THE KILLING FIELDS
Part 3
(The story of my 55 gallon tank)
Frank Schulterbrandt 09/09/2009
As was mentioned in part 1 of “THE KILLING FIELDS” , Petrochromis is by far one of the most challenging fish to house in an aquarium due to it’s aggressive nature. These are the accounts of my 55 gallon tank (4 footer). This tank does not have any gravel, sand or rocks. The tank is loaded with 10 – 15 PVC tubes. The filter is an Aqua Clear 110. In this tank I have 13 (3.0 to 3.5 inch) Tank Raised Famula Kaiser petros . I have had one death in the tank. Presently there are two females that are holding. So I really did not have many problems with this 55 gallon tank , but don’t forget these are Famula and they are Tank Raised. So lets analyze all three tanks. I think that the 55 gallon tank with its tank Raised Famula should be dismissed from the analytical portion of this comparison due to lack of aggression and enough PVC tubes in the tank. There is a young lady who kept a trio of WC Petrochromis Longola in a 55 gallon tank and later she moved the trio to a 125 gallon tank. I am not sure in which tank she got them to breed in, but they were housed in a 55 gallon tank for a while.
I also have (had) 11 Orange Fin Silver Streak Famula juvies. I placed them in a 40 gallon breeder tank with only 2 PVC tubes no sand no gravel no rocks. In 6 weeks I am down to 7 juvies. I will have to do something quick with this tank or I might be down to one real quick.
So lets focus on the 125 gallon tank and the 240 gallon tank. Perhaps the petro Longola and the petro Moshi in the 125 gallon tank are not as aggressive as the Texas Bulu Points and the Macro Red Dorsal Rainbow Kipili (and the Texas Tembwe Famula) that are in the 240 gallon tank. I don’t know I am just suggesting this could be a possibility . Perhaps the Longola and the Moshi would act the same way if they replaced the Texas Bulu Points and the Red Dorsal Kipili in the 240 gallon tank. In my opinion I think the same type of aggression would have occurred.
So the 125 gallon tank is heavily planted with plastic plants and many rocks and caves. The 240 gallon tank could use some additional landscaping and certainly more petros
Now there are those breeders that may have 3 to 4 rocks in their tank and the tank is loaded with petros, this is however a different approach to the raising and breeding of petros. The cost per tank will be much higher initially. Some would say in the long run this is cheaper , because if you don’t stock you tank properly you will end up losing more dollars in the long run due to those petros that are killed because of petro aggression.
So again I pose this question to all … Is it the size of the tank that matters most or is it the amount of petros that matters most ?
Consider this a 240 gallon tank with no gravel, sand ,rocks, caves or plants houses 100 petros with minute aggression.
Could we proportionately decrease the tank size and the petro population count.
Tank Petros
240 is to 100 as
125 is to 50 as
55 is to 25
So does this mean , if you could filter a 55 gallon tank properly you could house 25 petros in that tank ????
Or is the cutoff point prior to getting down to a 55 gallon sized tank ?
Certainly we could not carry this ratio down to a 25 is to 12 or even worst 10 is to 6.
Lets us consider some more realistic hobbyist petro stocking numbers.
Tank Petros
240 is to 50 as
125 is to 25 as
55 is to 13
So if you had the proper filtration does this mean you could keep some species in a 55 gallon 4 foot tank ?
The 13 petros in a 55 gallon tank would certainly fulfill the thought of crowding the petros.
There have been some reports of petros being bred in 55 gallon and 75 gallon 4 foot tanks. I suspect that
most hobbyist stay away from the 4 foot tanks when housing petros for obvious reasons. I am not advocating the
use of 4 foot tanks when it comes to housing petros, but merely evaluating the correlation of the size of the tank
to the amount of petros in the tank ratio to subside the amount of petrochromis aggression in “THE KILLING FIELDS”.
* Much of this information has been accumulated by asking many, many questions and while applying this information , I have acquired a greater understanding of this amazing and smart fish. Thanks to all for your willingness to share information.