New Fish

Well, I settled on my new fish today and have bought the following:
6x Melanochromis cyaneorhabdos (Maingano) in the inside 4' tank (yay) a moderately aggressive horizontal striped fish with alternating bands of light and dark blue. They grow to about 4" (10cm) so are smaller than the Northern Blues.
5x Labidochromis sp. "Hongi" in the lower outdoor 5' tank LHS beautifully coloured fish with vertical stripes of light and dark blue but with yellow heads and dorsal fins and sometimes the yellow extends to their belly and lower fins. The Hongi's get to 6" (15cm) so are a good size with the males defending territory actively against other Hongi males.
6x Melanochromis auratus in the lower outdoor tank LHS- the males are basically black and white with brown lower halves while the females are more yellow and black horizontal stripes. Auratus get to 5" (13cm) in length and are very aggressive fish within their species especially male to male so you can really only have 1 male in a tank. These guys are going into the Tropheus tank so should do fine with the others.
2x Metriaclima lombardoi also in the lower tank (all they had in stock) LHS- these fish are the opposite to the Ps. saulosi with the male orange and the female with light and dark blue stripes. These fish are highly aggressive to each other and every other fish as well which is why they are being placed eventually with the Tropheus as they have a similar temperament. They get to 6" (15cm).

I didn't end up with the other fish because there were none of the desired ones in stock but I am thrilled that I got my Maingano's at last.

To compensate for the addition of the Maingano's I will be moving the Northern Blue female and the Acei out to the bigger tank to be with the others out there. I am hoping that I will end up with all my Northern Blue females holding. The Acei seem disinclined to breed atm and since they are monomorphic there is no way to tell if I have all males, all females or just a mix of lazy fish.

If my Rusty's keep breeding the way they are atm I will have to start selling the babies off as we have the 2 from Easter, 2 from May and 2 from July all in the tank now and Rusty Supermum is holding yet more of them, this doubles the original 6 I got with only 2 being female and only 1 female having produced so far.

The Cobalt in the inside tank is trying his hardest to get one of his 2 girls interested but so far no luck. Mr E Yellow is busily flirting with his 2 girls with about the same luck, while Mr Saulosi is courting his 3 girls and my Cynotilapia afra (Cobue) has worked out at last that there is indeed a female in the tank with him.

Outdoors in the big tanks we have my Aul. stuartgranti (Cobwe) keeping his girls busy with 2 of them holding atm and Mr Northern Blue is trying his hardest to get his second female to take him up on his offer.

The female Rusty outside is also holding so there will be even more babies soon and Mr E Yellow outside would like to get his female to hold some eggs but she is a bit small yet so I am glad she is holding off on holding.

The Firebirds, Dragon's Blood and Maleri Gold are not large enough yet to breed and as for the Red Empresses I don't even know if I have male or female yet as they are still too young to colour up.
Speaking of colouring up, my dubosi are beginning to colour up nicely with 2 of them having nearly lost their baby spots. The yellow is beginning to stand out quite nicely and the Bemba are displaying their colour slowly as well even if some of them still have grey heads.

I keep hoping that my stunning Red Forest Jewels will grace us with more eggs and today he was dancing around her so I will keep my fingers crossed.

I have a new hose draining system that attaches to my gravel vacuum so this has made my life much easier (and my partners too as he had to carry out buckets previously) which just goes straight out to our drain. When I want water back in the tanks I just remove the vacuum and hook up the hose to a tap and off I go filling up the tanks.

LL