Adding Neolamp. multifasciatus to a swordtail tank?

[Erica Wieser]

Hello,

I'm considering adding some Neolamprologus multifasciatus to my 55 gallon swordtail breeding tank. I've never kept cichlids before, and don't know if this is a good idea. My pH is 8.3 and KH is 6. The substrate is mixed: 40 pounds of silica gravel, 20 to 30 pounds of kitty litter (simple baked clay), and 5 to 10 pounds of crushed coral and aragonite. There are 100+ empty shells on the bottom of the tank. The plants are Cabomba caroliniana, Elodea densa (anarchis), hornwort, five anubias, five banana plants, flame and singapore moss, and Najas guadalupensis. The snail inhabitants are a couple hundred ramshorn and Physa fontinalis snails and about 5 or so Clea/Anentome helena(assassin snails). There are a couple rogue ghost shrimp in the tank that won't come out. Ammonia is at 0 mg/L. Mechanical filtering is done by a single waterfall filter with a sea sponge in it. DIY yeast carbon dioxide is present using a 2 Liter and a glass/ceramic plate CO2 diffuser. Two air stones, one at each end of the tank, are turned on at night to drive out excess CO2.

Pictures of aquarium:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v415/Okiimiru/048.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v415/ ... 009013.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v415/Okiimiru/027.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v415/Okiimiru/015.jpg

The purpose of the setup is that it's a perfect breeding tank for the swordtails that are in it. There are 12 Xiphophorus montezumae and around 25 to 30 Xiphophorus hellerii and 3 Xiphophorus maculatus. The fish are mostly juvenile, only about 15 to 20 are full sized or close to full sized and of those about 10 are the breeding parents who are making all the fry. The large amount of plants serve to shelter the babies from other fish as they are born and grow up, and then I sell or give away the undesirable fry once they're big enough.

My question:
The tank is pretty boring at the bottom and I want to add some Neolamprologus multifasciatus because they're a cute bottom dwelling colony breeder that stays small. Will they eat my baby swordtails? Will they live comfortably and breed in my water parameters? Is this a good idea?

[Ken Boorman]

How do you know what swordtail babies you're getting if you have 3 species of them in the one tank?

Ken

[Gordon C. Snelling]

I was thinking the same thing, not only do you not know which species are which, looks like a recipe for rampant hybridization. I guess though the mutt fry would make good food for the Neo.

[Erica Wieser]

"I was thinking the same thing, not only do you not know which species are which, looks like a recipe for rampant hybridization. I guess though the mutt fry would make good food for the Neo."
O_O I don't want my swordtail fry to get eaten by the cichlids! They max out at 2 inches; do you think they'd even be able to eat my swordtail babies?

As to how I keep them from hybridizing, well, that's kind of the point. I want the Xiphophorus montezumae long tail trait partnered with the Xiphophorus hellerii tricolor spotted red, white, and black coloration. That's why they're in the same tank; I'm making a colorful, spotted montezumae-hellerii hybrid. That's why the lyretails are in there, too. They're beautiful, and I hope the line gets their deep red fin color and lyre shape. It's working, too. I've gotten some fry that are absolutely gorgeous that I'm super pleased with By the way, that's how red swordtails were originally made, through hybridization and then backcrossing. The current "Xiphophorus hellerii" available to the hobby are only bright red because they have the Xiphophorus maculatus red modulator gene in them. The natural 'red' of the wild hellerii is much duller. The red maculatus gene, when expressed in hybrid offspring, produced a much redder fish. So people backcrossed to the hellerii shape (a sword on the tail, long body) and maculatus shape (short body, no sword) using hybrid fish with both hellerii and maculatus red modifier genes. There is no non-hybrid maculatus or hellerii that is that bright red. Some people weren't diligent with their backcrossing for shape, which is why you see those pet store short-sworded 'hellerii'.

But seriously, I don't see how the two inch Neolamprologus multifasciatus cichlids could possibly pose a threat to my swordtail fry, not when they're perfectly fine at escaping from their four to six inch parents. Out of any given fry batch, 95 to 100% of the fry born make it to reproductive age adulthood. (that's the point of the plants). Unless N. multifasciatus is a relentless fry eater?

What I don't know is whether the Neolamprologus multifasciatus will be able to not only comfortably survive, but also breed in my KH 6 water. I've never kept cichlids before, and I don't know if they have any odd quirks, like how goldfish enjoy to shred and dig up live plants. Or how mollies are small but so aggressive that I can't keep them in my tank because they beat every other fish up. Or how tetras refuse to spawn in my water because the pH is 8.3. I want every fish in my tank to be able to live comfortably and breed.

Edit:
Update: Well, I guess I'll try it and see if they can live/breed in KH 6 water. Advice appreciated, of course, but I don't think anyone's looking at this topic anymore. *shrugs*

[Erica Wieser]

Figured out why I couldn't raise KH above 6 dH. The CO2 I inject dissolves in the water as carbonic acid. It reacts with dissolved carbonate salts and precipitates out of the solution. That's the same reason limestone fizzes when you put a drop of lemon juice on it. So KH can never raise above a certain level, regardless of how much shell and aragonite I have in the tank. It might be beneficial, working like a buffer to keep CO2 levels from raising too high? I dunno.

[Lisachromis]

Is there any reason you're using CO2? Just curious since most plants will grow fine without it (just not as fast).

[Erica Wieser]

Is there any reason you're using CO2? Just curious since most plants will grow fine without it (just not as fast).

Plants grow super super fast with CO2. It's phenomenal; I love it.

I used to raise swordtails by separating them from their mother at birth and then raising them in a box. I would feed them baby artemia franciscana and tiny crushed flakes every couple of hours and their growth rate was rapid enough that by the 7th day, they could be released in the main tank with their parents without fear of them being eaten. But they didn't reach adulthood that way. The current was too strong for their little bodies or they couldn't find food, but one way or another, they weren't making it even though they weren't being eaten. So I experimented with larger boxes (mesh, which lets the current in) and gradually weaned them off of small crushed flakes onto the larger ones. It was all a big headache and they didn't all make it to adulthood. So I decided to fully plant the tank. I feed the tank with crushed flakes (I crush BettaMin, the really red brittle flakes, in a mortar and pestle) every four hours or so. The result is amazing. Even though I never separate them from their parents or teach them how to eat, every single baby makes it to adulthood. Like, every one. They aren't overwhelmed by the current, they don't become food for larger fish, and they learn how to hunt food on their own. So plants are a very very important part of my tank. My dream setup is basically a jungle, with two large areas in the front for the adults to swim, but the back and sides being thoroughly planted. It's hard to maintain such a high plant density with just gravel and no form of fertilizer. When I made the substrate half kitty litter half gravel and added CO2, I finally got the plant density that I wanted. I really like CO2 fertilization. It's super effective

[James Shingler]

"
But seriously, I don't see how the two inch Neolamprologus multifasciatus cichlids could possibly pose a threat to my swordtail fry, not when they're perfectly fine at escaping from their four to six inch parents. Out of any given fry batch, 95 to 100% of the fry born make it to reproductive age adulthood. (that's the point of the plants). Unless N. multifasciatus is a relentless fry eater?

What I don't know is whether the Neolamprologus multifasciatus will be able to not only comfortably survive, but also breed in my KH 6 water.

I guess you have never seen a piscivorous cichlid hunt down prey then (Very different from the poor efforts of swordtails etc). Yep multies will eat any swordtail fry that come within sight of their shells and fast, though some may survive in thick planting if they go unseen or use breeding traps or if they stick to the surface, keeping livebearers with multies is a way of getting the multies very well fed and breeding fast they are often used this way as the adult swords pose little threat to the cichlid fry. Not sure why you breed swordtails at pH 6 they breed far better (with less deformities etc) as do multies at alkali pHs. You can make your pH alkali safely with the simple cheap addition of a few teaspoons full of baking soda Sodium bicarbonate.

I know both are happy and breed well as low as pH 7.5 so that would be what I would keep them at, though both would be happy all the way up to pH 9 but that might damage your plants.

All the best James

[Erica Wieser]

Not sure why you breed swordtails at pH 6 they breed far better (with less deformities etc) as do multies at alkali pHs.

The pH is 8.3, it's the KH that's 6.
Are you saying that Multies would eat the swordtail fry out of specific experience with the species, or because larger cichlids species like to eat fry?

[James Shingler]

I have seen multies take fish more able to avoid predation than newly dropped swordtails (other juvenile cichlids up to about 1/2"). But not swordtail fry, I have not bred swordtails myself for years.

Bit of video of my multies here
http://s84.photobucket.com/albums/k35/2 ... ure001.flv

Those Lepidiolamprologus meeli/hecqui (larger shelly) breeding to the right of the multi collony are alert and trying to hold off the multies comming to steel their fry. They failed to raise any of them despite being vicous and dedicated pairents.
http://s84.photobucket.com/albums/k35/2 ... A60002.flv
The multies would teem up and come in waves and raid the area for any free swimming young (though they could never actually get to the ones protected in the shell). The young Lepidos only start to wander off and get eaten at about 1/2".
Amazingly enough using team work the multies were able to raise young in the tank despite being far smaller but the young seem better at staying near the shells so can be protected.

Sorry about the KH pH confusion that sounds far more suitable.

All the best James

[Erica Wieser]

Wow, thank you for those videos and that first hand information. There won't be any N. lamprologus added to the tank now. I can't describe how sad I would have been if the multies had teamed up and eaten all of my swordtail fry. Thank you for saving their little lives.

[fmueller]

Sorry for the somewhat late reply to this thread, but I only just came across it - and I recently had the good fortune to meet Erica at an OCA meeting

If your main goal is to get fry survival rate of the sword tails as close as possible to 100%, introducing any type of cichlid to the tank is obviously counter productive to your goal, since the cichlids will get some fry - the question is how many. With all due respect to James, I would have to say that predation of multies on other shelldweller fry is not really comparable to that on swordtail fry. As James said, the meeli/hequi fry will be taken as soon as they venture into multie territory. Both species will consider the sandy bottom of the tank their's, which is why few people I know like keeping different species of shelldwellers in the same tank. The sword tail fry on the other hand will remain predominantly at the very top of the tank, and the multies would have to venture into the jungle of cabomba plants to get to them. Multies quite like to have some plant cover - mine live between some valisneria and anubias plants - but those cabombas will likely be a bit too dense for comfort for them. I'd say as long as you keep the multies well fed, the little sword tails would be fine. Also, it is easy to underestimate the capacity of wild strain X. montezuma for fry predation. It's quite unlike that of the fancy swordtails one sees in the pet stores. If the fry are safe from the montezumas, they should be fine from the multies as well IMHO.

Of course there is only one way to find out for sure, and that involves taking a risk

Frank