The aquarium changed many times during the ten years. Not all the photos are good quality, but I have chosen to scan a few photos for an idea. I'm presenting what happened in the aquarium during 1993 - 1998 on this page in brief only. The next period is decribed below.

In 1993, I reached out for a little bit of a rarer fish of the Tropheus genus. You can see the young Tropheus sp. black "Bemba", designated as an "Orange II" at that time and young Tropheus duboisi in their spotted coloration. We (my brother and I) bought only 10 "Bembas" due to the high price at that time. The next thing we did was, share the10 fish. My brother got 5 and I got 5. The result could be expected. In a short time, the Tropheus were left, but I have to say, we didn't know the requirements for keeping the Tropheus. We felt bad because of their unusual wide and bright orange stripe. That was my first "bitter" experience with Tropheus, but once started I could never stop.

In 1995, the next Tropheus came in, Tropheus duboisi and other cichlids besides Tropheus, for example Labidochromis coeruleus "Yellow". The tank look was altogether the same. Only minor adaptations of the rockwork are seen on the pictures. The background is a poster placed in the tank on the back wall. The rocks (tufa) originated from a local village and some of them are really full of holes so the smaller fish were able to hide. The white gravel is originally used for external house rendering (about 3 mm graininess). Maybe it looks like a marine tank because of the coral and the background. The filtration consisted of one internal filter, Shark 1. It is true, that all kinds of the fish reproduced and fry had grew except of T. sp. black "Bemba". They had spawned but no fry. The first picture shows the juvenile coloration of T. duboisi, but the white stripe begins to appear and the spots disapear. The last picture shows the plastic plants but I refused to use them in my tanks. Besides the Tropheus is the Pseudotropheus (Metriaclima) zebra "Red-Red" and some Aulonocara were also swimming there.









In 1998, the Labidochromis were still in the aquarium. The last picture shows the beautiful blue Cyrtocara moori. Males have a fairly developed fatty knob on their head and are bigger than females. They should grow bigger in size to accurately sex them.

A few common cichlids were kept until 2002. Even the "no cichlid" period had occured. I don't know how it was possible, but I think I needed the break. I also went through the boring period were I kept tetras, barbs and viviparous fish. To be back in the world of african cichlids from Lake Malawi and Tanganyika. Another experience you can read in the next parts on my aquariums. We continue with the 250 litre aquarium after 2002.

An English edited by Scott Mitchell