help me plan a fish room

[TKC747]

Hi, at the moment I don't have the money to finance a fish room but I want to be ready when I do. My goal in a fishroom is to carefully breed for quality just three species of Malawi cichlids. It's got to have one big tank for demasoni and yellow labs, these are excluded from the prior mentioned three species. I plan on doing a mbuna species, and two peacock species. I will have species only tanks as I am hyper vigilant against hybrids. MY goal would be to cull mercilously, like guppy breeders do, and only let the best qualities breed. Per species, how many tanks would I need. I'm thinking a 125 to keep several colonies, and a 55 grow out, and maybe three 75s or 90s for breeding colonies. What do you think and what would you do if you had the same goals as me?


Any thoughts appreciated, thanks

[TKC747]

LEt's say you have aulonocara species. If you take out the males one by one as they color up and keep them by themselves until ready to breed, will they retain their coloring? I guess that means I'll probably need some twenties as well?

Also, if you know anything about German Reds, and other line bred strains that would be helpful

Thanks

[fishboy]

some will, some wont.. u can breed in a 50 breeder, u dont need such big tanks to do so.. u can start line breeding from there.. 50 breeder 1m 20f not a prob

[nick a]

If I understand your intent correctly;

Have a single larger tank for your breeding colony. I use a lot of 40BRs thru 75s (depending on the fish type and the size of the group) for this purpose.

For each colony have several 10s thru 40BR/55s......these are your utility support tanks. Fry in the 10s moving up to 20Ls etc...as they grow out. These are also where you'll put extra males/females in need of a break etc.....

Keep small BNs or snails in the small tanks and they will always be cycled and ready for a female to spit into etc....

One other thing....plan your room carefully. Stick with a few sizes--it's much easier to rack all 40BRs than to try to do a combo rack of say 40BRs + 55s because of the different dimensions.

HTHs

[TKC747]

Yes Nick that does help. I didn't know about how to keep tanks cycled. A BN is a Bristlenose pleco. Right?

Thanks

[TKC747]

some will, some wont.. u can breed in a 50 breeder, u dont need such big tanks to do so.. u can start line breeding from there.. 50 breeder 1m 20f not a prob

fishboy, thanks for the tip, didn't know that much about breeders. I will google what dimensions these tanks are.

Thanks

[nick a]

Yeah! If you can get a pair going in a 20L, they'll provide all the babies you can handle!

[TKC747]

I found this:

http://alysta.com/books/fishtank.htm no dimensions for a "50 breeder"

The goal of a breeder tank is to maximize surface area...correct?

Thanks

[DragonKeeper]

Yes Nick that does help. I didn't know about how to keep tanks cycled. A BN is a Bristlenose pleco. Right?

Thanks

I wouldn't use any kind of catfish in a fry tank. My experience is they become fry munchers at night. Lost a whole group of fryeri babies to a BN overnight.

[fishboy]

I found this:

http://alysta.com/books/fishtank.htm no dimensions for a "50 breeder"

The goal of a breeder tank is to maximize surface area...correct?

Thanks

50 breeder is 3ft longx 18" widex 18-19"high.. if u cram 1 or 2 males and 20 females ull get tons of action.. no need to decorate the tank either, just a couple sponges will do

[TKC747]

I wouldn't use any kind of catfish in a fry tank. My experience is they become fry munchers at night. Lost a whole group of fryeri babies to a BN overnight.



OK, so I guess you should take the catfish out when you put the fry in, but the catfish will definately keep the tanks cycled. Thanks for pointing that out!