Synodontis lucipinnis with Tropheus moorii

[Scleropages]

Thanks to Richard B, I've caved and acquired a group of 18 small S. lucipinnis--or what I believe to be that species. They were sold to me as "dwarf petricola" and they seem to resemble the pics of S. lucipinnis in the Cat-eLog here. Anyway, I got them to put in my 90gal tank with Tropheus moorii. The tank has three big piles of base coral rock and "lava rock" with plenty of hiding spaces. Over the years, without me doing anything in particular to encourage breeding, the T. moorii have had several fry survive to adulthood so I am sure there are plenty of hiding spots for smaller fish.

The S. lucipinnis were approximately 1" in length when I first got them about a month ago. I put them in a 20gal tank for quarantine.

They are now about 1.5". My Tropheus moorii are 3" to 3.5" in length. I have five of them. Had as many as 25 at one time, but they are all a bit long in the tooth (old) now--original ones are ~7 years old. I am concerned that the S. lucipinnis may be too small to put in with the T. moorii. I plan on acquiring more, less-aggressive, young mbunas in the near future.

What do you think the chances are of the T. moorii eating the S. lucipinnis at their present size? I know it is preferable to add the young mbunas to the tank at the same time as the S. lucipinnis as this will increase the amount of targets for the T. moorii. But, I wonder if the T. moorii will even react much to the S. lucipinnis.

Any input would be appreciated.

[Scleropages]

Here they are when I first received them:


Here are some of them in the quarantine tank:

[MatsP]

As long as there are plenty of hiding spaces, I'd say they should be fine. Synos are clever enough to hide if something is chasing them...

--
Mats

[Richard B]

Eating them shouldn't be an issue - the pectoral & dorsal spines prove a spiky mouthful to large fish thinking of predation. Harrassment might be an issue but plenty of hiding spaces & a large numbered shoal should reduce that the minimal levels & in a big tank like this should be ok

[Scleropages]

Thanks, guys. I put them in earlier today after doing a water change and slightly rearranging the rock piles. The T. moorii didn't even seem to notice the S. lucipinnis.

3 hours later and I'm observing that the S. lucipinnis are exponentially more active during the daytime in the larger tank with more hiding spots. Very pleased with them. Again, thanks for indirectly suggesting them to me, Richard.

[alga]

My problem mixing the two was always getting the proper food to both. To get the syno's to grow they can use a "meatier" diet which does not always suit the Tropheus...

[sidguppy]

àctually, this is THE Tanganyikan catfish that's suitable for the aufwuchs-tank.

for most of the others the diet needed for Tropheus et al is not good enough; but the lucipinnis usually does just fine.

make sure you have a REAL good quality flake, though.
el cheapo "green flakes" might feed your Tropheus, but the Syno's won't grow

OSI on the other hand, like Hikari etc has a very good spirulina flake wich contains plenty protein.
I've raised these catfishes in a Tropheus tank with this wand no issues whatsoever.

there's another food wich is good and safe for Tropheus and wich is really great for Syno's: Shrimp-mix.
made with the recipe ad konings invented for mbuna's.

i got my granulosa spawning on that stuff, and it's the food that makes my fish go berserk; i handfeed it to them and often get nipped as a result.
it's completely safe for Tropheus and gets them right into breeding mode too.

[Scleropages]

Thanks for the input everyone. And, Sid, thanks for reminding me about the shrimp mix. I had read about that years ago but never tried making it. Perhaps I will sometime soon. For the time being, I'm feeding them OSI spirulina flake (that's the staple food I've been feeding the T. moorii for these past 7+ years) and Hikari algae wafers. All of the S. lucipinnis have big bellies.

I guess there was no real need to worry about the T. moorii eating the S. lucipinnis. During their feeding this morning, I watched one of the S. lucipinnis swim right up to my big male T. moorii pecking at an algae wafer and drag it away from him. The T. moorii just swam away and started pecking at another algae wafer.

[Scleropages]

Well, it's been about 6 months since I added these S. lucipinnis to my 90gal mbuna tank. The last of the T. moorii ikola passed away. They were all around 7 years old. I have since restocked the cichlid population in the tank with red and cobalt blue Pseudotropheus zebra and Labidochromis caeruleus. I put these mbuna in around 3-4 months ago. There have been mbuna spawn in there for the last 3-4 weeks.

This morning, while observing the tank in the morning light before the tank light came on (I have it on a timer), I noticed two of the S. lucipinnis looked like they were doing the spawning dance. A larger one was cruising around the tank and a smaller one was sticking to it like white on rice. Whenever they would get near one of the rock piles, they would shake a little over the lower rocks. I'm betting the mbuna spawning is getting the pheromones in the water to a level that is triggering spawning behavior in the synos. I will try to get a video of it if I happen to see it again.

[andywoolloo]

yes, a video would be so cool!

[Scleropages]

Boy have I been busy buying a car, buying a huge revolver, shooting the crap out of recyclables with said revolver, and going all over the place on weekends. Not to mention racing TT's on the bike and starting up ice hockey 2X a week.

As a result, my online forum time suffered. I will work on a video of them doing the dance shortly. I will also set up some caves (upside-down-flower-pot-in-pyrex-bowl with black marbles and a spacer on the bottom) to try to harvest some eggs. If I can get a video of them in the "cave" I will surely post it here.

Stay tuned.