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Tropheus Maintenance Regimes!


MoliroMan

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Hi Guys,

Please share your tropheus maintenance regimes including tank size (water volume), amount of water changed and frequency, amount of filtration used in your tank and the amount of tropheus u have in the tank.

Hopefully, this will help people decide if they are up to the maintenance required for tropheus keeping!

Dave

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Tank- 470 litres, not taking into consideration rock dispalcement etc.

Water change- 220 litres once a week. Water is aged, heated, aerated, buffered and salted.

Colony- 36 T. moorii Mpulungu.

Filtration- 2 Eheim 2217s, 1 Via Aqua 750, 1 UV Steraliser, 1 Powerhead.

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Tank- 510 litres including sump

Water change- 170 litres once a week.

Colony- Upto 50 T. moorii Nkonde Yellow

Filtration- Sump. 4500LPH pump

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I change 20% of the volume every second week. It used to be every week until I started to grow hornwort in the tanks that pulls the nitrate levels down. I throw away buckets of the stuff all the time. They also like to graze on the plant.

Hi Guys,

Please share your tropheus maintenance regimes including tank size (water volume), amount of water changed and frequency, amount of filtration used in your tank and the amount of tropheus u have in the tank.

Hopefully, this will help people decide if they are up to the maintenance required for tropheus keeping!

Dave

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So how important is it to use salts and buffers in getting the water right?

I say its very important but others will have a different opinion. I use them both at home as well as the quarantine room and have for a long time. There are other people that seem to be able to keep them with out the use of buffers and lake salts or use other means to keep the PH up.

It will be interesting to read the replys I hope you get on this subject.

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I have always used Seachem Salts and Buffers with my Tropheus and don't plan on stopping (advised to me by Jim, Tropheus breeder). I add it gradually to my water change drum. They definately seem happier and more colourful when the kH is at the right level compared to when it drops on you.

Jamie.

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Well i am the probably the tropheus black sheep, i dont follow all the rules, but then again i dont get the results, or have the succses others have had. But the tank i care least for achieves the most....stuffs me. dntknw.gif

all tanks are sand substrate, and copius amounts of rocks, all fish get sera flora and all the algae they can eat.

Anyways 8x2x2

30 Tropheus Sp. Red "Kachese"7-12cm, 3 ventralis 6-10cm, 2 leleupi ~8cm, 4 xenos ~10cm

this tank gets 40% changed weekly, i use bicarb, seasalt, magnesium sulphide as salts and buffers, the tank turns over at 900l/hour( until sorted out, then 4000lph)

in the 280l sump there is aditional 8kg of calcium carbonate to help buffer the water.....this is the most relaxed tropheus tank i have seen. sits about 28 deg constantly.. the only reason i keep the pH at around 8.5 is because all fish are F1 F2 or close enough (except the leleupi)

6x2x2,

3 Tropheus duboisi, 1m, 2f ~8cm (from bengaboy Steves ) liniage 7 foai magara, 10-15cm and a rouge blue occie. tiny!!

I pull maybe 10-15 dubosi fry from this tank every 6 weeks, and 20+ foai fry fish are super happy and all get along well...mostly.......most squabbles are over who has the most sand. or who is getting randy! filter is an AC500 thats it. water change is 30% every week, only water treatment AC is added. no salts buffers whatever. this tank is in the fish room, and sits at 26

6x2x2

This tank has 21 Tropheus Sp. Black "Kiriza" They are growing up and are currently 6-8cm so might get breeding soon, filter is one 2500lph internal, a corner air bubbler jobby!, and a 30l tub full of gutterguard, and filter wool, running at maybe 1500lph, again 40% water change every week, no salts or buffers used. This tank also about 26.

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Tank

2 x 6x2x2’s on a 4x18x18 sump. Water turnover is around 2000lt per hr per tank. The sump has a 4500lt per hr return pump and given head heights etc about 2000 Lt per tank.

Fish

1 x 6x2x2 has 33 Ikola, 18 or so are wild caught and the rest are F1’s. The other 6x2x2 has my Karilani Copper’s, Malasa and peppermint bristlenose.

Water Change

I do a 40% water change on both tanks every 1-2 weeks. Generally 2 weeks.

Buffers and Salts

I add buffer and salts every now and then. I keep an eye on the pH weekly and if its under 8.0 I boost it up to 9.0 over a 24hr period.

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Great to hear the detailed responses! And as i expected all of u experience success with very different maintenance regimes! So how do we know what is the optimum regime for tropheus?

I am afraid to admit it but i think i overdo my maintenance big time. And i think a lot of people know this already (especially Jamie!!! wink2.gif ).

Here are some examples:

4 by 2 by 2 (from Auburn Aquarium):

Inhabitants: 30 adult moliros, 12 kiriza (7 adult, 5 juvies), 2 bristles, 1 golden sucker, 3 julidochromis regani kipili, 2 goby cichlids.

Filtration: 2 Eheim 2217, 1 Prof II 2028, 1 2260, Otto 2000lph internal filter, UV filter and Aquamedic nitrate filter.

Maintenance: weekly 75% water change.

5 foot aquaone tank:

Inhabitants: 16 Golden Kazumba and 10 Ikola (all adults), 3 Duboisi subadults, 1 bristle, 1 golden sucker. 3 Cyprichromis leptosoma kekese.

Filtration: 3 Eheim Prof II 2028, 1 2217, Otto 2000lph internal filter, Overhead trickle filter 1600lph, UV filter, Aquamedic sulfur-hydrocarbon nitrate filter (for 1000L tank).

Maintenance: as above.

4 foot custom made bowfront tank (made by Xtreme Aquarium):

Inhabitants: 26 adult ilangi, 2 goby cichlids, 1 bristlenose and 1 golden sucker.

Filtration: 30 inch minireef at 2000lph, 2 Eheim Prof II 2028 and UV filter. Will be adding an Aquamedic Sulfur nitrate filter.

Maintenance: as above.

Dave

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And this is my exact Seachem Buffer and Salt regime that gives me a Kh of 18 and Gh of 10.

Pls note that this is the water supply from Ryde and therefore could be different from your local water supply so u will need to check your Kh/Gh. Also i measure the chemicals with a precise digital scale!

Seachem Salt:

30g in 220L drum.

Seachem Buffer:

28g per day for 4 days into 220L drum to prevent precipitation.

hth

Dave

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I am new to these denitrate filters. When i visited Mathew, he showed me a very low cost alternative to the coil denitrator. He use about 30m of airline tubing attached to the outflow of the mini-reef pump and using a valve slow the flow to drops back into the mini-reef. It looked like a very simple setup that all people could make themselves. But whether it works i don't know.

I bought the Aqua Medic nitrate filter purely because i will no longer be able to maintain my weekly water changes and was afraid that nitrate levels will build up. It it connected to the outflow of the canister filter and runs through 2 reactors - the first is a sulfur reactor which feeds the bacteria and then the hydrocarbon reactor which neutralises the sulfuric acid produced and increases the pH again. It works on the theory that because of the slow flow through these reactors, oxygen is depleted and the bacteria are forced to use nitrate as an Oxygen source and results in nitrogen which is emitted safely from the aquarium. I don't know if it really works as it claims but i think nothing beats a water change. U are looking at about $200-300 a unit.

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