Separating different breeds

[sogle@speakeasy.net]

I just started off three tanks with Venustis-1pair tropheus dubosi-2 unknown set small+tropheus mori 1 large, comprosiceps- 3 small, zaire blues-frontossa medium and 2 baby frontossa 1 large hap electra's, 1 large male and female hap borleii, and tons of mating trios of peacock aulonocara. 1 large and 1 small sexfaceitas and 1 large pissed male fuccataeniatas "and Sorry i can't fish spell yet still learning" I have 1-100 gallon, and 2 55 gallon tanks all at 8.2 80F all the tanks have super filtration both undergravel and cannister type any ideas how I should separate the breeds- tanks wise any help or advise would be great??

[aharris]

Wow! First, if you want to breed peacocks, it is absolutely imperative that you have no more than one species per tank because the females look the same and if you have them together you will never be sure if you have hybrids when they produce fry.

Second, you don't have enough tropheus to form a good stable colony of any of your variants. Tropheus need to be kept in large groups of their own kind (12-20). Not only that, but they seem to be the only vegetarians on your list. They will die if not fed the proper diet.

The fronts will need a tank of about 135 to 180 gallons when adults and hopefully they're all zaire blues otherwise, you'll again run into the hybridizing issue.

I would say put the Venustus in the 100 with the hap electra (is this S. fryeri?) and the fuccotaniatus. You could probably alos put the borleyi and one peacock trio in there too.

You could try keeping all your tropheus in one of the 55g, but I would do some serious research on tropheus. You may wind up trading some of those fish out in order to make a go at a good colony.

In the other 55g, you could put the compressiceps (is this altolamprologus or dimodochromis? It makes a difference; the latter would be best in the 100) with the sexfasciatus and another peacock trio.

Any leftovers should be traded back to the fish store.

Although, you might be able to get away with the frontosa in the 100 instead of the large haps.

[SGypsyMermaid]

i would put the fronts in with the large haps, provided they are too big to swallow.:)

[sogle@speakeasy.net]

Thanks I'll try that

where should I put my new Livingstoni? will a single large Livingstoni, a Venustus pair or any of the others you noticed mess with Frontossa's? I just got 2 Zaire Blues and 3 baby Fronts. The Zaire are worth 15x $89.00 and the Fry fronts are $15.00

The reason I ask is my Venustas just got a mate and he's really fiesty and rather large 7"+ right now I have the Valuable Front blues, 3 baby front 6 stripes , my largest peacock harem, German red harem, 3 eyebiters, Aulanacara banenchi orange, Borleyi trio and baby sexfaciates - I have another 100 Gallon delivered tomorrow so I can finally have all breeding age different kind of peacocks separated into 3 tanks instead of 2 "I sold 1 of my 55 last nightfor the price of my 100 gallon almost " so I'm stuck with 100 gal and 55 gal for now

[sogle@speakeasy.net]

Oh, I did sell off all my different Tropheus on your advise thats how I obsconded with the Female Venustus and large unknown Livingstoni