Fish » African cichlids

African Cichlids Tank Setup

admin — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:16:17 +0000

Native to three lakes in Africa: Lake Malawi, Lake Tanganyika and Lake Victoria, African Cichlids could be one of the most beautiful and colourful fishes you can ever have in your tank. These species are known for their amazing personalities and traits making them among the most popular for aquarium keepers and fish breeders. African Cichlids are known not only for their attractiveness, but also for their being sociable and intelligent. Despite the ease of care for these fishes, they could tend to be aggressive due to their territorial instincts.

If you are planning to bring home an African Cichlid, it is pertinent to understand these species first and set them up an environment best for their personalities and nature. In setting up a tank for your African Cichlids, it is best to mimic where they come from. The native lakes they are from are generally very rocky so putting rocks, corals and even clay pots could create an at-home atmosphere for them. This would also prove to be helpful in dealing with their aggressive behaviour as allowing more areas of cover in the tank gives them more opportunity to claim their own territory. Woods and rocky areas in the aquarium also serve as hiding spots for other fishes that becomes target of dominant Cichlid males. Their aggression can also be dealt with by paying attention to the size of your tank. Generally, the bigger your tank is, the better.

All three lakes also have hard water and high pH. It is then ideal to maintain the water in your African Cichlid tank at a pH of 7.4 to 8.6 and a water hardness of 10 to 20 dH. The water set at 78-78 degrees F and providing a lot of filtration in your tank keeps your cichlids inhabitants healthy. Ideal selection for aquarium heater for them is 5 watts per gallon. With their eating habits, African cichlids could be quite messy so power filter with good flow is an excellent choice.

There are several options for substrate. Black gravel is popular because it allows the fishes’ color to show up better. Others opt for red granite gravel, crushed limestone, crushed coral or any regular sand as they would all work great for African Cichlids. Plants are not a good idea for tank additions since African cichlids loves to excavate. With the absence of plants, lightings for your cichlid aquariums need not be intense.

Setting up your African Cichlid tank may take some work, but it pays to get it right. If done properly, you can keep your African cichlids healthy and happy and you can make your beautiful aquatic display dream come true.

African Cichlids Information

admin — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 07:09:15 +0000

African cichlids are one of the most interesting fishes anybody can ever keep in an aquarium. If you want a tank full of the most brightly colored freshwater fish you could ever see, then this is the fish for you. Known for being social and active, these fishes displays a lot of energetic movement and keeps anybody’s tank look alive and entertaining. The array of colors and beautiful patterns they come in are not typical of most freshwater tropical fish, making African cichlids among the most fascinating and beautiful fish to observe.

These fishes come from three of Africa’s great lakes: Malawi, Tanganyika and Victoria. Among the common species of African cichlids within the aquarium hobby are Zebra Obliquidens, African Butterfly Cichlid, Lake Makawi Butterfly Cichlid, Jewel Cichlid, Compressed Cichlid, Grants Peacock Cichlid, Frantosa Cichlid, Slender Cichlid, Victoria Biglip Hap Cichlid and Lifalili Cichlid. There are over a hundred of African Cichlid species but not all makes good fish for an aquarium.

Aside from their social behaviour and extroverted personalities, a lot of fish keepers are amazed with the degree of intelligence these fishes possess. African Cichlids are also territorial and has the tendency to be aggressive towards other cichlids. This behaviour may be dealt with though by considering aspects like male to female ratio in the tank and providing them structured areas and hiding spots within. A large tank for your cichlids is important as well.

Most African Cichlids are known for their proliferation. Being “maternal mouth brooders” makes them relatively easy to breed. The male African Cichlids fertilizes the eggs and the female then picks them up, and incubates them in her mouth for 21 to 31 days. She doesn’t eat during this period, one amazing character these fishes have. There are also a few other species of fish that practices mouth brooding though.

These creatures, according to their species, vary in size. But unlike other aquarium fishes, African cichlids could grow up to 4 to 6 inches, while the Haps could even reach sizes up to 9 inches. These fishes lives for about 4-10 years, but certain species could thrive up to 15 years.

African Cichlids are one of the most beautiful aquarium inhabitants an aquarium owner can ever have. It doesn’t require really much to care for them. Their temperaments could make looking after them become daunty. With proper knowledge, keeping African Cichlids is easy and rewarding, and makes anybody’s aquatic experience wonderful.

Tropical Fish Hatcheries

admin — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:50:21 +0000

Tropical fish keeping is fast becoming a hobby for many people. They find these creatures spectacular and very appealing. Some do it as a hobby while others keep them to add beauty in their homes. Breeders do this for profits. The demand for tropical aquatics has resulted in tropical fish hatcheries.

These hatcheries breed mainly tropical fishes in a controlled fashion. The breeds are raised in aquariums or special ponds without needing to pursue the wild population. Good hatcheries provide optimum environment for the eggs to develop and hatch. There are so many processes involved in this such as maintenance of proper water temperature and oxygen levels, adequate food supply and safety. The tropical fishes are bred in captivity and are then shipped to different parts of the world.

Compared to the past, modern tropical fish hatcheries are more developed and efficient. Their hatchery processes are less damaging to offsprings and even helps preserve the threatened fish stocks.

If you wish to contact a fish hatchery, you can look up the yellow pages for quite a number of listings. However, nowadays, tropical fish hatcheries are better reached online and here are a few hatcheries I have looked up:

Pondsidetropicalfish.com – located in Minneapolis. It is a home-based hatchery with a whole range of interesting and unusual breeds of tropical freshwater fishes. They take pride in their very convenient terms of shipping to any parts of the country and outside the country as well.

Rfitropicalfish.com – (Rainforest Farms International) operates hundreds of huge aquariums and is known for breeding Discus fish and other breeds of tropical fishes for over twenty years.

Angelsplus.com – based in Upstate, New York. They have a wide supply of show-quality tropical fish of different breeds as well as hatchery-proven aquarium supplies.

Ornamentalfish.com.tw – A Taiwan based breeder and exporter of tropical fishes and are known to be efficient exporters of such.

Waynesworldangelfish.com – pride themselves in producing healthy and excellent breeds of angelfish as well as a wide selection of freshwater tropical fishes.

Livefishdirect.com – based in Utah. They are a known breeder of freshwater aquarium fishes and boasts of their modern processes and facilities. Though African Cichlids are the main focus of their hatchery, they breed a great number of species as well and ship them across untied States.

If you want to do the hunt for yourself, it might interest you to look up www.Aquafind.com and explore the long list of tropical fish hatcheries from different parts of the world. You can find the information you need on these tropical fish havens and have any ornamental fish that will satisfy your aesthetic pleasure.

Rare Freshwater Tropical Fish for Sale

admin — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 08:34:35 +0000

There are probably hundreds of spectacular species of freshwater tropical fishes out there. The beauty and uniqueness of these creatures have drawn more and more people into fishkeeping and the hobby had become so popular all over the world.

Most fish owners, seeks out the very rare species for several reasons. Rare freshwater tropical fish are preferred by those who have the passion for the exotic. These people, who are mostly collectors, have the ‘eye for the unusual’. Others desire to preserve them from extinction. Those who are more inclined to business, buys the rare ones to breed them and make profits from them.

Among those what are thought of as rare freshwater tropical fishes are dwarf cichlids, livebearers, rainbow fish, labyrinth fish, killifish, gobies and gudgeons. Lake Tanganyika, Lake Malawi, Lake Victoria are those that are sought of because of their extraordinary colors. African cichlids are most admired for their fantastic beauty and charm. Siamese fighting fish and Poecilia reticulata are probably the best ones to show off with their splendid and brightly colored tails and wonderful contrast tints. But there are more out there if you do a little more digging in and want to be adventurous in your choice. You can find an overwhelming number of attractive rare species to explore with online. These rare and hard to find species for experts and hobbyists of all experience levels are not easily available in pet stores, but are mostly found in specialty online stores.

Places like Rare-tropicalfish.com, Karmafarmaquatics.net, Justrarefish.com, Tothefish.com and Reefhotspot.com are just among the few that offers such exotic creatures. It is hard to state the prices though since every kind is priced differently according to how difficult they are to obtain, where they come from, how they will be shipped, and a lot of considerations that goes with the cost. I must say there really aren’t that much places that has readily available rare freshwater tropical fishes, but if you know how to be resourceful, and would be willing to pay a few $$$ for it, you can actually own yourself the loveliest and most unique breeds in your showcase.

Getting the rarest may cost one a fortune. But whatever reason you have for wanting to purchase rare freshwater tropical fishes, may be well enough worth your money. After all, they are one of the world’s hidden gems. Seeing these lovely colored creatures would make one wanna pay any price for it.