high phosphate in fishtank ?

46 posts • Page 5 of 5

Discuss all topics related to freshwater and planted tanks.


miami754
 
Posts: 373
Joined: Sat Feb 23, 2008 9:18 am

by miami754

The red zebras are a little more difficult to tell. Both males and females have egg spots so that doesn't work. The females will tend to be longer and thinner while the males will be much more like a football type shape (thicker vertically). This may be hard for you to determine since you only have one. Also, my dominant males will get a great deal of blue sparkles in their fins, but this is only when they are getting ready to mate. Since you don't have any females in there, you probably won't see this. I looked at the pics and it is difficult to tell. If you could get a straight side shot, I probably would have more luck. Also, I would be surprised that he is full grown. It could just be the camera playing tricks on his size, but they get to be 5.5 inches and yours doesn't look that big (again, could just be the pic).

In nature the two sexes are easy to tell apart as the male is blue and the female is orange, but orange males are much more common in the aquarium trade than the blue ones. In the aquarium trade, both sexes tend to be orange so the blue-orange thing doesn't work.


Poetic_Irony2267
 
Posts: 297
Joined: Fri Aug 10, 2007 8:42 pm

by Poetic_Irony2267

pk i think the spirulina would be a good purchase for mbunas as well as other small plant eating african cichlids and for that price i wouldn't think twice about buying it at least just to try it out and see if they like it.

just a question to miami, why do you think that is that the males that are tank bread seem to all be orange instead of the purple blue color they have in the wild, do you think this has to do with the dominance as well as the specific amount of trace elements that are in the african lakes? there are several species that have this same characteristic however in the tank world they seem to be the same color as the females... just makes me wonder that if you set your tank up for the specifics of the lake water perameters that they would revert back to the natural color phases?

Brandon


miami754
 
Posts: 373
Joined: Sat Feb 23, 2008 9:18 am

by miami754

Brandon - well with the red zebra, they were first imported in the 70's. At that time only the red males were taken from the wild. I do not know why this is as it is estimated that 99% of the wild males are blue and 1% are orange/red. Whatever the reason, only several orange/red males were harvested. These then formed the base for the entire trade. When you mix a red male with the female (that is also orange/red) you get red males and females. You can see how starting with only red males made them the standard in the hobby while they were very rare in nature. Now I believe there is one specific bay or cove where these guys live and I think that cove was off limits for a long time due to a civil war (I think I am remembering this correctly). This meant that no new wild ones were caught until the ban was lifted in the late 90's. Since the late 90s, some wild ones were caught and you can now find blue males, but as you can imagine, the red males had almost 30 years of a headstart so they are much more entrenched in the trade. plus the fact that the blue ones have only recently been caught means they tend to be more expensive which drives down their availability. Anyway, I think you are getting the picture I am painting. So, in a nutshell, it is all because the relatively rare wild red males were used as the base for trade breeding for 3 decades.

To my knowledge, the tank parameters are not a factor in cases like this. I know many cichlid species were based on one or a couple of initial breeding pairs. These breeding pairs could be a minor morph of the more abundant morph found in nature and this would cause all of the tank raised ones to take on the less common morph. I think this is more of the reason. If you look around though, you can now find the blue red zebra male.

Hope this helps.


Poetic_Irony2267
 
Posts: 297
Joined: Fri Aug 10, 2007 8:42 pm

by Poetic_Irony2267

now that's what i call a detailed answer, you certainly have done your research into the mbuna's i am actually going to start reading some more about this as i love to learn and knowledge is power. i find it extremely interesting that the out of the percentage caught they only caught the oddball morph and used that for the trade. i find that the blue are much nicer as they contrast with their mates, i use to order my cichlids wild caught but the expense was much more than even a 7 inch full grown male discus... LOL so now am into a cheaper phase of things and i love the calmness of my tank, however this doesn't mean by any stretch of the imagination that i wont in the future set up a tank of Tanganyika fish..... lol my partnere is dreading the idea at the moment, however this wont happen for quite some time, as i have a super amount of money in the tank i have running now, along with the plant quarantine tank and the fish quarantine tank and the 55 gal pearlscale gold fish setup in the kitchen..... thanks for the response.
Brandon


miami754
 
Posts: 373
Joined: Sat Feb 23, 2008 9:18 am

by miami754

Yeah, no problem. I have read pretty extensively on cichlids and especially mbunas. When I started keeping them, I wanted to know everything as I'm sure you can appreciate with all of your research.

That would be cool if you start up a Tang. tank. I know you said it would be a while, but let us know when you start.

Yeah, I don't really know why they picked the red males. It seems wierd with the blue males being so prevalent. I personally would have preferred the blue, but I know alot of people put stock in the two sexes looking the same. For instance, one of the major reason the demasoni cichlid is taking off is because the males and females are indistinguishable. I guess it is all preference. I am actually going to do some digging to see if I can see the reason why they chose the red ones. I'll let you know what I find.


milky648
 
Posts: 194
Joined: Sat Mar 10, 2007 4:41 am

by milky648

wow i didnt knowd all this im lerning so mutch from ugyus lol ok ill try geting a side shot the red one is aobut 5 inch but very thin i usto have a blue one in ther think a male and he was mean hed keep the red on up buy the tank us soon as the red one came donw the blue one would chase him around ill post a pic of the blue one i usto have

high phosphate in fishtank ?

46 posts • Page 5 of 5

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