I haven’t given a full update on the fish room in a while, so I thought today was as good as time as any to do that.
In the previous post, I revisited the topic of cichlids and play. The tank in that post, previously the L. caudopunctatus tank, is now home to a small group of Julidochromis dickfeldi. Well, that group appears to be growing. While doing water changes this past week, I noticed some wrigglers in the left rear corner of the tank. I didn’t want to disturb the area, so not really sure how many there are.
I am actually stumped because I thought only one of the dickfeldi in the tank might be sexually mature based on their sizes. But truthfully, I don’t know the sexes of any of the five. Obviously, one of them is a female and, unless she was gravid when I moved her to the tank, there must be at least a breeding male in the mix too.
That was surprise one this week. The 2nd surprise was that it appears my ‘Lamprologus’ similis spawned again.
Over the past couple of weeks, I have been modifying that tank. I decided to do two things – remove all the sand and replace with new, different sand, and add some plants. Since a sand bed is not really conducive to plants, I created a small “garden” in the rear middle of the tank using aquarium soil.
I had already removed almost all the sand the other day. Today, I was in the process of siphoning some water to add the new substrates and plants when something darted across the bare bottom tank on the right end. Had there been nothing but the glass bottom, I would probably have never seen it – a tiny similis. It wasn’t near a shell, so no idea who it belongs to. I stopped everything, started inspecting the shells where all the other similis were hanging out and saw nothing. I probed the bottom of the tank with the handle of a small tube brush hoping to see another fry move. Nothing.
That little similis wriggler was on the end of the tank where I had planned to start adding the new sand. Change of plans. I moved to the other end of the tank and added sand there. I then set up my soil barrier for the planted “garden.” I added the soil and then the plants. I left the bottom of the tank on the right-side bare, with a few shells for that single fry. I know if I had added the sand on its end of the tank, I probably would have killed it. Oh well, I guess that tank will remain incomplete for a while. Note the cloudiness in the tank (above photo), eight hours post re-do.
The next change to the fish room was moving one of the female Amatitlania nanolutea. Recall from previous posts that I had a single male and two females in a 20g long. I had hoped that the male would pair with one of the females, so I could remove the other female and, hopefully, get several spawns out of the pair. Several months later, he seems content with both females. Thus, I thought I would try to push the issue. I have been watching the two females for color display and behavior indicative of a desire to spawn. One of the two seems to be both more assertive and changes colors more often. So, I removed the other one today. I put her with the lone female that resides in one of the 40g breeders (see photo at top of post).