trident's Cyprichromis leptosoma 'Utinta'

[trident]

Hi,
Sharing a few pictures of my Cyprichromis leptosoma Utinta.

[wks]

Richard, is this your latest acquisition?

[doppelbanddwarf]

Nice. Richard you've been collecting lots of beautiful fishes recently.

[trident]

Jason.
I've had them for about a month already, together with some white and black calvus.

chong yu,
thanks, part of the hobby mah.

[luenny]

Richard,
Nice fish. Nice color, like the ones I caught offshore. What are their requirements? Are they easy to keep?

[trident]

Luenny,
These are Tanganyika cichlids, quite easy to keep, requirements are hard water and high PH. I use coral sand and some rocks for them to hide. Weekly additions after water change are epsom salt, marine salt and sodium bicarbonate.
These leptos are open water dwellers, you can comm them with some shells or rocks dwellers or sand shifters.

[illumnae]

very pretty fish richard =) your tanks are growing in variety!

[Ah_ZhaN]

Nice fishes. How do you sex them?

[wks]

Richard, I thought Tangangyika cichlids are freshwater fish right? Why the need to add salt?

[trident]

Ah Zhan,
The males are more colorful, females are drab looking and smaller in size.

Jason,
Salt is added to make tap water hard. Tap water are very low in dissolved salts compared to certain fish-collecting or fish-raising areas, and the addition of aquarium salt might simply make the fish feel more "at home".
Salt provides replacement sodium and chloride ions that stressed or sick fish
need.

[luenny]

Richard,
Tempting. But being cichlid, will they cause problems if house together? You know the usual cichlid behaviour when they fight, bully, kill each other? Do you have a picture of your entire tank?

[Mez]

Luenny,
Cyprichromis are schooling fish - it is most important to keep a shoal of them...imagine just one neon tetra.
Alternativley, there are people that believe adding salt is not the way, there is much myth over the fact that the lakes have salt in them - this has never been scientifically proven and/or documented. I preffer to use a rock such as Tuffa rock to buffer the water as an alternative.
James

[trident]

Luenny,
They are aggressive, but only to their own kind, I comm the Cyprichromis Leptosoma utinta with Altolamprologus calvus "White chaitika", Altolamprologus calvus black and Enantiopus sp. Kilesa. They don't fight with the other strains, but when I add the calvus black into the tank the Whites will attack him, didn't die, just stressed, after a week or so they will be OK.
James, as for salt, it's a habit from my early goldfish days. Goldfish go well with plenty of salt and since then it's a habit to add salt my tank.