COBettaCouple

Last night at the fish auction, 8 little cichlid fry caught Stacy's eye so we were wondering if anyone's kept these? and if so, what did you feed them, use for substrate, decor, tankmates, etc?

Allie

http://cichlidforum.com/profiles/species.php?id=727
http://cichlidforum.com/articles/l_hongi.php

They are cute fish and are not too aggressive. Can't go with yellow labs since they have the same first part of their scientific name. I'd get some cobalt or red/blue zebra to go with them. They like a typical Malawi set up.

MissMTS

Congrats They are beautiful fish! If I didn't already have yellow labs in my tank, I would definetly add some to my setup. They can eat standard cichlid pellets. I feed my mbuna African Attack cichlid pellets, but depending on how small the fish are, you may need to go with a smallet pellet or a flake to start out with. They will like a tank with piles of rocks so they can explore the caves and establish terriories. You can't do live plants in their tank, but artificial ones will work fine. I like using a dark background with my mbuna because it makes their color really pop out. If you go on my profile page, you can see pics of my mbuna setup.

COBettaCouple

Thanks!

EDIT: Added some pics of the little fry.

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steveangela1

That is the next mbuna on my list, they will go in the opp tank as my yellow labs. I would feed them the same as any other mbuna, w/ keeping the protein to a min. Give them veggies.
They are beautiful fish!
I keep crushed coral substrate, limestone in one tank and lava in my other big one.

MissMTS

They are such cuties! Thanks for posting the pics!

COBettaCouple

Should I be feeding them veggies now? I figure they must be 3-5 weeks old since they're still somewhat transparent and have been feeding them BBS, which they've been gobbling down.

MissMTS

I don't know about full on veggies, but they should do well with some crushed up veggie flakes. I give mine the OmegaOne Livebearer Veggie Flakes.

steveangela1

I agree, the crushed veggie flakes will do just fine.

COBettaCouple

Hmm.. I have the New Life Spectrum foods now. I have the .5mm "Grow" pellets and the thin sinking wafers. I dropped a broken-up wafer in and they were nibbling on it. But I can get another container of Omega One veggie flakes if that would be better for them.