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Two
photos of the same fish. At the age of 6 months (upper photo) and 28
months (bottom photo; March 2000). The fish in the photo is a male (the dominant male in the
tank). The old photo shows the fish in the
juvenile age dressed in the female colors. The fish (also called
Giraffe cichlid because of its spot pattern) is very aggressive and
intolerant of his own (and other) species. Very territorial, needs a
lot of space and grows to 25 cm (females grow smaller - around 17
cm). An active predator will not allow any fry to survive if given
the chance. Will eat almost anything but it pays to feed it frozen
food twice per week.
A
very intelligent fish will always try to get your attention if not
chasing some fish in the tank (recommended tank size min. 600
liters). Space is of outmost importance for this fish : it needs
room for spawning, a relatively large territory (if you are to avoid
the aggression) and it gets quite big by African cichlid standards.
It may eat the soft leaves of plants and it digs a lot. A way to
minimize the risk of collapsing rock piles it to use a bottom layer
of small rocks, then add the sand and on top of this you may add the
rocks. The coloration of the male ranges from solid gold with a blue
face (as seen here) to gold with dark brown spots. When kept with
fish of the same genus (e.g. Nimbochromis livinstoni) they keep a
permanent breeding coloration. They spawn near rocks in pits.
Minimum
tank size : 180 cm / 600 liters,
Recommended tank size : 200 cm
/ 750 liters, only one male per tank.
See next
pages for close-up photo and photo of fry. |
