WOW...Cichlids really love to dig...

[Gordinho80]

WOW...the littel 2" kenyi in my tank has made herself quite the cave, or fort, if you will...2 days ago, my tank was as it was when the cichlids where introduced...yesterday i started to notice a large pile of sand located near one of the rocks that i had laying on the tank floor...this pile has grown significantly since yesterday...

today i was lucky enough to witness what was going on...the kenyi seriously goes under the rock, scoops up some sand, swims to the top of the pile and spits it out...WOW...

here is a pic of the cave and pile

 

[blue_neon]

i know what u mean i just got 4 little convicts today they have been in the tank less then 12 hours and they are making it their home... moving every thing around... im a little suprised the can do it they are so tiny like an inch.... but they are so cute .. if they had cheeks id pinch um

 

[Blucat]

Oh. that is so cute! Great pic!

 

[frog girl]

If you want to help them in their efforts or reduce the ammount of sand movement you might consider putting in a stack of rocks that produces a cavelike area or that would be easy for them to make into a cave with only minimal renovations.

They sound like really cool fish.

 

[mattrox]

Nice photo!

 

[dr_girlfriend]

wait till they get bigger! My flowerhorn, which is about 8-9 inches, can move pounds of gravel a day. When I had her in a QT tank with a flowerpot, she would roll that sucker around and against the glass. I recently had to glue a big piece of slate to each of her fake plants because she was not only ripping the leaves off , but uprooting the whole thing and it was always getting stuck to the filter intake. She can still undig it a little, but she can't really move it (yet).
PS; Your little guys are sooo cute!

 

[SerLunchbox]

all i will say is wait till they get bigger ....

 

[TankGirl]

Mine move sand too - and there are piles and piles of rocks! I think they really "need" to move sand to be happy, so providing them a nice quantity to do what they want with is always a good thing.

 

[Fishyfanatic]

It's very funny to watch them dig around in the sand. Just wait till all your cichlid's are digging holes. HAHA. We have to replant all of our fake plants weekly because our Cichlid's will rip all of them up and they will be floating around the tank. The Johanni's REALLY move stuff around.

 

[FishLover14]

Good Pic. And Digging is what cichlids do, like everyone else said juts wait till they get big, they will be making mounds of sand everwherew.

 

[mandi]

Quite the little excavator you have there My husband's tank is regularly redecorated/excavated by our African community.....it is actually pretty fun to sit and wacth them as they dig about.

 

[TankGirl]

Someone once compared the bottom of their African tank to the surface of the moon, and that's pretty fair - the piles are often different on a daily basis.

 

[FishLover14]

Someone once compared the bottom of their African tank to the surface of the moon, and that's pretty fair - the piles are often different on a daily basis.

LOL


Its so true