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I have a science fair project that I have to do, and of course I was going to do it on fish. The project was to buy three different fish of the same species, and to see how three different methods of introducing them to the tank (simply dumping them in without acclimation, floating the bag to let the temperatures adjust, and the drip acclimation) affected the fish.

So I go to the store and I ask my boss "What's something that's fairly hardy [as in will be able to survive suddenly going to pH 7.6 water to 7], but will also look stressed when traveling?". I needed it to get stressed so I could study it and clearly see how long it takes for the fish to return to normal. So my boss points me over to the checkerboard cichlids (Crenicara filamentosus), since he has lots of experience with them. He says that they are one of the most peaceful cichlids in the hobby.

So I decided to get a few of them to use for my experiement. The experiments went very well, and all the fish are perfectly happy and swimming around and eating. They are very cute fish. They also seem to think a lot... After I had introduced the one that I dumped in and the one I floated, they started swimming and foraging together. Then I put the third one in, but on the other side of the tank. It took them like an hour to find each other. My Betta pugnax was angry when I first put them in, but now I think she has accepted them. They are always out swimming in the fron of the tank, which is good.

Anyway, here are some pictures I took of them. They are about 1-1.5" long now.





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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

Ah, they're cute little things - and those are some great photos. They remind me a bit of a SA version of a Julidochromis.

Eric

nice pics and glad your project went well. one question though, could you not have chosen another trait to study on your fish than to stress them purposfully. glad to see they are doing well though.


chris

Well I just figured that since all fish are inevitably stressed when we buy them, that I'd do an experiment on how we deal with the fish's stress. I found that since all of these checkerboard cichlids acted pretty much the same when they were introduced into the tank, it was actually more stressful to do the longer acclimation, which many people absolutely insist on doing even with very hardy fish.

I was also seriously considering getting these fish before the experiment, and I was just going to buy some more head and tail light tetras to experiment on. But then I decided to ditch the tetras and just experiment on these fish. So I was going to by them anyway... It's not like I bought them just to be cruel to them. I just figured that since I was getting them anyway, I might as well base my project on them.

Kind of hard to explain, but I tried.





Last edited by Cory Addict at 08-Dec-2004 01:45

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

glad to hear your experiment went ok and that the fish are happy. they are cute little guys. and CONGRATULATIONS ON JOINING THE WORLD OF CICHLIDS!!!


for the record, 9/10 times when I buy a new fish I drop it right in the tank. there are online retailers that insist on this method of acclimation in fact.

swim or die...

Hey Cory Addict,
This fish was so cute I looked it up.What I found out is fascinating. Did you know this little fish of yours is a protygynous hermaphrodite? What that means is juveniles are most frequently female, and as they mature, the strongest, most aggressive of them become the males.
Fascinating. keep us posted on them!


Come Play Yahtzee With Me!
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I love this fish, but have never seen in in the flesh (scale?). I've read that it's rather sensitive, but yours look very healthy, and we know that they'll get top notch care from you! Good luck with them!

Very nice! They're on my fish-wish-list as well

What other fish are they living with besides the betta?


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There is water at the bottom of the ocean

Thanks for the strange (and interesting) info on them, Pete! These little fish are weird...:%)

Joe Fishy: I had read that these fish were sensitive two, but my boss says that they are pretty hardy (maybe not 'beginning hobbyist hardy', but as far as dwarf cichlids go...). They must be pretty hardy though, because even the one that I did not acclimate is doing very well. The only thing wrong with them is that they have some tattered fins because they were kept with baby severums and Peruvian puffers at the LFS.

Theresa: These fish are kept in my main community tank, with my corys, tetras, gouramis, and some "other" category fish. The cichlids do not bother any of the other fish, but are slightly territorial among themselves.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.