Second Cacautoides Free Swimming!!

[Brown.Victoria@ic.gc.ca (Brown, Victoria: TMI)]

Hi Folks,,

The second batch of Cacautoides babies are free swimming, in their 15   
gallon tank. I only saw 6 so far, but I think she has more in her pot.   
 Probably by tonight they will all be toddling around the tank. The male   
comes over to look at them, but doesn't seem interested in eating them,   
which is very, very good. The female is very good with her batch of   
babies also.

Question for the group,,

Will the babies be safe with the male in the tank? The female doesn't   
seem to get upset when he comes over to look at them.

Ken Laidlaw asks,,

>Well done on your successes so far.
Thanks, I'm having a riot with these little guys!! I'm a Cichlid NUT!!
> have a couple of questions The water out of
> tap is about PH 7, with a hardness about 45 DGH.
>am I receiving this right, is it really forty five degrees of general   
hardness?  Your water >sounds like concrete.

I have a hardness test unit, with the 3 bottles of chemicals, and the   
solution turns blue at 70 PPM. Then you gotta multiply that value by some   
other number to get the DGH. It worked out to about 40.2 out of the tap.   
Once it's been sitting with the peat, it goes to 50 PPM.  I will probably   
test it again tonight, to see, and I'll let you know. I'm pretty new to   
water hardness testing, (since the Apistos, about 3-4 weeks now),I could   
be way off base with these values, but I know my water is pretty soft,   
cause  I never get scaling. And when I work in the Apisto tanks, my hand   
always feel really soft afterwards.
>
>> I picked up some new cichlids over the past couple of days. I found 6   
    

>> Paletaenia's at one pet shop.
>Please, what are Paletaenia?
My spelling is pretty bad with these latin names.  I checked the book   
last night, and the correct name is Pleurotaenia.
They are quite striking with their markings. They are getting quite   
attractive, more colour every day.

>> Yesterday, I found some really beautiful cichlids.  I bought 3   
Tucurui's.
>> 1 Male and 2 females. They are much more colorful this morning, and   
have
>> pin stripes on their bodies. They are beige, with beautiful markings.
>Lucky you, these are nice fish.
>Cheers,
>Ken.

The Tucurui's are gorgeous.  They are a light beige colour, with the   
dotted pinstripe lines. The male is getting bluer in the pelvic and anal   
fins. The females are beautiful also. I think these are my most beautiful   
after the Biataenia's. They were very expensive at $30 CDN a piece,, but   
I just *had* to have them,,, GRIN!! The three of them have set up 2 nice   
little territories and eat like little piggies.



Vicky and her fishy buddies