December - Hill Country Cichlid Club

15
I had the tank prepared for a week before I received
the fish. Once they were in my hands I slowly acclimated
them to their home. I was in my constantly,
checking on, and trying to count the four of
them. I was never able to get above three and lost
the one very early on. This kicked my stress level
up a notch.
The fish has an elongated intestinal tract consistence
with an algae based diet (Lamboj, pers
comm.). I fed crushed spirulina flake for quite
sometime. Growth was slow, but they were growing.
This was a positive sign. Of course during this
point it came time to do my first water change. I
drained about 30% of the tank into a bucket and
then poured the bucket into a gallon milk jug to precisely
measure how much water I had taken out of
the tank. I was determined to replace the salt content
grain for grain. Half the water ended up on the
floor as I was pouring it into the milk jugs. I. hormuzensis
was my first foray into any type of fishkeeping
involving salt and it wasn’t going well. I
have had prouder moments in the hobby than this
disaster in the making. Water was seeping all over
the floor and I had no idea how much salt to replenish.
Keep in mind how difficult the conditions are
that these fish exist in the wild and this makes all of
this obsessing bordering on silly. I was living in the
moment though and determined to do this right. In
hindsight I am sure a little less/more salt wouldn’t
have bothered them much. I now use guesstimation
and mix some salt and water into a bucket to fill the
tank back up. I mixed it well and proceeded to siphon
the water into the tank from the bucket. The
bucket was empty. I looked in the pail and 90% of
the salt had stayed in the bottom of the bucket. I
walked over and shut the door to the fishroom. I
didn’t need my family witnessing this spectacle. I
grabbed the hose and went about filling the tank
back up. I reached for the spoon, estimated what I
needed to get close, and called it good. I attentively
watched the fish for the next couple of hours
waiting for them to keel over from the shock to their
system they must surly have been experiencing.
Amazingly they survived their first water change.
Subsequent water changes went much smoother. I
operated under the motto, “What doesn’t kill them
only makes them stronger”. I drained the water,
added dechlor, and slowly filled the water up and
added salt as I was filling and it worked fine. As I
discovered while tinkering with water parameters,
these fish are extremely hardy.
I had no false illusions that this trio would be breeding
anytime soon. The dialogue I had developed
with the other hobbyists, keeping I. hormuzensis
was a wonderful source of information. It would be
around 24 months before I could expect them to
breed. I was concentrating on maintaining healthy
fish while focused on water changes and feeding.
Three fish in a 113 liter tank was not taxing the filtration
system at all, but I performed a rigorous
schedule of 30% weekly water changes. In addition
to the spirulina flake I introduced algae tabs and the
occasional protein flake which were greedily consumed.
The fish were putting on size and aggression
was not yet an issue. Despite no dithers or target
fish in the aquarium they were not a shy species
Fish Hobby Supply
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