General Aquaria Discussion • What I have done with hybrids

[Dooner]

Continued....

Since I had not thought about fry down the road, I had purchased multiple peacocks for the 210 tank. Both Multiple genders and multiple species, so according to some,the offspring are called hybrids and not okay to sell. I decided to let the fry be and if they were snacked upon so be it. If that sounds cruel you could net the females when they are holding and placing the fry in a breeder box and put the female either back in the original tank or transfer the female into a re homing tank. You would not need to wait and see if the are truly female. The fry should be given away or sold as unidentifiable Africans. In my case at least I could say they were Malawi.

Okay, what else? Well, as the juveniles started to mature I found I had multiple males, that didn’t like competition, and started fighting until only one survived. I moved a male and female to their own 40 gallon breeder tank where I have had two clutches (is that the right word?). What to do with those fry? Another grow out tank. At least I know that the parents are sunshine peacocks. I don’t plan on keeping those unless one or two stand out.

So, I am up to:

210. Show tank
65. Afra cobue orange back. I will need grow out tanks for these.
40 Sunshine breeder
20. Female re homing
10. Fry grow out for current sunshine peacocks
10. Hospital

I also hired a LFS to do monthly service. Not cheap but considering the investment, I wanted be sure I was doing it right. If you don’t have a good coach, I would consider it. I will likely continue on a bit, then wean myself off of it.

So what is left now? I have to continue to purge the females from the 210 and when I am sure that they are female, sell or re home them. The same for any fry that survive in the 210. Same goes for juveniles that will just grow too big for my plans like three Vanuatus. It takes a while for the males to color up I guess.

So that is my story, hopefully you can learn from my mistakes or give me some more continued advice. Oh yeah, 50% weekly water changes, Prime, continue to read and test often.

[DJRansome]

Read this to see why there is a concern about allowing hybrids out of your home.
https://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/ ... em_pt1.php

Best to avoid creating them, or house them for their lifetimes. Most prefer not to euthanize.

[ironspider]

You pay someone to do "monthly" service? Do you do water changes weekly though in between?

Part of the fun for me is doing the maintenance myself, but you have a lot more water than I do.

[ken31cay]

Part of the fun for me is doing the maintenance myself, but you have a lot more water than I do.

Exactly right. I don't think I'd continue in the hobby if I had someone else doing this as I enjoy the time I spend with my tanks, which are pretty big. But I guess it might get somewhat tedious if it was a bunch of small tanks.

[Dooner]

Yes, I do weekly 50% water exchanges.

[Dooner]

450 gallon wow that would be a job. Not too confident on ladders, but getting better. Had hip replaced. More importantly I wanted to learn how to do everything right.