[CoryWM]

I have 19 demasoni, 3 yellow labs, 1 marble horned pleco, 3 1 inch albino bristlenose pleco, in a 100g aquarium. Now the Demasoni bread a couple months ago in the store's aquarium, before I even took the guys home(I had them on hold, my tank was still cycling.) So I setup what I can only imagine as a kingdom for these little guys, now it seems no breeding is going on.

Please point out any glaring factors.

100 gallon tank. 5 feet long. 18 inches wide.
Filtration fx5, Powersweep powerhead 228, hydor 3 powerhead(circulation on bottom of tank in back pointed towards the fx5 intake.

Lighting Was pretty bright, coralife fixture with nighttime leds. Tonight I switched it to a single 4" florecent tube, for some more subdued lighting to see if that helps.

Temp 80(little higher than I'd like, I think due to the lighting, cause turning down the heater had no effect on temp the next day)

PH 7.8( PH is always lowest on any test kit outa the tap)
Nitrate 10ppm(going to bring this down more, will do another water change tomorrow

substrate: sand
Tons of Tufa rock to hide in.

I don't have any "flat rocks" such as a peice of slate. Is this essential to the breeding process? If so I can pull a bunch of rocks out, and put some flat pieces on top of the sand, then restack.

Here is a shot of my tank.

 

[Cichlid Power]

How often are you doing water changes?

What are you feeding? How often?

Any idea on your ratio of males to females? For a while my colony was very male heavy and the females were too stressed and when they did breed only hold for a day or two. I cut it down to 1 male in a 55 and now lbreed very regularly.

 

[Super Turtleman]

Do you get to see your fish with all that rock???

I'd say mainly you just give it time. You could try to get your male female ratio perfect, but it's quite difficult to sex them. With 19 I'd say you probably have enough and you just need to wait a little.

 

[cichlidaholic]

I think you have too much rock and too few demasoni...

There aren't any open areas in the tank, and the tank is large enough to aquascape differently.

Plus, it will hold alot more demasoni and yellow labs! :thumb:

Your nitrates are fine...No need to try to get them down any lower!

Kim

 

[CoryWM]

I definately want more demasoni and yellow labs! It's all a matter of them coming in stock. Yellow labs sell out fast at all the chain stores(i don't like to shop there anyways) and the local breeder's mom has been very ill. So he hasnt brought any in to my mom and pop store. So I've just been waiting.

I may do a rescape. Just to mix it up. I was thinking about redoing it once I got more fish in there... But it's been a while.

 

[cichlidaholic]

I would remove alot of the rock, or at least go with smaller rocks. That black sand is too nice to cover up like that, and it will force your fish out in the open more if you change it up and remove some of the hiding spots.

I seriously can only see two fish, and I'm not even sure I see those! :lol:

Good luck on finding more stock!

Kim

 

[DJRansome]

How long have they been in the tank? Maybe they just need to settle in a little more?

 

[CoryWM]

Still looking for help. I took out a ton of rock. To see if that was the problem. Also added a couple of flat rocks incase they needed that.

100 gallon tank. 60 inches long, 18 wide.
Filtration FX5.
I had bright lighting on the tank. then changed it to subdued lighting.

Water Parameters:
PH 7.4-7.6
Water hardness 150ish.
Nitrates 5ppm or less.
KH 100
Temp: 78 degrees.

Demasoni 19
Yellow Lab 3
3 Albino bristlenose(1 inch size)
1 Marble horned pleco 9 inches
Will buy more soon. Still waiting to find some nice specimens locally.

I'll update with pics once my company leaves.

 

[Trinidad]

Hmmm... The PH should be at around 8, at least. 7.6 will not do at all. That is the major problem, in my opinion. You should add some crushed coral into the tank (put it in a nylon if you don't want to mix it with the gravel)

Cheers!

 

[CoryWM]

Hmmm... The PH should be at around 8, at least. 7.6 will not do at all. That is the major problem, in my opinion. You should add some crushed coral into the tank (put it in a nylon if you don't want to mix it with the gravel)

Cheers!

Already have crushed coral in the filter, in a nylon sock. My water is like 6.0 out of the tap.

 

[CoryWM]

 

[jhunbj]

Hmmm... The PH should be at around 8, at least. 7.6 will not do at all. That is the major problem, in my opinion. You should add some crushed coral into the tank (put it in a nylon if you don't want to mix it with the gravel)

Cheers!

Ph of my 75G is 7.2-7.4 and my dems r breeding like crazy. :lol: :wink: Do more WC...like twice a week.

 

[CoryWM]

I just noticed some behavior between two of the dems. I'm pretty sure it was breeding behaviors. They were chasing everyone away from the flat rock, and shaking at each other... Like they were having seizures.

Seem typical?

 

[Desi<3]

LOL and i still only see 6 fish! :lol:

 

[CoryWM]

LOL and i still only see 6 fish! :lol:

You can see 7 in the top picture! Hopefully they'll start poppin out babies, so you can see more

 

[cichlidaholic]

Hmmm... The PH should be at around 8, at least. 7.6 will not do at all.

Wrong...My ph is 7.6 and I wish my mbuna would slow down on breeding...

You may have an exceptionally high male ratio, and they just haven't worked things out yet. They still look pretty young.

Kim

 

[Desi<3]

If they do, we want pictures

There arent any labs in any of the pictures! Did you hide them on us???? :-? :lol:

 

[Azrider]

Also, most of the demasoni that are avalible are pretty young. When I got my group they took three or four months to get mature enough to spawn. It could be just a young group. I would not worry about the pH, as long as you can keep it consistant. I always like to see my rocks stacked up near the back of the tank, with a lot of open space. I am sure however that that is more about my prefrence than the fish's. I just like to be able to see them.

 

[DJRansome]

Mine took a year. Females can hold at 1.5 inches, but IME the males have to be really full grown.

 

[CoryWM]

The only reason, I'm expecting breeding.. is because they bread at the shop before I was able to take them home. And yeah, I might buy some more yellow labs this weekend, but they only have full grown ones for sale at the moment, or fry