

hi fran, trophs are not too agro till they reach adult size and then they go into overdrive. as the lads point out group and tank size in proportion are v. important. Doubosi ln the lake live in less populated and deeper water. less vegetation (teritory) to protect equates to somewhat less aggro. As dakrin says there are many theories on the net about tropheus characteristics and behavior, but the best advice u can get is from people that actually kept or keep them, such as dakrin, shea or chrism etc.
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.

Thanks for the advice so far lads:

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

by the way darkin i had a look at your videos on youtube, those kaisers and llangy are amazing, what size tank is taht?

Hi Lampeye, well to answer your question i have them in a 780l tank so loads of room for them, although think i'll have to set up another tank in the new year for my tanks other occupants looking at a 500l at the mo. if the other half will allow it fingers crossed.
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;)

Ive got a group of 8 kaiser adults in 1.5m,400L, i think its agreed that 400l is min size.. obviously people will keep them in smaller.. and the bigger the better.

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 !!

sheag35 wrote:

i have them in a 780l tank so loads of room for them...

NICE !!!

any pictures or vids ?

will try to post some later, took a few yesterday on new camera so will see how they turn out... but the tropheus never stay still long enough camera shy i think?

thats sounds amazing shea, love to see some pics.
if they really need a 5ft + tank i might leave em alone for now. what are your thought s derek?

With tropheus there are so many variables esp. as they reach adulthood, and the dynamics in a group can change overnight. These fish have evolved to live in a high speed ultra competitive world, so they can sometimes appear brutal and hyper to our eyes.
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.

When i first noticed tropheus in the hobby in the early 80's. it was doubosi and a few moori
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.

I have a group of 5 moori moliro & a pair of kipili in my 400 litre cichlid community tank.

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.

although dakrins method (big groups, big tanks)is undoubtedly the proven best way to keep tropheus, you can also have degrees of success with different methods. the key points ime are good water quality (low nitrate) and correct feeding. this dictates the tank/filter size and compatible companions (herbivores). until recently it was only reccommended to keep trophs with other herbivores (some mbuna, goby cichlids, maybe ventralis) but all carnivores (frontosa, ahli, calvus) were out. trophs will outcompete all other species at feeding time and will eat everything dropped into the tank, even live food such as woodlice. the introduction of NLS (no bloat) food seems to facilitate the mixing of these species to a degree.
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.

Just to add my few cents worth.

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.

thanks for all the advice everyone. i think the idea of them that appealed to me most was have a group of ten or more in a species tank (or maybe with leptosoma after chatting with derek). as this doesn't seem possible really in a 4 footer I'll give them a miss for now. i'd prefer to keep them the best way possible and so don't want to chance them tank to small for a group of that size. bah. back to the drawing board!
love to see a few pics shea!

i am pleased to see the tropheus keepers contributing to this discussion and to my mind there is not much difference of opinion on the optimum way to keep them.
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.

Africans is relatively new hobby for me, my comfort zone is marines, I find T.Duboisi and similar families the most fascinating, perhaps the reason for this interest is its something new. The u tube eariler in this thread easy equals the average marine tank.IMO.

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: