I got my fish!

[Enki]

Sort of

I have them on hold down at the LFS. Aulonocara stuartgranti "Ngara Flametail" ~10 juveniles all ~1"

I have had my eyes on these little guys since pretty early on in the project, some weeks ago. I figured someone would snap them up long before I was ready for fish, and I would just order some. I kept checking up on them whenever I popped in, amazed every time no one had claimed them.

Today I decided my fishless cycling was going well enough, and I estimate I will be ready for fish within the week.

I went on in and they were still waiting for me!

They are very cute and perky, I am so excited to have fish, even if they aren't quite here yet

 

[madasafish]

Well, Ngara Flames are beautiful. Surpires others didn't grab them up! Hope all goes well!

(Sure you need that many? You could get one or a couple more species in there if you didn't have 10--i.e. the biomax)

 

[Enki]

I will probably trade out some sub-dominant males and trade in some females over time. What I have been reading suggests starting with a lot of juvies and work from there.

Do you think I am pushing the bioload? The plan currently is:

~10 baby Ngaras
1 Pleco
5-6 red Platies
Java fern and java moss
Possibly a population of MTS

I've got a Millennium 3000 wet/dry pushing 295 gph and a nifty (if I do say so myself) extendo-intake to increase water circulation.

From what I have read, I think I will be ok, but wisdom comes through experience, and all my experience was a long time ago.

 

[madasafish]

Yeah, that sounds like a fine idea (substituting out the males etc.). I don't think that your selection sounds like it's overstocking the tank. But I would think twice about platies. Keeping Malawis with Malawis is the best bet, esp. since some species (Aulonocara spp. included) get aggressive.

 

[Enki]

Yeah this is tricky, The Aulonocara are said to be the least aggressive of the malawi cichlids, males most aggrresive towards the females. So the trick is finding someone who will run away from my Aulonocara. Can't do other Aulonocara 'cause of hybrid risk, and Mbuna are more aggressive than Auloocara.

I was going to get a group of syn. petricola but finding captive bred babies is not easy and they are very pricey. They would have played a dual role, cleanup and dither, as they are so active.

So back to the net... found some folks who keep malawis and platies together, sounds like it will work. They like very similar water conditions and I am not too worried about the platies beating up on the Aulonocara They are pretty much just there to give my males someone to chase besides the females.

Besides, I need red fish to go with my blue fish

 

[Enki]

I did some more research today and I have decided against the platies. The most important was actually going down and looking at the platies in the LFS.

They are cute fish, but just not as engaging to me as cichlids.

So how do you think 3-4 yellow labs would do? The LFS has some babies almost the same size as the Ngaras, a little smaller but not much.

I know they aren't red but they will add early color, which is nice as the ngaras will take a year probably to color up.