These guys live in my 120 gallon community tank. They're my first attempt at Madagascar Cichlids. If they continue to do well for me I'll try some of the more endangered ones. Hopefully they'll pair off and I'll get some fry eventually. They don't have tons of bright color but they're really pretty in their own way. They change color as they swim through the light from mossy green to purple to blue to brassy gold. Ptychochromis oligocanthus.

These little guys are eventually going into the community with the Oligocanthus. For now they're in a 45 gallon with some TexasXJag fry and a bunch of Rainbowfish until they get a little bigger and won't be Bichir chow in the big tank. Tilapia bythobates. They're hard little buggers to get pictures of. They don't stay still for a second. A couple of them are turning brick red with blue spangles but I can't get decent pictures of them.

nice community!!!
thanks for sharing!

nice O's the fins get long,the tilapias look good,jagis awsome dude i love your collection all u need is some menarambos ,niloticus,and u got the afromad tank dude i love to mix em up they fight less caude they dont know what the other speicies looks like they go by pattern color shape good luck and keep us posted

Thanks. Yeah, I plan on getting some Menarambos in the future. Once I'm relatively sure I can take care of them right. I figure these Oligocanthus are a good starting point. They're a little hardier, supposedly breed easily, and aren't critically endangered in the wild so if I do goof up with them I won't feel like I'm helping a species along to extinction.

gl with i've never seen those before. i do keep some polleni's. they are a fine fish species :)

I see some dovii in there He/she going to be a monster sis

Thanks for sharing :)

let see a full tank shot

Nah that's not a Dovii. That's a TexasXJag crossed back to a purebred Jag. I dont' know where the gold coloration came from on some of them I was expecting blue or black mosaic but not gold. We'll see how they turn out eventually.

Anyway, here's the grow out tank with the baby T. bythobates and TexasXJag fry.



And the 120 gal with the P. oligocanthus. The Tilapias will be going in here once they get too big to fit in the Bichirs' mouths.


This post has been edited by Katt66: Apr 14 2008, 09:40 PM

ken hers my dovii

Very coold remind me of some local species :)

I got a question doesnt the crushed coral begin to soilidify into 1 large mass as time goes by i hear once you go coral as substrate it will harden and then you got to take a hammer to break it off

i have heard of something similar before. i would think if you just do gravel vacs weekly/monthly and stir it up, it should be fine for very long time. i also hear mixing crushed coral and play sand isn't good.

This post has been edited by Marcus: Apr 16 2008, 01:28 PM

I've never heard of either of those things before. I've been using the same crushed coral mixed with tons of live sand in my marine tank for over ten...probably going on fifteen years. I also had crushed coral in all of my freshwater tanks for years until I switched to silica sand. Now I've only got crushed coral in one or two tanks. It's just like normal gravel that happens to be made out of coral instead of some other kind of rock. Both pictured tanks are mostly silica sand with a little bit of PA quartz sand, crushed coral, and sugar sand mixed in. It keeps the Ph up around 7.6 where I want it.

This post has been edited by Katt66: Apr 16 2008, 01:47 PM

Nope! I've been to saltwater for almost 10 years before, using the same crushed corals as my substrate. It never got solid. Maybe because of regularly cleaning it. I don't know. Just based on my experience.

This post has been edited by sinned77: Apr 16 2008, 01:55 PM

What about adding some Katria katria?

Because they sound like your name...

They sure are an odd Madagascar cichlid!