Lake Malawi Species • Male Auratus in hiding this morning

[cichlid-gal]

and I'm going to try to do some more reading on them as I obviously did not understand this from my readings already ... thanks again

[fishmagnet]

If you dont shake bottle number 2 for at least 10 seconds before adding to the sample vile you will get a reading of zero...I know I've done it

[cichlid-gal]

If you dont shake bottle number 2 for at least 10 seconds before adding to the sample vile you will get a reading of zero...I know I've done it

[cichlid-gal]

Well...I let everyone sit with the big boy in timeout for a bit and yesterday I put him back in the mix in the 75G tank. At this time, out of the 5 auratus (big boy included)...I now seem to have 3 males as 2 (that's TWO) of the original females have changed color...they went through a short brown period and now are showing the darker blue/black colors...

I did add new rock to the tank and mixed things up a bit .. for now my big boy is hanging out in the back of the tank...he blends so well you can hardly see him but he is venturing out every once and a while..and the other two newbie males(???) have taken up residence at opposite ends of the tank laying claim to a couple of caves

Not sure what will be the end result here but really don't want to see anyone killed so think I'm going to see if my rehoming can happen now instead of later...hate to let the auratus go too but maybe that is for the best as my current setup seems to be heading for doom and gloom...

Will be looking for some other species to restock with...possibly some that are less aggressive (although I really liked my auratus) or should I consider a species only tank for them in this 75G??? Any input or suggestions???

[Iggy Newcastle]

I really like the look of auratus, especially a full grown male. I wish I could have stocked them in my 125, but didn't want to go down that road, due to aggression. A species tank would be cool, or paired with another aggressive mbuna. Just make sure your ratios are right with these guys, from everything I've read.

[cichlid-gal]

I was told that if I wanted to do a species only tank then overstocking was the key thing and to really pack them in...and maybe someone can clarify for me. From what I have read, auratus can not really CHANGE sex although they can display as the opposite sex so is it possible that I have had all females all along but one of them morphed to the male coloring earlier than the others and now the remaining are throwing their hats in the pot so to speak. I'm just confused as like I said, I've gone from what I thought were 1M/4F to what now appears to be 3M/2F. So what do I really have at this point - is it 3 morphed females or 1 male/2 morphed females? Or do any of us even know

[DJRansome]

We used to have a Mod here who kept them in a species tank, but they still killed each other fairly often. She eventually gave them up as too much trouble.

Males will mimic females to avoid attack. If you want to know the gender of all your fish, you could remove the dominant male and see who else colors up. Repeat until no one colors up.

[cichlid-gal]

Its like hide and go seek... LOL ... and after much thought I think I'll move on from my thoughts of having these in a species tank. Being new to the hobby and cichlids I still have a lot to learn. This is just one step ... in which direction I'm not quite sure but at least I'm still moving along