Breeding DEMASONI

[Fiatsa]

Hi I'm new to this forum. I'm trying to start breeding pseudotropheus DEMASONI. I have a standard six foot tank with 30 juveniles and a mixed Malawi display tank with 7 mature DEMASONI. Just want to know if I can put the mature ones in the juvenile tank without any problems. The ones in the display tank have not bred yet. Possibly due to stress of other fish. If I do put them in the juvenile tank will they start to breed? I'm not sure on male to female ratio yet.

[Fiatsa]

Does anyone have pictures of a tank setup for breeding demasoni. I have lots of slate stacked in mine. Going to have to remove it all to be able to catch the female to strip her. I'm after a more open setup to make catching easier.

[Fiatsa]

I put all my mature Demasoni in my juvenile tank and only lost two juveniles. There was abit of hierarchy wars but it's all good now. I suppose it's wait and see in regards to them breeding.

[SergeS]

Putting the adults in the other tank should not cause major issues. On the contrary I'd say. It would be much more of a challenge to introduce new fish (any fish) in a tank with an established group of adult Demasoni's. Putting adults in with juveniles is - in theory anyway - easier. There will still be some challenging over territoria and such, but assuming that the tank has sufficient hiding places (rocks), things should not get out of hand, and they certainly will not eat the juveniles (as long as they're about 1" or more). No guarantees with Demasoni's though, they're little raskals

[Fiatsa]

Iv lost 5 juveniles now. I don't know if they were male or female. I'm assuming they were male. There are heaps of hiding spots for them. It's going to be a pain trying to catch the carrying female when the time comes. I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. I'll try post a pic of the setup. I wouldn't mind some advice on tank setup.

[Fiatsa]

These are a few pictures of my Demasoni tank. I think I might make territories smaller and more spread out. I think the dominant male is taking most of the territory.

[SergeS]

The setup may not be my style, but in terms of functionality it looks fine to me, although I would make it a darker (iE, put a black background at the back of your tank), so they can't see eachother in the hiding spots too clearly all the time. (Malawi) cichlids are quite visually oriented, maybe even more so than other fish. "Out of sight, out of mind" is part of the succes when you want to keep these little rascals

[SergeS]

Oh, just noticed that the edges of these slabs look very sharp to me. Your fish may get injured when they chase eachother around the tank. I realize that the stones are very practical (easy to put on top of eachother), but you may want to consider using something a bit more round.

[Fiatsa]

I'm slowly getting rid of most of the slate and replacing with terracotta pots. Easier to create territories with them and easier to catch carrying female.

[JENN457]

I Agree serge they can be really quick and easily frightened, keep all sharp objects away.

I had DEMASONIs sometime back but then traded them for scitulus.

[ignantmike]

my experiance with demasoni was terrible.....these things fought and killed each other.....i think the more hiding areas the better........

[Fiatsa]

I have since removed all the slate and have a couple of rocks and terra-cotta pots and now have three holding females which I have moved to another tank.

[Fiatsa]

The first of the three has spat her fry. She has 9 little ones. These are my first Demasoni fry. I must be doing something right.

[Fiatsa]

Dems are well and truly breeding now. There's always two or three carrying females in the tank. Fry are growing fast. I feed them NLS Grow. Amazing how they color up so young.