Mmmmmm... Tangy!

Everyone is settling in very, very nicely. The Moba fry arrived healthy and with great color already, and the leleupi are a lovely shade of yellow. I have a pic but it is a horrible one. It shows the color on the Moba, and how nice and fat they are, but it is blurry, with reflections and noise. However, the room is dim, even during broad daylight, the tank is dim, and I'm having a bit of trouble getting a good shot of the tank. I think I need to get a very strong light and put it on the tank divider, facing down, and brightly illuminate the tank for photos. The frontosa prefer a dim tank, since their wild-caught parents resided in deep, dim waters of the lake, and it is preferable to keep a dim tank for them, but for photos I'd like to show them off.

All fish are eating well and come out when I approach the tank, which is good. Usually these fish will be skittish and hide, which may happen later, but for now they know I might put food in the tank for them. The additions have even brought out the Altolamprologus, which are flaring and showing good color in response to the competition. So far no true aggression, but mild posturing as everyone stakes out their territory. I am quite pleased.

I am not very happy with the rockwork, however. There is a lot of it, which is good for all of these fish, but especially for the leleupi and the Altolamps, since they spend a lot of time in the rocks. Visually, however, it is messy and contrived looking to me, and in my tanks I strive for a balance of visual appeal and appropriateness for the fish.

In this pic you can see a large mostly black rock, with a small black rock to the right of it, and those are the rocks I want to get more of, and remove a lot of the small, flat river rocks. They are pretty and would be great for any tank, but I don't like how messy it looks in this tank to have a million flat rocks the size of the palm of your hand. Visually distracting and cluttered. I know I can get more of the black rocks from the local landscape supply, where I got these in the photo, and I want to get a half dozen that are watermelon sized, at least. Large rocks. This will greatly reduce the caves available to the small fish, however. I can keep some of the smaller rocks and build caves behind the larger rocks, and, as usual, try to achieve balance of what I want to see in the tank versus what the fish need.

That is for sometime in the future. For now, I'm going to leave things alone and let all members settle in. I'm very glad to have the frontosa, finally, and my large Tanganyikan community is ready to go. This has been a setup I've always wanted to have, and I'm thrilled to finally be getting there. I am NOT known to be a patient person, especially when it comes to my aquariums, so for me to wait all this time, cooling my heels, is unprecedented, and I'm quite proud of myself!