Breeding Mbuna

[MI]

I'm planning to start breeding different mbuna species in 700 L tanks. I want to have only one species in each tank!

I guees lots of you have experiences in breeding mbuna species, and maybe you would give me some good advises here (?)...

The species I consider starting out with are:

* Labidochromis caeruleus ("Golden"
* Melanochromis auratus
* Melanochromis johannii
* Melanochromis sp. "maingano"
* Metriaclima callainos
* Metriaclima esterae
* Metriaclima sp. Msobo
* Pseudotropheus demasoni
* Pseudotropheus lombardoi
* Pseudotropheus saulosi
* Pseudotropheus socolofi

For each species: How many fish (and what sex ratio) should (or could) I place in each species tank (700 L)?

BTW... If you can come up with other species, which appear with the colour difference BLUE and YELLOW between male and female, please do not hesitate to mention it too.

I also have around 30 Aulonocara baenschi (F1). How do you think they would do in a 700 L tank in the long run?

All good advises are appreciated - and I really mean all!

I thank you all in advance

Best regards from "The Mbuna Breeder" ("wannabe")

[MI]

Where's all the mbuna people at?

Please write your comments and ideas!

[Lisachromis]

Ok, let's translate the size for some people that can't do it. 700 litres is approximately 185g. Now, if you plan on doing a whole bunch of species tanks, that's impressive!

* Labidochromis caeruleus
* Melanochromis auratus
* Melanochromis johannii
* Melanochromis sp. "maingano" (should be M. cyaneorhabdos)
* Metriaclima callainos
* Metriaclima esterae (M. estherae) You doing the red x red or the normal ones?
* Metriaclima sp. Msobo
* Pseudotropheus demasoni
* Pseudotropheus lombardoi
* Pseudotropheus saulosi
* Pseudotropheus socolofi

Most of these species should do very well in a species only tank. Some I'd even consider mixing. Generally speaking, you should always have ALOT more females than males. Males tend to be more aggressive, and will always want to spawn with females whether or not they are ready. Extra females take the pressure off. So, if you can get away with it, I'd go at least 1m/4-5f. I also think a tank of 30 A. baenschi should do just fine in a 700 litre tank. If you have specific questions on any of these species, we'd all be glad to offer some advice.

[MI]

Thanx for the correction of species names.

Here some of the thoughts that I've been doing about this mbuna breeding project:

I have plenty of 185 US gallon tanks, so I want to go ahead will all the species mentioned right away. One species for each tank.

How many individuals would you say would be optimal?

I'm thinking of placing 40-80 individuals in eack tank. And maybe 80-90 % females. This is in line with Lisachromis' recommendations, right (?)...

Each week or each second week I would catch all cichlids in each tank, check and replace each female holding eggs. These famales are to be placed separately in smaller tanks (e.g. 10 US gallon) until approx. one week after the fry have been released.

Fry will stay in the smaller tanks for 1½ month. Then all fry of approx. same size and only from the same species will be placed in other 185 US gallon tanks to grow. I guess the these 185 US gallon tanks could hold 500-1000 fry not larger than 4 cm.

This is what I've been thinking.... Maybe you have other ideas, comments, or ... ?

In general... What do you think?

Kind regards

MI

[MI]

Please loin the debate.

[MI]

I mean "join" !

[Troy]

MI : Where are you planning on starting this breeding warehouse?
How are you planning on filtering, heating, changing water for all these cichlid tanks?
When are you planning on starting this venture?

[MI]

I live in Denmark (Do you know the country?). The project is being established at this moment.

A central heating/aircon system in each aqua room (2-3 rooms are inkludeded) takes care of the heating and cooling.

The larger tanks are connected in lines to 2-3 large central filter (in many ways similar to the one used for koi outdoors but modified for our purpose). Water runs from each tank to a central line and ends up in the filteringsystem. Cleaned water runs back to each tanks. Water is UV-filtered for all tanks holding wild caught fish. All tanks are also filteret mechanical and biological by air filters in each tank.

Smaller tanks are in most cases filtered by air pumping water through filtermedia.

It's close to midnight here in Denmark and I'm pretty tired. There my English is nat very well written. Hope your can understand whar I mean any how...



Again:

I'm I really the only one who belive in breeding mbuna the way I have described in the first treads here???

Please join the debate and share your experiences!

[MI]

Mayby mbuna is not very popular here at http://www.cichlidae.com ???

I had expected lots of comments and a nice long debate end exchange og experiences....

Hmmm.... maybe I just gotta be patiaent?

Mbuna breeder

[MatsP]

Hi MI.

I think that there are several reasons for the lack of discussion on this subject.

There aren't THAT many registered members on this forum, around 700 or so. However, in my experience, there are some really knowledgeable people here. However, if you ask questions that are very open, it may well be that those who know much about the subject aren't going to write down all their knowledge. Not because they aren't willing to share the knowledge, but because they [think that they] have better things to do with their time. More direct questions that have a relatively simple answer are always better on any forum...

Obviously, with more members, there would probably be a bit more traffice, but I've found that a lot of forums that have many members, the quality of the discussion is often reduced... So although you get more replies to your thread, the answers are often pretty meaningless. Here, they are mostly purposeful and contain some good information.

Because the volume here is low, I also think that a lot of members only log in a couple of times a week, or less. This means that having some patience can pay off...

I wish the best of luck in your project. Unfortunately, I haven't tried to keep or breed any mbuna's, so I can't comment on anything useful.

[That's the long way of saying "Just be patient"].

--
Mats

[Lisachromis]

I assume you're prepared to be overrun in fry. It doesn't take very long to get ALOT of fry from mbuna once they start breeding for you. Also, be careful of where you get the original stock from. (I'm thinking of crossbred fish here) You'll have to occasionally add new bloodlines in to keep things going well. Do you have sources to sell the fry to? How many are they willing to take? Have you considered that you may overwhelm a market with mbuna?

[MI]

Thanx for the latest two reply:

1) I couldn't agree more

2) Thanx for you interest and useful comments

Yes, we will produce many more mbunas compared to what the Danish market are presently used to. Norway, Sweden, Finland, Germany etc. are potential markets too.

Allmost all our stock are eiter Wild Caught or F1 - na dbloodlines will be maintained continously as you recommend.

All fish will be "NATURAL" fish, i.e we will never ever have anything to do with hybrids, mutations or artificially constructed fish. Even though there are OB fish in Lake Malawi we have desided to put those on our "Red List".

-------------------------------------------------

Back to one of my initial questions:

- Has anyone good/bad experiences with "Controlled Overcrawding" when breeding mbunas in single species tanks?

- What ratio between male/female would you suggest? (10%-90%)

[Troy]

MI : I have kept several different 55gal breeding tanks of single species of Mbuna. I like to keep 2 males for 7 to 10 or more females.

I generally begin with juveniles from 2 different sources, about 15-20 juveniles to start if possible in a bare bottom 30gal tank. Later when they become adults I select the best looking 2 males and remove all others. Soon after the males are gone I will have 3 or 4 females holding at the same time; and a few 10 gal fry tanks ready for some new arrivals.

There is a small privately owned LFS near me that will purchase all of my stock and this keeps my hobby self sustaining.

[MI]

To all:

Thank U for your comments and good advises.

Best regards

Mbuna breeder