Holding Demasoni

Normally I wouldnt just post when my fish start holding, but this is just the most amazing thing I have ever seen.... let me explain....... My tank recently had a horrific experience with a fish and intake to filter, long story short, dead fish in the tank for awhile, STINKY GROSS WATER!.... So trying everything I can to remove the smell, I create a ammonia spike, almost like a new tank cycling issue.... I decide to try and save my fish by doing a 90% water change this morning to reduce ammonia..... what do you know, the giant water change and drop in temp in the tank caused an orgy effect on my demasoni..... lol.... i have two holding females right now! CRAZY!!!

So I thought about stripping the fish, but these poor guys have gone thru so much this week I dont want to put them thru it...... Im thinking I just will keep up the giant water changes, try to reduce ammonia, and get rid of the dead fish smell. Then if they are still holding, I will consider stripping them. Probably will just let them spit in the tank though. we'll see. I will try to get some pictures of the holding parents.

demasoni is my 2nd favorite african!!I cant wait for pics

Yay!

rofl sand i told u there was girls in that group. they just didnt get to color up with the haras. IMO i wouldnt worry toooo much about chem levels.. clearly your doing something right. i also didnt wanna strip them, ive had too many issues stripping fish and stressing them to death in the process. especially at such a small size. glad theyre working out for you tho.. just dont give up on em so soon . gl with the smell ttyl bro

try using some Prime. it will knock out the ammonia and detoxify nitrite and nitrate. great stuff. it will save you a lot of work with your water changes. congrats on the spawns.

waterchanges are completly neccessary for the stink dead fish smell.... or really I wouldnt be doing any changes at all right now..... it really sucks cause I know I am stressing the hell out of them from the water parameters, out of tap I get low 6.0 ph..... so I have to add baking soda and epsom salt to harden up the water and raise PH.... so I know there all over the place right now from the water changes and dumping in stuff in the tank..... I am not counting on this batch of fry to survive to be honest... but kinda cool that it happend....

I really think using cold water when doing water changes makes them spawn..... I know some people try to match the water that is in the tank, i always put cold water in though.

Dead daddy....... Ok, my coolest dom. male is gone....... it had nothing to do with ammonia, or nitrite..... just a stupid error on my part...... I decided on doing a 100% water change and clean the sand a little..... throw out the shells cause I think there are some fish that crawled up and died in them...... anyway, there is one shell that is very large, my fish loved to hide in it.... I grabbed it out of the tank, shook out two fish into the temp bucket home.... looked inside, all looked well, so tossed it to dry out.... next thing I know I come in the room and it stinks again! i almost cried! then i noticed it wasnt coming from the tank, but coming from the shell..... and there he was..... my dominent demasoni male... he was gorgeous.... DEAD!

God, this hobby is really starting to kill me..... my tropheus tank on the other hand is doing better than anything I have ever owned. just wish everything went that way ...... SO, i decided to strip mom, I got 9 eggs... 1 is infertile.... I will put them in my egg tumbler and post pictures soon.

hey awesome at least u got some eggs and plenty of females left. im sure theres a male left outta that group. really bummer none the less.

Anthraxx wrote:hey awesome at least u got some eggs and plenty of females left. im sure theres a male left outta that group. really bummer none the less.

Well I dont know about plenty of females.... evidently there was only one holding.... The other wasnt, just looked as if it was... its crazy how quickly dominance changes when someone leaves..... the largest female has gotten back her color completly, and taken over the best spot in the tank... It almost looks like she is the boss, but I thought she was a female and you said she was holding for you once?? anyway, there is another guy, well I think it is a guy.... he quickly beat up everyone and now is trying to take control, but leaves the large female alone..... whish i knew who is who in there. anyway, itleast the smell is gone, and yeah, I got eggs!

the smaller ones were mostly females and that big ole gal. any of the others with a powder blue mixed with deep lavender almost are also males i know there was two or three. and that funky jaw guy was a male.

congrats on the tropheus spawn. sorry to hear about your dominant male demasoni. i love my demasoni and would hate to loose any. strange thing in my tank was that the biggest and most dominant demasoni turned out to be a big female. the way she ran the show i thought she was a male for sure until she was holding eggs.

iandraco wrote:congrats on the tropheus spawn. sorry to hear about your dominant male demasoni. i love my demasoni and would hate to loose any. strange thing in my tank was that the biggest and most dominant demasoni turned out to be a big female. the way she ran the show i thought she was a male for sure until she was holding eggs.

My demasoni is holding... not my tropheus... my tropheus are all less than 4 - 6 months old... there all tiny lil guys...... but thanks anyway, i know what you meant.


anthrax - I culled messed up jaw guy... his jaw, plus his bad stripes, I thought if he spawned his kids would have a high percentage in looking twisted...... I lost itleast 1 male in the intake or shell..... so I think if you said there is only three, Im in big trouble! lol..... But i really think there is another male.... honestly I think there was way more male than female.... only true way to find out is to vent them, but there too small for that... just gonna have to wait and see.

ya im sure you lucked out. ive seen at least 4 of the smaller girls holding (seperate fish) and then aggression and displaying for girls from at least 3-4 fish. so that still leaves 4 unknowns. either way getting more from larry would be no big deal. GL getting em going again, at least you finally found the problem.

to be honest, the dom male was causing so many problems, i was debating taking him out... he was beating fish up so badly they would just hover at the top of the water... which is horrible! The guy I am thinking is a male and trying to replace the old dom male is colored up and taken full control of the tank now.... he used to get picked on so much by the dom male that died his tale is all ripped up and fins shredded... now he is the new king. lol

My demasoni is holding... not my tropheus... my tropheus are all less than 4 - 6 months old... there all tiny lil guys...... but thanks anyway, i know what you meant.


oops. my bad. congrats anyway.

Did you try carbon in the filter? Should get rid of smell.

Tr182md wrote:Did you try carbon in the filter? Should get rid of smell.

yep, but the problem was there was still dead fish hidden in a shell.... now everything is great! you can see all the stuff I did on my other thread. "HELP STINK TANK"

Glad to hear that your skink bomb is getting better. You got any pictures of them demasoni? and congrates

Sorry it took so long.... here are some pictures.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Nice looking fish and eggs.

The demasoni looks really different from the ones I used to keep. Mine didn't have that many bars on the body.

Looking at your demasoni makes be miss mine :'( even though yours has more black than mine looks good though and nice eggs

Betty wrote:Nice looking fish and eggs.

The demasoni looks really different from the ones I used to keep. Mine didn't have that many bars on the body.

Honestly, He looks the most demasoni ish compared to some of the others.... I have a few that arent even blue, more violet and there bars are not black, but dark purple.... craziest thing I have ever seen..... but I really do like the dom. male color... the dark black and blues with some white along the fins just looks awesome when he is in breeding mode.

and what do you mean "used to keep" I thought you still had demasoni with your mbunas?

great looking demasoni.

sandnuka wrote:

Betty wrote:Nice looking fish and eggs.

The demasoni looks really different from the ones I used to keep. Mine didn't have that many bars on the body.

Honestly, He looks the most demasoni ish compared to some of the others.... I have a few that arent even blue, more violet and there bars are not black, but dark purple.... craziest thing I have ever seen..... but I really do like the dom. male color... the dark black and blues with some white along the fins just looks awesome when he is in breeding mode.

and what do you mean "used to keep" I thought you still had demasoni with your mbunas?

I bought my demasoni back in 2004 or 05 -- a long time ago and they have dwindled away to no more left.
I found some pics of a few of mine that I posted awhile back --- [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] . Mine had fewer bars. I don't know if that's something that varies with Pombo Rocks, but I've seen pictures of the Mozambique that have more bars.

Thats right, I remember yours... i loved the way they looked! the thicker bars and such a nice blue under.... too bad there all gone now.

those look great too.

Here is some pictures of the babies growing.... out of the 9 eggs, 6 are fertile.... lets hope all 6 make it.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

More pictures

here is the alpha, no flash sorry, it was hiding whenever i used flash.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

here is one of the female, think this one was the mom

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

this is an omega, or an outkast male that zoomed in for a picture taken

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Hey Sand be sure to siphon those 3 bad eggs out before long. They'll mold and kill the other eggs if you're not careful.

Nice tumblers, they look just like mine.

larry.beck wrote:Hey Sand be sure to siphon those 3 bad eggs out before long. They'll mold and kill the other eggs if you're not careful.

Nice tumblers, they look just like mine.

Three bad ones are gone... took them out as soon as I noticed they werent fertile... one of them floated to the top, and the other two never got the lil black eyes and I waited until everyone had tails and then took them out to itleast give them a chance to see if they were just slow developers....

Im sure the tumbler is from the same guy, he sells on aquabid and ebay.... the first time I got a couple I only got the one with on layer, stupid mistake, the fish just sucked the babies right thru the mesh! So this time I went with the dbl layer tumbler, works very well..... wish the control valve on it was a little better instead of basically just on and off mode... but luckily my air pump has a pressure control on it.

Sorry to hear about the lost but I hope those three survive the whole way through

InfamousRedlineZ wrote:Sorry to hear about the lost but I hope those three survive the whole way through

you got it backwards.... three didnt get fertilized.... 6 are good see in the picture, they have lil tails and two black eyes...

Oh lol okay I though you said that 3 more didn't make it

yup thats one of the males alright. and one of the females that held for me a couple of times. glad theyre still going strong.

I got double layer egg tumbler from Kens fish. Came with dial for control. Can also use drip irrigation valve.

Should be easy to replace valve if it is inline.

That is a good looking fish! I now have 13 Kiriza from gobluecichlid so I am an official tropheus keeper now!

Tr182md wrote:

That is a good looking fish! I now have 13 Kiriza from gobluecichlid so I am an official tropheus keeper now!

thanks, demasoni is definetly my favorite mbuna..... and welcome to the tropheus addiction! goblue's kirizi had some outstanding yellow in them, they looked almost breeding age too. should have fun with them!

Another Picture of Babies Getting bigger!!!!!

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Their looking good! Getting big quick

yep, if you look close, you see there turning blue and getting stripes...

ah...cute babies

I was reading online and found that there is a frontosa breeder that actually starts feeding his fry before there egg sac is gone.... as early as mine are now! anyone else do this? He claims his fry reach almost .75 inch by the time there egg sac is gone because of it.