10 Gallon Planted Baby Cichlid Tank
This tank is inhabited by..
- a few fast pond snails (native to Lake Champlain)
- a cory of unknown classification
- a Botia Lohachata, who was happily feasting on the infinite supply of
snails, but she ate them all, so now she lives on an occasional snail and
mostly fish food..
- a huge ball of java moss, loosely affiliated with a piece of wood
- a floating population of small duckweed and salvinia
- a small bunch of Hygrophila polysperma, the green variety and
the "sunset" variety
- a school of 8 cichlids, Hemichromis
lifalili, I think
This tank has been undernourished in the aesthetics and attention
departments, and is stable but boring to look at. I usually use it as a
quarantine tank for new fish, but right now it is a good "grow out" tank
for these cichlids. When I got them they were around 1-1.5 cm in length,
and they have since grown quite a bit, now the largest measures at least
3cm, and the smallest is still around 1cm.. I put the very smallest fish
in my livebearer tank, to recover from some
fin nipping that was going on.
Hopefully it'll grow faster there. When it starts to wreck havoc, I'll
return it to its siblings.
When I got these cichlids, they were a light tan/clearish color - it was
hard to believe that they were going to turn so fire-red! As the weeks
went on, I began to wonder if they'd ever grow up. Then, slowly I started
to notice flecks of irridescence - some of their scales were turning
bright blue and shiny - esp. the largest ones. Now, the largest ones are
darkening in color overall... and their fins are getting pinkish. I can't
wait!!
Would you like to go back to my home
page, or back to the list?
Last Modified March 12, 1998