:: Tomek's Malawi' :: |
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Malawi is a beautiful lake in South Africa. It`s also called Niasa ( it is official name of this lake ) because there is a country "Malawi" and
it could be confused. It is a really enormous lake, it is 3rd in the world so there is variety of species of fishes. They are the most colourful among other fishes in fresh-water lakes.
It is the reason they are in many fishtanks in the world. I breed cichlids from Malawi for about 1 year and I think they are really
unique and they are very aggressive. That means always something interesting is going on in the fishtank. I keep them in 240 liters tank and
there are a lot of rocks because that kind of fish like little caves and grottos. If you want to keep them you should know something about aquaristic.
Usually the first step is buying aquarium. That kind of cichlids need big place to live so I think tank which is smaller then 160 liters doesn`t fit.
Next you should buy filters. They are expensive but fish need good filters because there is few plants and the fish have fast metabolism.
Then you should arrange the tank inside. You can buy rocks in a professional shop or find them by yourself. When you have them, build a construction
on the ground and then take it to the inside of the tank. If you don`t do it the construction can collapse and break the pane. After that you can spill gravel and
plant some plants if you want them. Now the fishtank must "mature" so after about 3 weeks you can buy the first fish.
There is wide choice in species. There are
yellow, black, blue, red and mix colours fish but most of them are really aggresive so read about them before buying. I have 2 species "yellow" and
"maingano". They are common but now I am waiting for maylandia emilltos which is rare species.
Keeping a fishtank is for responsible people so don`t
buy it if you don`t have enough time to take care of it. They give a lot of happiness when you look after them.
by Tomek Blackish
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