Share your experience with shelldwellers?

[sinibotia]

Hello everyone! This is my 1st post here. I've been keeping fish for 11 years now but never once have I had african cichlids of any kind! However, I recently moved into a house near my university and set up two 20 gallons with the intent of breeding some fish. At my previous residence the water was just too soft to pass up doing lots of south american fish; where I am now the water is very hard and so I'd like to try something new, and shelldwellers seem to be a really good fit.

I've been reading as much as I can but right now one thing in particular is overwhelming me- there are quite a few species of shelldwellers, and I dont know which ones are readily available (I have no lfs here, so really I have to order online anyway) or best suited for the aquarium . What are the pros and cons of different species? In particular, I'm looking for people's personal experiences with keeping them, as I'm not sure I understand the differences enough to know which I'd prefer.

The species that seem like the best candidates are multis, brevis and occelatus.

Oh, and if you have any good pictures of your own shelldweller tanks and the fish themselves I'd love to see them! Thanks!

 

[Freakgecko91]

You nailed it, brevis, ocellatus, and multifasciatus are the best "starter" shellie an the three most readily available! There are many species, like caudopunctatus, similis, meleagris, etc. and there are several collection points of each species, so there are many to chose from. Multies are going to be probably the easiest species, and are nearly indestructible from my experience with them. If I were to redo my shellie colony, I would probably go with the caudopunctatus or ocellatus "gold". I really like those two species.

Set up is pretty easy. I use play sand and the shells of dead mexican turbo snails (most saltwater stores sell these snails and they die incredibly easy if they get flipped over). You can also use escargot shells (amazon has them) or whale's eye shells ( i use a few of these as well). Typically you want 3-4 shells PER female. Most species will exist happily in a colony, but breed in pairs. Multies will breed in harems if no rival males exist. My first 4 multies were 1 male to 3 females and I had 3 batches of fry . I had a mishap and lost a lot of my fry, but did grow out 4 of them into adults (all 4 were ironically male). I now have 3 pairs of multies, and 2 loner males. I don't save fry, and let my dwarf tanganyikan bullhead catfish eat the fry (free food that's higher in protein for them). I also have a pile of holey rock on one side of my 20 gallon long, to give my goby cichlids a place to hide (they are in there until I can get my 75 gallon tanganyikan set up next month). As for tankmates, I don't really recommend too many fish to go with them in a 20. I have issues with my gobies in with them even. Because of this, I also recommend buying your colony all as one, instead of adding a few here and there. My colony will reject ALL newcomers, even a 1/4" baby that I tried to add! I would post pics, but I have used up all my posting data on here. Give me a little bit and I'll see if I can.

 

[mikem691]

Here is a few of my old multis

 

[mikem691]

one more

 

[sinibotia]

What do you have your water parameters at? I was considering using aragonite sand to buffer and raise the pH; the water is hard but the pH is around 7.3. But if the parameters are less important then I'll get play sand. Multis seem to be the most interesting behaving of the three species I mentioned.

 

[mikem691]

I only know my ph is 8.2 here I never did anything but weekly water changes. And level out the sand that they would rearrange to their liking over night.

 

[mikem691]

This is what they would do with in 24 hours after I leveled out the sand

 

[Freakgecko91]

My pH in Michigan was 8.4, here in MD I have 7.6ish. Multies (only species I have direct and longterm experience with currently) are really adaptable.

 

[Freakgecko91]

This is what they would do with in 24 hours after I leveled out the sand

Lol I've given up trying to flatten the sand. I just siphon out the sand piles when they make them lol I know they will just do it anyway so I remove the excess sand haha

 

[sinibotia]

The sand-scaping seems really amusing, especially since I'm no good at aquascaping anyway. I did have some geophagus in the past but they never redecorated like that. Do the other species I mentioned do that as well?

 

[mikem691]

Lol I've given up trying to flatten the sand. I just siphon out the sand piles when they make them lol I know they will just do it anyway so I remove the excess sand haha

Yes they will LOL I still don't know how you have other fish with them. Mine would destroy anything that got close to the shells.
Here is one more pic

 

[mikem691]

The sand-scaping seems really amusing, especially since I'm no good at aquascaping anyway. I did have some geophagus in the past but they never redecorated like that. Do the other species I mentioned do that as well?

That I don't know ive only had multis. Its great watching them do it. Their like little bulldozers moving sand and pushing shells around. I had one that always wanted to burry one of the others shells and the other one would keep removing it one mouthful at a time.

 

[Freakgecko91]

I also am not sure about the others, but If I remember correctly, multies are worse than the others when it comes to digging.

Lots of holey rock lol it's was a pain to get it to where they wouldn't have turf battles. My gobies are tough enough to give the beating right back. And my catfish are mostly nocturnal, but take a beating at feeding time lol

 

[Anthonysafricans]

here's A few of my multies very fun to watch and great starter to get into shellies and I agree with freak then u upgrade to goldies and or pearlies...I'll show you my multies and pearls

 

[Kittykat364]

Beautiful fish I'm looking to getting into Shellies myself


Sent from my iPhone using Aquarium Advice

 

[Anthonysafricans]

Def a fun fish and great if your limited with space

 

[mikem691]

The middle pic is pearlies? whats the proper name?

 

[Anthonysafricans]

Yes I'll go down n look it up now fir ya

 

[sinibotia]

Too bad it turns out all shellies are illegal in my state...

 

[Anthonysafricans]

Lamprologus stappersi