WEEKLY WATER CHANGE

10 gallong brooding tank

Yesterday, as every Monday I anticipated my water changes. I had some decisions to make concerning my community tank. In my African Cichlid Communtiy I have 3 holding females. Stella a Kenyi Cichlid is holding again and is a great mom with huge broods so I removed her and put her into a brooding tank. The other two females are M. Auratus females holding for the first time. I was going to just leave them to have their brood in the community tank but since I have some plans next week in replacing the substrate I thought I better get them out before they spit or strip them and return them. Being their first brood I didn't expect either of these Cichlids to produce many fry.

I got to work draining about 30% of the water. Once the water was down to where I wanted it I began removing the rocks and decor leaving only the substrate and fish. Next I got my net can caught all three females. My brooding tank or Stella's second home, was all ready for her. I checked the other two females. One, I could clearly see she had a mouth full of little black wigglers. I decided to strip her of them and return her to the community. She had only been holding for about 16 days and during that time I have watched her eat. Fearing she would swallow her fry I thought I may as well save what I can by stripping her. She actually had a pretty good first brood of 15 fry. The second Auratus or Golden Cichlid only had 3. I honestly didn't expect her to have any more than that because she was always eating and her pouch kept shrinking. Both of the Golden females went back into the community tank.

Newly stripped M. Auratus - Golden Cichlids in floating fry cage.

The new little fry are so dang cute. They look like mini-Golden. I have them in a floating nursery cage in my grow-out tank with Stella's first brood. They are tiny but look healthy and are eating. I'm happy I saved them as I do want a few more in my tank eventually.

Once that was taken care of I went about vacuuming the substrate and preparing water to replace what was removed. While my pails were filling I began to design my new seascape. I use flag stone as they provide lots of hiding places and stack well not to mention they are free. I created an "L" shaped scape leaving an area where I would put my Pineapple houses. The tank looks great and all the work is done. I'm finding I can do a complete water change, with rescaping in under 2 hours. Of course that's not including my 4 tanks upstairs! Ha!