Brichardi info

[Jinkusu]

Just to gain info from keepers...
What is the minimum tank size for a pair of brichardi (and just them, nothing else)?
One day i would very much like to keep a pair but dont think i can have any just yet, i have 4 spare tanks of different sizes, but 2 set up and im not going to set up a third. lol

I have read loads about them online, but i really do appreciate first hand experience and advice from forums such as this...
I'd really welcome info and pictures from people, what you keep them with, what your personal water parameters are like, your own methods of keeping the correct water ph (rocks,salts, anything).
I would just love to hear how everyone keeps them and what the fish are like.
The more info i gather the more i can base my future tank on what you all have achieved. :)
Thanks muchly.

[Deleted User]

Hi

All the info your asking for you will find if you follow this link. :ssmile:

http://www.aquaticcommunity.com/cichlid/fairy.php

[Jinkusu]

Um thanks for the link. Ive read it before though. lol
Plus it doesnt really give any useful info at all...
it says..'as long as they are juveniles you can house over 20 specimens in an 80 liter aquarium.' ...but nothing about when they reach adulthood, which i find a bit odd.
Im not after links (not being rude), ive read alot about them over the internet and have some fab links to all sorts in my favs...

As said i'd love to hear from people from this forum who own this species. What are your views, how do you keep them, pictures of your setups if possible.
Afterall isnt that what forums are for? to share our knowledge and our love for the hobbies. :)

[Deleted User]

Ok well I havn't had mine long enough to help you really. Maybe one of the others who have bred them and had them longer than I have may come along and help you out. :ssmile:

[Jinkusu]

Ok well I havn't had mine long enough to help you really. Maybe one of the others who have bred them and had them longer than I have may come along and help you out. :ssmile:

That doesnt matter, i'd be happy to know what kind of setup you have, size, what you do to the water to get the ph right, and so on. Even what you like about them. Its a discussion board after all, and im truely interested. :)

[sanddigger]

I had Daffodils-four in a 29G afew years ago. Starting breeding before I knew it. Fry lots of fry. A great species to watch. They "Are Family",,,,I hear the "We are family" song going on whenever I hear of brichadi's or pulchers. Just be careful as the males will try to breed young females too young. You can end up with mouth deformnities.\

I have never read on forums where they will speak of this. I have one sunset calvus that has the same.

You want to set up caves, make sure keep an eye on what the male, female. etc. is doing. They will kill anything to protect thier fry, then once the fry are grown, they will protect those, and so , and so on.

[Jinkusu]

I had Daffodils-four in a 29G afew years ago. Starting breeding before I knew it. Fry lots of fry. A great species to watch. They "Are Family",,,,I hear the "We are family" song going on whenever I hear of brichadi's or pulchers. Just be careful as the males will try to breed young females too young. You can end up with mouth deformnities.\

I have never read on forums where they will speak of this. I have one sunset calvus that has the same.

You want to set up caves, make sure keep an eye on what the male, female. etc. is doing. They will kill anything to protect thier fry, then once the fry are grown, they will protect those, and so , and so on.


Thankyou for the info. And no ive not read of deformaties about brichardi, but having bred reptiles and 'in the know' that inbreeding is obviously very bad, breeding young female reptiles can cause her life to be shortened and also take away very important calcium for the still-growing mother.
But ive not heard of deformaties from young bearers, maybe its the same also, breeding young fish may shorten their lives? Ive not really read that anywhere before.
Great information though, exactly the kind of thing i need.
How do you keep your ph up then, and whats their favorite food? ;)

All my fish obviously have different foods, but their favs are tetra prima, live food and frozen blood worm.
They also have flakes and other pellets of different makes, i put in cougette too which my severum and bristle nose plec eat. (my severum loves earthworms too...although one of the last ones i put in one of my golden panchax ate...it was quite...unbelievable.lol).
So im definatly not one to just go for one type of food. lol

[Jinkusu]

ooooh come on, i can see there are alot more people that own this fish on this forum, please tell me about them. lol :1luvu:

sanddigger Dont know if you saw my questions or not...what kind of setup do you have, size, what do you personally do to the water to get the ph right, and so on? You can note me again if you want. I dont want to hog this part of the forum, but the info could be good for others too. lol

[Dixie]

I wanted a brichardi tank too and ask what the smallest size for them should be and was told a 29g. tank so I got a 29g. and stocked it with 4 brichardi, from 2 different sources. A couple weeks ago I had my first fry. I was kinda surprised because I didn't think they were breeding size yet. I had even added a group of young white top hara to the tank until I got the hara a tank of their own ready. I had read that once 2 brichardi mate they will kill off others in the tank but all 4 brichardi seemed to be guarding the fry and keeping the hara on the opposite end of the tank. After about a week one adult brichardi was dead. I didn't see any aggression towards it but figure there must have been. Now the 3 adults left still seem to all be parenting the fry and I can't tell which 2 did the breeding or I would remove the extra before it meets it's end too.

Someone told me that they did a 29g. brichardi tank and it got really crowded with many generations of fry and they started becoming deformed. I'm going to try to keep mine thinned out hoping it doesn't happen.

My pH is ok naturally so I don't do anything to it. If you really need to bring it up I would use something natural instead of chemicals in a bottle.

My background is painted black and I have white gravel for substrate. I use a HOB filter with bio wheels on it, feed New Life Spectrum 1mm sinking pellets, and have some rocks with caves and plastic plants. I was hoping to change to sand and live plants before I had fry but I was to slow. Maybe after the fry get some size to them I can change over but it would be almost impossible to do now as tiny as the fry are.

Don't know if there's anything in this post to help you or not but it's about all I can think of from my short time with them. Oh, I also have a bn pleco in the tank and never need to clean algea from the glass. I feed the pleco N.L.S. wafers. I think brichardi are beautiful fish and I'm sure you'll enjoy them.:goldfish: Good luck.

[sanddigger]

Yep, almost exactly what happened to me. A 29g, breeding before I knew it and mouth deformities. The one male killed the other and I found a female on the floor, (chased by the others I assume). I still have one of the babies from a year or so ago and sold the rest with out deforms to my lfs. Gave some to friends, one only, for their tank.

I would suggest if you want a colony to do it in a 55g, have lots of caves and have a grow out tank. I would of continued with that process myself but I have 4 other tanks and the only other space I had left was the bath tub:hmm3grin2orange:

As Dixie said, They seem to breed very young. I had put syno petricola in the tank "after the breeding" and they went after them too. I took them out to my "tang tank".

I just visited my Daff pulcher at one of my friends house and he's? beautiful. The brightest blue eyes and great markings. So I'm proud.

Also pulchers and brichardi are different. Pulchers have (( and brichardi // markings.

You will enjoy them, but they do own up to their title as a "Death Squad".

[Jinkusu]

Thats all fantastic info.

Well im not sure when this will happen because i still have fish in the tank (though not many, and they may be going to a friend).
But i have a 25g, and i only want 2 fish. If they were to breed i would raise them a little and then take them to the lfs. They wouldnt get big enough to be mixed with the adults, and my lfs would certainly appreciate them.
To buffer the water myself i was planning on using ocean rock, a friend has a small piece i can have. To decorate i was thinking white/yellow sand, i have some old coral some lurvely...erm...i forget their name, they're tube-like, purple and white...anyway they used to live in the sea.lol I will fill them with sand so that theres no chance of any fish getting in and stuck.
I also want to spread some small shells around.
I want the tank to look as oceanic as possible.lol Everything of course will be clean and ready, buffered and checked and re-checked before i even so much as look at the fish.
I also have the bonus of my gran wanting to buy me one, and they are £12 each in my lfs. (i think) whats that? its like....$15-18?

[sanddigger]

For the basics, brichardis, pulchers like small caves, shells are great for julies.

A 25g would be great for julies.

Test the H2O for PH from your source. My H2O is always stays at 7.7-8. So it's not a worry for me. Plus remember that most fish that you get from your your lfs have been raised in the water conditions that 's in your area. of course unless they are wild caught.

I would try to refrain from using chemicals to raise or lower the ph.

[Jinkusu]

Yeh, im not going to use chemicals, im going to rely on coral sand and ocean rock in future for that, even if it goes in the fluval 105 canister.
I have already bought one bag of coral sand to mix in with 2 bags of white sand.
At the end of the month i get a fluval305 for my larger tank, it was on offer and they only had 2 left £50 down from £84...joy! lol.
So i'll be using my 105 for the brichardi's, i'll set it up at the end of July and see how the water is.
Im not sure but i think my water is 6.5-7.0, dont quote me on that. I will test it closer to the time. However the lfs is slightly out of town, so the water may vary. Not that it matters, i'll ask them next time i go what their water chemistry is in the daffodils tank and then adjust accordingly.
Hopefully the sand should do it, if not i'll add some ocean rock and see how i go.


edit: lol on the beginning of the topic i put..."one day i would very much like to own"....seems its sooner than 'one day'.

[thetoothfreak]

This is my first attempt at this so be patient and I might have some information for you.

[thetoothfreak]

Hello Jinkusu! I have a 150 gallon very mixed cichlid tank. I have 4 year old Blood Parrot that is real close to 5", a 2 year old 6" Jack Dempsy, a 4" female Bumblebee, a 6" male Bumblebee that is just beautiful, a 4" Fuelleborni, a 3" ??? Cichlid that I love, and lots of Brichardi! Around a year ago or so my fish guy turned me onto six .5" to 1" baby Brichardi. At first I had them in my 70 gallon tank with my .5" Inkspot Calvus and a .75" Cobalt. The Brichardi killed the Cobalt off then they killed off the next 30 dollars I dropped in the tank. Fearing for my Calvus, I decided to let nature do its thing and put the Brichardi in the 150 gallon with the big guys. They much to my surprise thrived and are continuing to thrive! Just tonight I added lots of holey limestone from Oklahoma to help shelter the growing colony. Of the 6 original 4 remain. There is 1 large 3" male paired with a smaller 2" female that have babies of all sizes. The other two are about 2" and have mouth deformity issues and have been pushed out to other side of the tank. I am not real sure what to do with them to be honest. I do a 30 gallon water change every ten days and clean half the gravel every water. I ush I knew how to post pictures!

[thatcichlidguy]

Hey there thetoothfreak, who's your fish guy? I'm from North Texas as well , and I might know him.

[twiggin]

What do you do with all the fry? I'd like to keep brichardi but I'm kind of intimidated by the thought of hundreds of little fish to find homes for. It sort of sounds like a two tank set up is required if you want to grow them...?

[thatcichlidguy]

Brichardi make babies like like it's their job, and technically it is. Finding homes for their multitudes of offspring isn't always easy but can be done. Just talk to the people at your LFS , they're most likely going to be your best bet.

Another option is to simply have a Brichardi tank. One of the very interesting things about the N.brichardi and its close cousins is that they are one of the few cichlids that are found in large shoals (up to a thousand individuals). Most members of these groups are related. Basicly they make one big happy(sort of) family. While we cant recreate that kind of population at home , a dedicated Brichardi tank is a great way to observe the unique parental and family behavior this group displays. It also solves the problem of tankmates getting the snot beat out of them by the very protective parents. Only one tank is needed since multiple generations of fry from the same parents will live together and the older juvies will help raise the newer batches. Something I'm not aware exists beyond the brichardi complex and well worth the effort to give therm their own tank in order to observe.

Soon as I am able to start getting some tanks up and running again a Brichardi tank is on the "to do" list.

[violet]

I have one Berchardi.. not sure of the sex at the moment he's in a 10 gal tank.. I'm not sure what I'm gonna do with the little guy, he's a rescue, a friend of mine had him gave him to me because his mouth is deformed.

[violet]

they grow to be 6" I would say that if you have a 29 gal tank a pair is all you could have but if there are babies involved then they would have to be taken out. I don't know alot about them though so don't take my word for it.

[thatcichlidguy]

6" is a bit on the big side for Brichardi. They can get that big , but I've never seen one that large. 4" is more the norm from my experience with them. A 29 is very do-able as a brichardi species tank, but as mentioned they will need to be thinned out from time to time. A 55 is a better option for a species tank since you'll be able to keep a larger family group .

I had a colony in my 90 for a while . Started out as 6 juvies , became 1 male and 2 females. Once they matured they became about 40 of various ages. Fortunately this was a community and the few Haps that were in there kept the brichardi population in check.