A small jewel: Chromaphyosemion bitaenitaum - I got this strain from a friend in Austria - and he got his fish from Anton Lamboj, who is known as an expert for chichlids in western Africa. Lamboj brought them to Vienna, as far as I know, there are not much strains of bitaeniatum from Benin in our hobby.
The fish is really easy to keep - even in company with other fishes in the tank. I kept them together with A. primigenium and with Epiplatys. Every changing in their tank causes a period, where they are hiding. As an example: If you move a few of them from a tank to another tank - they will hide - you won't belive that you put them in the new tank...but two weeks later: everything will be nice - the males have a nice way to show off their colourful fins.
At my place, breeding with mops failed. I'm sure, they are eating their own eggs. The eggs are pretty big compared to the size of the fish:
Best method is seperataing a pair in a small tank with peat on the ground. After one week I put the fish out and poor away the water - I store the peat very wet and put it back into water after two weeks. Sometimes I hatch two or three fry, sometimes nothing - but sometimes I get 12-15 fry out - which is enough for my purposes.
Raising the fry is very easy: They eat Artemia, but if you don't give them food for one or two days it does not matter: they are hardy - feeding on infusorias and other things in the tank.
They are growing in batch - sometimes you don't recognize them again in the morning.
There are always a few more males than females in the offspring.
I find regulary one or two pretty big grown youngs in the tank of the mature fish - there are much plants in the tank.
This species grows old - I'm sure they get three or four years old, maybe even older. And this are excellent jumpers - the tank has to be coverd very well and all the time!
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