Dither/target fish

blue_ram

Large Fish
Jun 21, 2008
516
0
0
Florida
#1
Would swordtails be good fish to keep a single african cichlid company. Water parameters are very similiar and the sword tail gets over 4 inches.
 

blue_ram

Large Fish
Jun 21, 2008
516
0
0
Florida
#7
What does eating peas have to do with being a peacock? lol
LOL

From what I have read, the African peacocks are from the genus Aulonocara and the aulo refers to some sensory organ they have which detects movement of small crustaceans in the sand which they then eat.

Aulonocara

He wont touch bloodworms or brine shrimp anymore, he will only eat peas. He will not eat flakes, cichlid pellets or even spirulina, only peas.

He may be shy of the blood worms because when he was with my danios, I dropped a small chunk of frozen bloodworms as I always do and as they chunk melts the danios eat the worms that float away from the blob. anyway, piggo little cichlid who is no bigger than my zebra danio sucked up the whole frozen blob of bloodworms.

So anyway, now I have no clue what he is or may be. and he is still only about 1.5 inches long so it will be a long time before I can identify him on fishbase. I can't see him getting big quickly eating one pea a day.
 

blue_ram

Large Fish
Jun 21, 2008
516
0
0
Florida
#8
Pea=Peacock? lol, not sure :)

Also what size tank is this in? I agree that it's normally best to go the 'natural' route and use controlled overstocking if dealing with mbuna.
He is in a 10 right now and going to be moved into a 20 for awhile. I know,, he needs something way bigger and more tankmates. If I can find a matching cabinet, I could probably swing another 40 tall in a few months.

He looks identical to the picture of a female blue peacock that they sell on liveaquaria.com, but someone pointed out that that is not a goood site to identify a cichlid so I looked on fishbase and he matches the peacocks in shape and has 8 or 9 stripes running up and down. He is brownish with a hint of blue on the front of his dorsal fin and a hint of yellow on the very top edge of of the dorsal fin. All the mbuna I have seen appear to be longer and he is more stout, similar to a small mouth bass.

So basically I have no idea what he is, I will post a pic as soon as I get a chance
 

Orion

Ultimate Fish
Moderator
Feb 10, 2003
5,803
3
38
Kentucky
www.thefishcave.net
#9
Well at that small it might well be more difficult to get a good ID, however a pic would be helpfull so the ones who are real familiar with them could give you a good idea.

A 40 tall wouldn't be near as useful as something with a larger footprint rather than height. Peacocks and mbuna both need territory and it's difficult to divvy up a tall tank for several fish for those guys.
 

blue_ram

Large Fish
Jun 21, 2008
516
0
0
Florida
#10
Well at that small it might well be more difficult to get a good ID, however a pic would be helpfull so the ones who are real familiar with them could give you a good idea.

A 40 tall wouldn't be near as useful as something with a larger footprint rather than height. Peacocks and mbuna both need territory and it's difficult to divvy up a tall tank for several fish for those guys.
I will get a pic as soon as I get him in the 20. So much work to do. The 20 has to go into the 40 and then I have about 20 fish to try and catch and replant everything and clean 20 lbs of sand.

Space limits me severely and with a 4 year old, a 10 year old and 12 year old running around the house, the tank needs to be in an out of the way place.

I figure that the 20 will suffice for the cichlid until he is about 2 - 2.5 inches and more readily identified. That is why I was thinking about a few swordtails to keep him company for the time being because the swordtails can tolerate the hard high ph water that the eco complete will make.

I was going to put him in the 40, but the 20 with the 2 blue rams is a bit crowded so he has to fly solo for now.
 

blue_ram

Large Fish
Jun 21, 2008
516
0
0
Florida
#12
Being so small the swordtails should be fine, i thought you meant an adult.
Awesome, the swordtails are on sale at PetCo for $1 each. I was going to give the boys the 10g once I moved the cichlid to the 20g. I went to Pet Supermarket to get them a stand and found a perfecto 20g stand and tank there for $40 which was a few bucks more than the 10g stand so I got it for them. They wanted fish also so I got them two opaline gouramis on sale for $1 each at PetCo. Kinda foolish, but I managed to get their 20g up an running and the gouramis in there in a few hours, luckily I had an extra running filter and 10 gallons of aged water and a bucket of seasoned gravel. I figure once the cichlid's long term home is resolved, the swordtails can go in with the gouramis.

I noticed you are from SC, I lived there for 8 years, 4 at Shaw AFB in Sumter and went to college at USC-Columbia. My oldest daughter is starting at Clemson in the fall.
 

Jul 9, 2003
8,866
14
38
38
Columbia, SC
www.youtube.com
#13
Awesome, the swordtails are on sale at PetCo for $1 each. I was going to give the boys the 10g once I moved the cichlid to the 20g. I went to Pet Supermarket to get them a stand and found a perfecto 20g stand and tank there for $40 which was a few bucks more than the 10g stand so I got it for them. They wanted fish also so I got them two opaline gouramis on sale for $1 each at PetCo. Kinda foolish, but I managed to get their 20g up an running and the gouramis in there in a few hours, luckily I had an extra running filter and 10 gallons of aged water and a bucket of seasoned gravel. I figure once the cichlid's long term home is resolved, the swordtails can go in with the gouramis.

I noticed you are from SC, I lived there for 8 years, 4 at Shaw AFB in Sumter and went to college at USC-Columbia. My oldest daughter is starting at Clemson in the fall.
Awesome! Big Clemson fan myself, we're always up there for games. ;) My dad went there and my brother is heading there this fall as well i believe...he'll be up there soon at least.
 

blue_ram

Large Fish
Jun 21, 2008
516
0
0
Florida
#14
Awesome! Big Clemson fan myself, we're always up there for games. ;) My dad went there and my brother is heading there this fall as well i believe...he'll be up there soon at least.
Maybe I will be able to get tickets to the annual Clemson/Gamecocks game. It's been 12 years since I have seen the Gamecocks play. I graduated the year they joined the SEC. Still trying to find time away from the kids to take my GF to Charleston. We went to Myrtle Beach a few years back, seemed a lot smaller than when I was 19. I am all the way down south in FL, about 20 mites from Miami so it's about a 12 hour drive to Myrtle Beach or Charleston and I wont hold up to well with 3 kids in the car.
 

blue_ram

Large Fish
Jun 21, 2008
516
0
0
Florida
#15
I went to Petsmart yesterday and got 3 swordtail to keep the little guy company and was getting ready to move him to his new home and I found him dead alongside a rock. He must have died overnight because he had come out the prior afternoon to eat and had looked healthy. Someone had turned the ac way down overnight and when I woke up the house was like 65 degrees. His water was perfect and I was doing small water changes every few days. I had a small piece of coral in t the tank which kept the ph around 7.4. The only thing I can think that killed him was the cold unless he died because he was lonely.