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Breeding tank set up?

frankoq

Members
What about using a rubber tub to grow out? More gallonage, less cost.

good for practical reasons. Not good for display purposes.
If I do this, it will be for the fun of watching this life cycle process.
My kids are all exited and want to help.
 

frankoq

Members
I think 40b are the best size for breeding. Instead of a nursing tank, I just use one of the hang on nets in the tank. 10g for grow out, and then a 20 long or 29, or 40b if you have the space as a dump tank for the the juvies once they grow to 1 inch.

My setup is 4 40b, 4 10g, a 20long, and a 5g quarantine/hospital. I will soon add 2 20 longs.

Could you post a pic of your setup?
how is your filtration system?
 

npbarca

Members
All my filtration is penguin 200's on each 40. The tens all have sponges, plus 2 sponges in 2 of the 40s. The 20 has a sponge and a small whisper filter. All the sponges are run off a Coralife super luft.

I'll try and add pics tonight.
 

frankoq

Members
All my filtration is penguin 200's on each 40. The tens all have sponges, plus 2 sponges in 2 of the 40s. The 20 has a sponge and a small whisper filter. All the sponges are run off a Coralife super luft.

I'll try and add pics tonight.

Thanks.
 

frankoq

Members
Any suggestions on distance between the top of a tank and the base of the rack above?
I want to make sure there is enough room for a shoplight and room for water changes.
 

verbal

CCA Members
Any suggestions on distance between the top of a tank and the base of the rack above?
I want to make sure there is enough room for a shoplight and room for water changes.

My preference is at least 12", but you can get away with less.

If you are trying to minimize the height, it is a good option to stagger the tanks, so that the front is very easily accessible. You can do 12" wide on top, 18" wide in the middle and then 24-30" (sideways 20s) on the bottom.
 

frankoq

Members
THanks Jesse. I'll consider the staggered set up.
In terms of breeder(40b), grow out(20g), fry tanks(10g), what goes on top, middle, bottom? I suppose this is cosmetic preference.
 

dogofwar

CCA Members
I've had good luck with 36" tanks for most mbuna and smaller peacocks and haps... and prefer 48" for larger or more aggressive peacocks, mbuna and haps. I'd definitely go with at least a 6' tank for larger Haps. I had good luck breeding a lot of mouthbrooders in 2'x2'x1' 30g tanks but it's an odd size.

The key is to have a good male to female ratio (1 or 2 males and a bunch of females).

I highly prefer species only tanks for breeding Malawi mouthbrooders. Way too much chance for hybridization and confusion when mixing a bunch of fish together.

PVC condos (6-8" lengths of PVC pipe rubber-banded together) make for great retreats for holding females and ease catching and stripping them.

I've had way too many mishaps with breeder boxes on tanks with adult fish in them. A good approach is to set up dedicated fry grow-out set-up or two. When I was raising fry, I had a couple of 2'x2'x1' tanks with 2-3 sponge filters and a box filter and breeder nets around the sides. New fry would go into the breeder nets and grow out to about 1".

Keeping the tank itself free of fish (and gravel) and decorations makes cleaning and water changes easy (no risk of siphoning fish) and keeping fish in nets makes them easy to feed. I'd try to do water changes on the fry tanks at least twice per week.

To further grow them out, I'd move them to grow out tanks - 15g or larger is greatly preferable to 10g. Again, be careful to only combine really different fry (e.g. red zebras and venustus), as it's easy to mix them up (i.e don't grow out two kinds of peacocks together)

There are no shortage of African cichlids for sale, locally and through Internet sellers. There are far fewer sources of good quality, known provenance fish. While it's tempting to find random fish in LFS and auctions to add to a colony, unless you know with certainty that the fish are what they're supposed to be, then don't add them to your breeding stock.

It's never a bad idea to grow out a batch or two of fry - especially from peacocks and other fish with similar-looking females - to ensure that the offspring look like what they're supposed to look like.

Good luck and enter your fish in the club BAP program!

Matt
 

verbal

CCA Members
THanks Jesse. I'll consider the staggered set up.
In terms of breeder(40b), grow out(20g), fry tanks(10g), what goes on top, middle, bottom? I suppose this is cosmetic preference.

Probably 10s - wide 10" on top, 40 breeder - 18" wide in the middle, grow-out 24-30" length-wise. For the bottom tanks you probably don't want them directly on the floor because that makes siphoning more difficult. If they are 20 longs you may want to have them a little further back so it is easy to get to the 10s on top.

For each breeder tank you get 2 fry tanks and 3 grow-outs with that set-up. That sounds about right for 2 species per tank or 1 prolific one. The 10s can also be used for isolation/QT.
 

HoleyRockofTex

CCA Members
Can I put 2 colonies in a 40 breeder tank? say one mbuna(4-5 fish) and one peacock(4-5 fish)?

You will find the mbuna will keep the peacock from breeding. Im thinking of building a couple of 40 breeder racks but will be species only tanks. It better just to have 10 of the same species in the tank than two species given one will barely breed or not all.
 

npbarca

Members
I think 40b should just house one species, that way they will breed like crazy and you can build up their numbers in the tanks.
 

frankoq

Members
Thanks for the feedback. Sounds like I'll stay with one species colony.
My other idea would be to use a 29 gallon tank for the mbuna colony.
 

HoleyRockofTex

CCA Members
I think 40 breeder are the smallest tanks you can go for mbuna. Most reach 4-5" and can be aggressive. Just stick with the 40 breeder or bigger.
 

frankoq

Members
Looks like I finally found a 40b. Picking it up tomorrow. Time to hurry and build the rack


Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app

Got me a brand new 40b for $40. I'm glad I waited. I was close to buy a used one for $80. hehe.
Now i need to magically build the rack, bring it into the basement, and play dumb when she sees it. :wacko:
 

frankoq

Members
is it ok to grab media from an established tank and put it in filters for new tanks and immediately add fish?

For sponge filters, how long should I keep them in an established tank before moving them to new tanks? (to get loaded with bb).
 
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