Got these salvini recently and they have already spawned






momma is shy...you can sort of see her under the driftwood



Daddy is more photogenic






[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v295/Debbiekrisc/fish/daddy.jpg[/IMG

Oh Debbie, they are gorgeous. I wish we would have a better selection of SA/CA cichlids here. These guys would be close to the top of my list.

WOW !!! Deb !!! He a looker.

What size tank do you have him in? Tankmates? How many do you have?

JUST TELL ME ALL THERE IS TO KNOW ABOUT THEM. (please)

Deb, those are really nice!!! You really have to strain to see those little fry in there. You have quite a stocklist going here!!!!

Thanks gang. Scott they are CAs I have never had any CAs before so they are new to me. I have then in a 44 gallon corner hex and they don't have any tank mates...they had some corries and a pleco, but killed one of the corries so I moved the other fish out. The babies are obviously tiny, they are a week old in that pic, and there is a bunch of them.

Beauties Deb! What kind of water do they require? Nice and soft?

Beautiful fish! Do you have pictures of the female? The reason I ask is because I think your 'daddy' is really the mommy. The females show more of a lemon-yellow body coloration with bright red bellies and have a distinctive dark spot/mark in the dorsals.

Here's my old pair. The male is in profile with the female behind. You can see the color difference and dorsal marking.






Male only



I found them to be shy yet absolutely brutal on tankmates. They were never responsive to me like their larger cousins were. But the colors...oh my the colors.

Matt, FWIW I kept mine in moderately hard, alakaline water (8.0pH, 10dGH). They did just fine. I keep almost all of my CAs in the same water conditions as my Malawis. In fact, in nature a lot of these fish come from water that is just as high in pH and much harder than water from Lake Malawi!

Again Debbie, beautiful fish!

Its posible that I have the male and female confused...they hide a lot. And I didn't see them spawn. I didn't get them from my favorite fish store so the person that got them for me could be wrong and I have never had CAs so I know next to nothing about them. Hard water seems to be good for them Matt, from what I have heard so they are in hard water....All these hard water fish and I have soft water! I need to take out stock in the epsom salt company.

Thanks guys...they are beautiful. I just couldn't pass them up once I saw them in person. And I thought it was time to give some CAs a try.