Category Archives: Fish Breed Guides
Electric Blue Cichlid – Proper Care and Feeding
This article is a follow up from a previous post entitled “How To Kill Algae Especially Green Hair Algae In Your Salt Water Fish Tank”
Electric blue cichlids belong to a species of carnivorous cichlid that is found in Malawi. Because of its bright blue hue and active nature as well as being a hardy fish is it a favorite fish to breed among more and more hobbyists these days. Electric blue cichlids live up to a maximum of ten years if they are taken care of and fed properly.
Gender Of Electric Blue Cichlids
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The easiest way to identify the gender of electric blue cichlids is by its color. Male electric blue cichlids are metallic blue in color whereas the female gender has a soft blue glow that is non-metallic. The females also have a bit of golden yellow below their anal fin. Apart from the color, another way to tell them apart is from their physiology. The female electric blue cichlids have a more sleek body shaped almost like a bullet and have a wider edging on both the pectoral as well as the dorsal fins.
Aquarium Conditions For Electric Blue Cichlids
Electric blue cichlids need an aquarium with lots of room to swim in, preferably larger than 70 gallons. When first introducing the fish to a new environment, always allow the water to settle at room temperature first before placing them in to reduce the shock. You will also need to remember that electric blue cichlids originate from a warm climate so set the fish tank heater to between 75 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
In terms of water acidity, the pH level should be kept ideally between 7.5 to 9 as well as a maintaining the water hardness between ten to twelve dGH. This can be properly maintained using a freshwater test kit.
If you are planning to putting plants in the aquarium, avoid plastic ones and choose plants that are tough such as Java Fern or Java Moss. Electric blue cichlids have a habit of uprooting tall plants that grow more than a couple of inches in height.
If you want your cichlids to settle in fast and comfortably, you will need to mimic the habitat from which they came from, meaning rocks with little caves and crevices that they can hide in. This will make them feel safer and les threatened. The ideal substrate for this type of fish is gravel.
You can place a few electric blue cichlids in one tank as well as Malawian cichlids of other species. They will get along fine as long as the tank is large enough but try to avoid putting much smaller fish. You need to remember that electric blue cichlids are carnivorous and even if they do not eat the smaller fish, they will harass them to death.
Feeding Electric Blue Cichlids
You should only feed electric blue cichlids with live feed such as feeder guppies. If you really cannot find live feed, then as an alternative you can also use frozen or freeze dried blood worms or brine shrimp even though these are not really ideal. Cichlid pellets should only be use as supplemental food when necessary and should never be treated as their main food diet.
When feeding electric blue cichlids, only do so once or at the maximum twice a day and ensure that the amount of food you feed them is sufficient to be consumed within five minutes. All excess food needs to be removed from the aquarium water after five minutes to ensure that it does not rot and mess up the chemistry of the water.
Breed Better Electric Blue Cichlids (Click for details)
Electric blue cichlids are hardy fish that is easy to care for as long as you follow these simple steps in aquarium maintenance and feeding. Do it right and you will have fish bright strumming electric blue cichlids that you can enjoy watching for many years.
Tropical Fish Breeding | Which Is The Easiest Fish To Care For?
This tropical fish breeding article is a follow up from a previous post entitled “Setting Up A Fish Tank | How To Prepare A Brand New Fish Tank“.
Tropical fish breeding is one of the best hobbies to undertake. The sight of these colorful creatures lazily swimming to and fro in the aquarium is very relaxing and is the best cure to a stressful day at work. Believe me, once you sit in front of a fish tank observing these creatures chase each other about and play, time just passes by and so does all your worries. All this make tropical fish breeding just worth the while.
Tropical Fish Breeding
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But if you’re thinking of tropical fish breeding and have never done it before, you might be wondering how hard tropical fish breeding can be. After all, just scanning the internet and reading the millions of posts out there about UV Sterilizers and Biological Filter and Protein Skimmers will definitely scare away anyone wanting to indulge in tropical fish breeding.
But it really is not as hard as you might imagine. And once you have the hang of it, it is actually simpler than caring for a dog or cat. If you’re just starting on this hobby, it is a good idea to start off with an easy fish first. Yes, there are easy fish and there are fish that are hard to care for. The easy ones are hardy, generally passive and don’t require much maintenance. In this post, we will look at some of the best fish to get started with.
1) Tropical Fish Breeding: Guppies
This is one of the easiest fish to breed. Guppies originate from Asia, and in Malaysia where I am from, you can find these fish in drains and ditches everywhere. What you do need to know is the difference between a male and a female guppy. Male guppies are absolutely gorgeous with long colorful tails while the female guppies are a plain grey or brown with no colors at all. Most people go for only the male cos they’re beautiful and then wonder why they don’t breed…. go figure.
Then there’s also the fact that the males always want to mate and will spend the entire day chasing a female until they’re satisfied. So having too many males and not enough females is really a bad idea.
Lastly, if you plan to breed them, you have to separate the females once they are pregnant which is easy to notice cos their stomachs are more bloated than normal. Guppies give birth to their young live, they don’t lay eggs and they have the tendency to eat their young so separate the adults as soon as the fry are born.
Other than this, guppies are very easy to care for. They’ll survive even if you don’t have a filter or proper aeration. But they do need a little warmth since they do come from a warm climate. One of the easiest tropical fish breeding types.
2) Tropical Fish Breeding: Tetra
Tetras are small fish that come in a variety of color. There are the orange ones that have black fins and a black spot on their sides. There is also the the silver ones that have black tip fins with two horizontal stripes across them. But the ones I love are the neon tetra which have a bluish or reddish stripe across their sides that seem to glow especially with the aquarium lights on. Tetras get along with any fish and if you have a school or them it is so cool to watch them swim in sync with each other. They never grow more than an inch long at most and make nice small fish to start off with. It’s hard to tell the male from the female so just grab some and hope for the best.
3) Tropical Fish Breeding: Danios
Danios are also called Zebra Fish because they have black or silver horizontal stripes. The males and females look the same so they too are hard to tell apart. Danios are passive fish that will never bother other fish and they are very playful, chasing each other and zipping across the tank like they were playing tag.
There is also another variation of Danios with spots instead of stripes which is fondly known as Leopard Danios. It really doesn’t matter if you mix the two cos they get along well with each other.
These are the three easiest fish for tropical fish breeding if you are a beginner. Low maintenance and hardy, these fish survive even the worst tank conditions and will give you endless hours of relaxation.
Learn More About Tropical Fish Breeding
From tropical fish breeding, let’s move on to solving a cloudy fish tank.
