reputable breeders

[eurofighter6691]

hi, my first post after lots of interesting research and reading of the online posts over the last few months,
can you please suggest hobbyist or reputable small commercial breeders within Kent, Surrey and Sussex pls?

silly question time...
anyone had good results with using 'off the shelf' marine tanks? thinking of buying an all in one with sump and bio balls but doing away with the skimmer?
turnover etc is about 10times per hour, is this excessive?

if I were to keep a tank of mixed species, what's to stop ending up with a tank full of hybridised 'mongrels'?? any ideas on fish contraception??

more silly questions will follow, thanks again Rich

[SergeS]

hi, my first post after lots of interesting research and reading of the online posts over the last few months,
can you please suggest hobbyist or reputable small commercial breeders within Kent, Surrey and Sussex pls?

Sorry, can't help you you with this

silly question time...

There's no such thing. Silly answers, yes!

anyone had good results with using 'off the shelf' marine tanks? thinking of buying an all in one with sump and bio balls but doing away with the skimmer?
turnover etc is about 10times per hour, is this excessive?

Not excessive, but it's on the high end of the scale I'd say. Some Malawi cichlids live in very rought waters, close to the surface, and can handle a lot of flow in the water. Others live in quiet bays or deeper down in the lake, and may have more trouble with it.

if I were to keep a tank of mixed species, what's to stop ending up with a tank full of hybridised 'mongrels'??

There's really only one 'proven' solution: keep only one species per tank. Really. Malawi cichlids hybridize all the time, Mbuna with Utaka, Mbuna with Aulonocara, Aulonocara with Haps, and so on and so on. You can of course do a decent effort to minimize the risk: do not keep similar species together and keep (many) more females for each male.

Depending on the size of the tank, introducing a predator to deal with the offspring can be a good idea. Dimidiochromis compressiceps is very effective when it comes to dealing with little ones. Nimbochromis linii as well, they simply suck small fish out of the smallest crevices! N. Livingstonii is also a good and very interesting predator. There's some mid-size predators as well: Sciaenochromis spp., Stigmatochromis spp. (not all, some grow fairly large). And in the Melanochromis genus, there's also several predatory species that are not as large as, for example, Nimbochromis.

There's one drawback: these fish are not selective, they'll eat the unwanted offspring, but also anything else that'll fit in their mouth. And for the larger predators, that includes adult specimens of small Mbuna species.

[Dan Woodland]

+1 on SergeS' comments...

silly question time...
anyone had good results with using 'off the shelf' marine tanks? thinking of buying an all in one with sump and bio balls but doing away with the skimmer?
turnover etc is about 10times per hour, is this excessive?

Keep in mind Gallons Per Hour (GPH) ratings are when the filter is brand new and the filter media is pristine, as time goes on the GPH rate will drop as the media clogs with filtered debris so 10X per hour will be considerably less especially just before the filter is maintained.

[eurofighter6691]

many thanks for the replies, its given me plenty to think about.
The N.Livingstoni colour pattern's looks stunning.

[Pete B]

What species are you looking for?
I'm a hobbyist from West Sussex, I keep and breed mbuna.
I know other hobbyist/breeders in the region you're looking at who have mbuna and haps.

[SergeS]

many thanks for the replies, its given me plenty to think about.
The N.Livingstoni colour pattern's looks stunning.

Yes, they're great looking fish, with very interesting behaviour as well: they pretend to be dead (!), by lying on their side or hanging against something. The colour pattern mimics that of a dead fish. When curious fish approach to take a bite, they'll find out that their snack was not as dead as it seemed. I have observed that behaviour in my own tank with even small specimens of the Livingstonii. I guess it helps if you have wildcaught fish, or F1. This one was no larger than 2"or so when she spotted some fry hiding between my Valisneria



There's basically two 'colourways' of this species: one where the males become blue in mating season, and one where the males stay white with blotches (forgot which geographical variant that was).