Boston Aquarium Society Message Board

Is there any interest in the club in Lake Victoria cichlids (outside of our senior cichlid-aholics, Russ and Jim, that is ) ?
I acquired a SWEET group of vic's this week from an outstanding aquarist from PVAS (Mike Liu)

Platytaeniodus sp. "red tail sheller"
http://www.borstein.info/profiles/victo ... dtail.html
(my dominant male isn't quite as striking as the one in the photo but hey he's been in the tank less than a week)

They settled into my existing 150g peacock cichlid tank very comfortably
Actually - I put one male and 2 females in the 150g tank, put a mf pair in a 40g tank with a pair of psuedocrenablis nicholsi, and put 3 unsexed juveniles in a 29g growout tank - with goals of
a) providing a 'backup' in case of social issues
b) allowing the subdominant male space to court a female without competition (and putting her in a tank where I can easily catch her if need be for removal or egg/fry stripping)
c) growing out an sexing the juvies in a tank where I can easily catch them

If they settle in well for me and I am able to get fry, I'd like to get these spread around the club a bit -- these are fish that are not being imported from the wild (although a recent talk I saw at the ACA convention suggests that they may not be extinct in the wild) and are generally not being commercially farmed or offered via mainstream wholesale/retail channels.
The only way we are going to keep these available is to make sure there are enough people with them tucked away someplace.
As they are hardy, peaceful and fairly colorful I don't think that will be hard.
With that in mind - IF I am successful at getting/raising fry - I'll offer them at a reasonable price (and also probably bring some to UNFF to sell at a more capitalist price )



more info
http://www.african-cichlid.com/RedTailSheller.htm

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Rich
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Part-time fishguy at Uncle Ned's Fish Factory (saturdays)
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Species I am currently keeping/breeding include :
Copadichromis borleyi "redfin"
Labidochromis caeruleus yellow labs
Aulonocara sp. "Lwanda"
Ancistrus cf. cirrhosus "Super Red Ancistris"
Xiphophorus montezumae Montezuma Swordtails
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(I'm in the middle of resetting and redesigning my fishroom - so things are kinda quiet)