My Multifascatus Colony & Fry

fred funk }{

Well my Multis have finally spawned, at least three times that I'm sure of, possibly more as there are several different size fry. These fish are Cichlids from lake Tanganyika in Africa and are shell dwellers who basically live, breed and hide in their shells. They set up their own colony and they all guard the young from predators.

I have seven in total, 3 males, 3 females and another I'm not sure of as it isn't as big as the other males but my guess is that it's a juvenile male.

It's very difficult to count the fry as they live in the shells and all the nooks and crannies around their colony but if I had to guess I'd say between 20-30.

I saw the Fry first about 10 days ago I haven't cleaned or vacuumed substrate since as I didn't want to disturb anything but I have still being doing rerular water changes. So excuse all the algae

They'll all be moving to their bigger tank next week so it should be interesting trying to catch the tiny little things and not leave any behind in the sand :eek:

fungun

looks nice. where did you get the shells and/or how did you prepare them?

fred funk }{

You wouldn't think it but there's about 50 escargot shells in there as well as some shells from the beach. Got the escargot shells from eBay. Boiled them up in a pot to kill off any nasties that might be lurking inside.

I just randomly put them in one end of the tank and the fish done the rest.