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My
Experience Keeping and Breeding Red Zebras
Red zebras are one
of the more aggressive cichlids from Lake Malawi in Africa. They are
from the mbuna family and are vegetarians. Mbuna live in a very
rocky environment and need this type of habitat to survive and be healthy.
The most important
thing to manage when keeping red zebras is the aggressiveness. The
dominant males will stake out a territory and chase the other males from
that area while also trying to bring the females to that area.
Therefore, the other fish need plenty of room (determined by the surface
area of the bottom of the tank and the number of hiding places, not
gallons) to hide.
Without any places
to hide, these fish will constantly be on the run because they are
such an aggressive breed of fish. Another trick to keeping
aggressive mbuna healthy is to overstock the tank. You can easily
tell if you do not have the correct combination of hiding places and fish
density. One or two of the fish will eventually begin looking run
down and be hiding in the corners at the top of the tank. This is
very unnatural behavior for mbuna. More hiding places must be
provided or they will soon die.
An mbuna tank
should have crushed coral as the substrate. This helps to maintain
the hard water conditions required of Lake Malawi cichlids. I
usually keep it at least 2 inches deep, because they love to dig it up and
move it around. In addition, have plenty of rocks and caves for them
to hide.
Feeding red zebras
is quite simple. A diet of high quality spirulina flakes and fresh
vegetables like lettuce will be just fine. I use a veggie clip that
suctions to the side of the tank to feed them Boston or Romaine lettuce
(do not use iceberg lettuce, it has very little nutritional value).
Breeding red
zebras is quite simple. If you maintain clean water at the right pH
and hardness, as well as a safe environment (overstocked with plenty of
hiding places), they will do the rest. Red zebras are mouth
brooders. You can either allow the female to raise the babies in the
tank or strip the eggs from her after she has been carrying the eggs in
her mouth. If you plan on doing this, have an egg tumbler on hand.
You can buy them or if you are the handy type, make one yourself. I
use one that I bought from someone on a cichlid forum. |
