This tank has 3 Hemichromis Lilafi males, who are all a little more than 1" SL. They were living with 4 females of the same size, but the females were getting beaten on heavily. We scooped the tattered little hiding fish out of this mean tank and put them in their own 20 gallon tank. We tried to do lots of water changes and lightly medicate the water, but one of the four was badly chomped, and didn't make it. The males seem fine together, though they tend to hang out in opposite parts of the tank, and we rarely see them swimming freely.

They're supposed to be fairly aggressive, and one of the reddish fish ever. They're not quite as red as I expect them to get, but they've definitely proven their aggressiveness - we were keeping 8 corydoras in the tank with them, and about a week after we put the cories in, we noticed that one was missing an eye! You can bet that they were removed to a safe tank pretty fast. I feel terrible about that fish. At least it still has one eye, but I still feel like a dope. I thought the lilafi were to little to be really aggressive, but everyone knows that corydoras are irresistable. Sigh. Right now the males are getting red, and I would definitely call the more dominant one "red", but compared with pictures I've seen, they've got quite a bit of ripening still left to go. :-)

Here is a picture of the tank in its most sorely neglected state ever. Algae all over the glass.. but the water was clean, I promise!! The fish like it this way, I promise! Natural background, don't you know...

We have merged the males with the females, in a sense - please see our page on the female lilafi for more details.