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cynotilapia afra "chimate, north" red top dwarf

3302 Views 13 Replies 4 Participants Last post by  II25tolifeII, 
II25tolifeII
well i just got my afras and im no expert on them so i have a few questions

when will afras start showing color some of my larger males are starting to change blue (when they are showing agression) and get black bars (all of my fish are anywhere from 1-2 in.)

when do they start breeding

when will i be able to tell females from the males by color because i heard afra females arent colorful

i had jalo reefs before and they didnt color up for me im hoping these turn out better
ill upload some pictures later ill try to get the dominate male he looks pretty nice if i have anymore questions ill update the post

i also got these catfish labeled as syno hybrids they look amazing even if they arent pure

Thanks,
Jordan
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II25tolifeII
video taken on ipod touch sorry about bad quality:
full album of my fish: http://s1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee423/iloveafras/

better pictures:
http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee4 ... G_0044.jpg
http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee4 ... G_0045.jpg
http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee4 ... G_0046.jpg
http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee4 ... G_0047.jpg
http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee4 ... G_0043.jpg
http://i1227.photobucket.com/albums/ee4 ... G_0040.jpg
check em all out
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N
If all the cichlids in the tank are the Afra, you should see one male go full color soon, and a couple other males with some variable color. If you have larger cichlids of another species, it may take longer. if all goes well they should breed in a few months.

Females are variable, but will pretty much stay the same. Kinda grey-blue-dull purple. Sub-dominant males may be hard to tell for awhile.

I'm not sure why you had problems in the past. If you just have Afra in the tank, most of the fish will not show color, but 2 or 3 males may show variable degrees of color. Color is very variable, fish can completely change from one minute to the other, firing up their color. Afra are very active cool fish, and thou very active rarely have serious violence between fish. They are more bark than bite.

When I had some of these, each male looked different with the color in the dorsal (some yellowish, some more reddish-orange) and the barring. If a sub-dominant male looks potentially better than the dominant male, take out the dominant male.
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II25tolifeII
noki said:
If all the cichlids in the tank are the Afra, you should see one male go full color soon, and a couple other males with some variable color. If you have larger cichlids of another species, it may take longer. if all goes well they should breed in a few months.

Females are variable, but will pretty much stay the same. Kinda grey-blue-dull purple. Sub-dominant males may be hard to tell for awhile.

I'm not sure why you had problems in the past. If you just have Afra in the tank, most of the fish will not show color, but 2 or 3 males may show variable degrees of color. Color is very variable, fish can completely change from one minute to the other, firing up their color. Afra are very active cool fish, and thou very active rarely have serious violence between fish. They are more bark than bite.

When I had some of these, each male looked different with the color in the dorsal (some yellowish, some more reddish-orange) and the barring. If a sub-dominant male looks potentially better than the dominant male, take out the dominant male.
Click to expand...
yes this tank has nothing but red top dwarfs in it
thanks for the help so anytime now they should start to color and breed? should i look into buying a 10 gallon tank and have it set up for fry or should i wait till one of the females hold and go out and buy one and use water from the 55 on the 10 to fill it

also these fish are very interesting i have a few that dont want to grow it seems about 1 in. and one was chasing the 2 in. afras around the whole tank puffing up and trying to show its color (which it didnt really have) because the 2in. afras went in his little cave lol
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II25tolifeII
any answers to the question about a fry tank above this post
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DJRansome
You can buy a fry tank now or later.

When you first notice the female holding you will have 18 days to get the new tank set up. I like to add the new filter to the existing tank the first day she holds and run it side-by-side with the established filter for the 18 days.

After 18 days enough beneficial bacteria will be growing in the fry tank filter to support mother and fry. Then you can remove the holding mother and fry tank filter to the fry tank.
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fish_addiction
Wow, that is some rock pile. How do you intend to capture the holding female?
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II25tolifeII
DJRansome said:
You can buy a fry tank now or later.

When you first notice the female holding you will have 18 days to get the new tank set up. I like to add the new filter to the existing tank the first day she holds and run it side-by-side with the established filter for the 18 days.

After 18 days enough beneficial bacteria will be growing in the fry tank filter to support mother and fry. Then you can remove the holding mother and fry tank filter to the fry tank.
Click to expand...
ok thanks thats what ill do
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II25tolifeII
fish_addiction said:
Wow, that is some rock pile. How do you intend to capture the holding female?
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well thats the problem lol
i tend to like very large rock piles but its hard to get fish out but i found a trick but its either a hit or miss
im gonna try and clean out a coke bottle and cut the top off and flip it inside out and then add a couple nls pellets inside and the fish can get in but cant get out only problem is a holding female might not fall for it so ill just take it all out and keep it small then :(
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fish_addiction
With that many hiding spots, a lot of the fry will probably make it. I think the rocks are cool, just depends on if you're really serious about breeding and selling the fish.
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II25tolifeII
fish_addiction said:
With that many hiding spots, a lot of the fry will probably make it. I think the rocks are cool, just depends on if you're really serious about breeding and selling the fish.
Click to expand...
hmm now you got me thinking if i should even bother with a fry tank but i also want to save all the fry i can because i love watching them grow up
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II25tolifeII
i have another nooby question.... when my hybrid synos get big will they eat my mbuna eggs right now they arent even an inch so i dnt think they will be anything worth worrying about for awhile
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DJRansome
The Malawi don't put their eggs down long enough for anyone to eat them. Except if your hybrids are part multipunctatus...they will try. In my mbuna tank they don't succeed very often...I still get lots of holding and even survivor fry.
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II25tolifeII
ok thanks i came to the conclusion that im gonna have to take some of rockwork out but according to the species profile of afras on here it says males like large dark caves so ill be keeping alot of the rocks in. and i dont really need to worry about the catfish
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