[PhxKarma]

I had a friend who moved and needed someone to tank his tank, so I offered to take it from him.

The tank is a 40g hexagon shaped tank on a stand, 24" tall and 12" panels, about 5" with stand. I have a large heater but I am not sure what temp they need.

The filer is huge, it's a 150g series so it seems more than enough for this tank, it has a media storage and the guy gave me some ammo-carb and carbon with the bags, I Wasn't sure if I need to use these or not.

I just got it setup, filled it up with water and got everything hooked up, but I need some advice since I have never had these type of fish before.

The tank has three 4" african cichlids, two are dark gray with black stripes, one is bright orange with yellowish spots.

There is some fry in the tank, they appear to be orange/transparent and are about 1" long right now, none of the other fish are messing with them but the orange one is very protective of them.

There is also one smaller cichlid, it is a silver color with black lines over the eyes like a mask.

Other thank the cichlids there seems to be these two spotted catfish in the tank as well, about 3" long each. There is also a pocostamus (sic?) sucker fish in the tank that is 6-7" long.

One issue I noticed with the orange cichlid it seems to "seizure" in a sense, it sits and shakes, like it's trying to stir up stuff from the rocks? Is this normal?

Any advice would be great, thanks.

 

[Charlie_Tuna]

Well first thing is congrats on the new tank, sounds like something i wish i could get my hands on. I wish one of my friends would give me a tank and fish lol

but the "seizure" thing...never heard of that before. sorry

 

[WhiteGloveAquatics]

shake as in how? head shakes? whole body twitches? what other fish are very near or in direct eye contact with the orange one?

 

[PhxKarma]

I took a video today, can you guys help me figure out what type of cichlids the dark ones are?

YouTube - 1201091418.3g2

 

[PhxKarma]

New better video: YouTube - S6300783.AVI

 

[Fishboydanny1]

the orange one may be a red zebra hybrid, and the other two are some type of mbuna... the little orange babies are probably from a cross between the orange one and a dark one...

the 'seizures' are perfectly normal, they are his breeding dance, to lure females to his territory. he could also me moving rocks too, but he is definetely trying to attract females.

 

[PhxKarma]

The orange one has been rubbing up against the larger dark one, they have been together all morning in their little cave, are they mating?

 

[Fishboydanny1]

probably... if you see the darker one with a swollen throat, that means she's holding eggs. african cichlids actually hold their babies and eggs for about 21 days without eating before realeasing them. if you want to save the resulting hybrids, seperate the female (preferably to another tank) and let her incubate until she decides to release the babies. just make sure to tell anyone that you give the babies to, that they're hybrids! good luck!