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Tanzania spilontus temperament


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Hi guys,

Been offer a few fry and am just wondering what these guys are like to keep. Aggression to others? Breeding difficulty? Any special requirements? I have the room to set them up in single species tank but if I don't need to would prefer to house with others.

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Good natured fish. Aggres when spawning. Anything over a standard 4 foot tank with be fine for a small colony. The males get amazing colours when mature. Substrate spawner, usually building a small pit to spawn in. I would try not to keep them with anything that looks similar. And dont keep with peacocks, they will cross breed.

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I keep and breed these guys. High level of conspecific aggression, but fine with other fish. Males are highly aggressive towards other males once they start colouring, best to remove subdominant males or you will probably lose them. Once sexually mature, the males are rough on the females, you need to give them plenty of hiding spots and use a large enough tank to give them some running room.

The males are a stunning fish and can grow quite large 20cm or so. They do take a long time to colour up fully, you will start to see some blue in the body at 7-8cm or so, but the yellow underside won't start appearing until 10cm or so and they won't reach full colouration until 13cm or so. This is probably why you don't see them for sale very often in lfs.

If you have the patience and are prepared to manage the conspecific aggression, these are well worth keeping and breeding.

Cheers, Doug

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I have to agree with Doug. They are sensational fish and hard on each other I bred them for a while but had to take out sub dominant males add they showed up. I had them in a 3x18x18 and it ended up being too small and I lost the girls. I ended up just putting the males in display tank and they are looking great.

Cheers

Rosco

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