Hi,
Does anyone keep keyhole cichlids? I have heard that they are peaceful as far as cichlids go. Are they easy to breed? Thanks for any info you can give me!
I kept a group of five Keyhole cichlids approx two years ago for nearly a year. They are indeed a friendly cichlid as far as cichlids go and I wish I would have kept them but I needed the large tank for Discus.They are not hard to care for but they do appreciate small frequent water changes along with low levels of nitrates.
The ones I kept did indeed attempt to breed several times but other fish in the tank made it difficult for these fish to defend the eggs and they were quickly eaten ,sometimes by the other fish(catfish) and other times by the Keyholes.
These fish remained a rather dull color over light colored substrate but colored nicely when moved to dark substrate and subdued lighting . Great Fish!
My ph is 7.4 from the tap and moderately hard. Over a period of six months to a year. the natural processes that take place in the aquarium ,bring my pH levels to 7.0 to 7.2 To be honest, I don't recall exactly what water the keyholes require but am sharing what my parameters are and as stated, they did fine. They had an amusing habit of moving pebbles about in the aquarium on a near daily basis. Especially after gravel vaccuming, they would spend a considerable amount of time picking up pebbles with their mouths,and spitting them out at where they thought the pebbles should be.:roll:
I could not find any keyholes in my area, when I was looking to add a couple, so went with Bolivian rams instead. From my reading up, sounds like the keyholes can do well in a ph of 6.8 to 8.
Thank you for the information. I am getting 3 tommorrow and am very excited. My water is hard and sometimes I use a RO unit to soften the water. I think I might do that this evening because my ph comes out at about 7.8 but acutally goes up by the next morning. I love South American cichlids, but I'm sure that my water is more suited to African cichlids! Thank you again!
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