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| Re: Lake Tanganyika vs victoria / malawi [message #9424] |
Sat, 05 April 2008 23:10  |
 Gass 
Messages: 407
Registered: April 2002
Location: Lake Canyonyika TX |
Senior Member |
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Hi
You can mix, with varying degrees of success, fish from all three mentioned lakes. What fish to mix is the real question. These waters house a diverse assemblage of cichlid species that eek out an existence in every imaginable niche.
There are somewhere in the area of 250 cichlid species in Lake Tanganyika, 350 species in Malawi, and, before the Lates niloticus introduction, at least 500 species in Lake Victoria and surrounding waterways.
Interestingly enough, there is parallel evolution (or radial diversification if you like) in the three lakes as well as other waters all over the globe. In Malawi there are many species of algae grazing fish that have gone so far as to develop their own feeding strategy on this particular food source. These of course are all known to us as mbuna. In Lake Tanganyika the highly adapted algae grazers are Tropheus species. In Lake Victoria the genus Neochromis contains many fish and that graze algal mats. What I find fascinating is not so much the food source that these unrelated genera consume, but rather, how they have developed similar adaptations and body structures.
Ok, I'm off track from the original question here but a possible mix might be Trophues moori, Neochromis rufocaudalis and Labeotropheus fuelliborni. I have not tried this but in a large tank this might work out.
This is just one example of how you might go about deciding what fish to use in a mixed community. Although we have, from time to time, mixed lakes, with the exception of catfish, I generally like to house fish that might encounter each other in their native waters together. With the beautiful fish available from all three lakes, I don't know why you would feel the need to mix things up. Why not just get three tanks, one to represent each great lake?
Gas
http://www.africancichlids.net
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