WC Altolamprologus Calvus Black Zambia

I was finally able to purchase some wild caught Calvus. I'm hoping that they will eventually breed and will update this thread with any news.

Male


Female

 

So I learned the hard way that my usual 50% water changes aren't going to work so well with these guys. Now I had read before that you shouldn't do large water changes with calvus, but I was figuring that my compressiceps were handling it fine and the calvus are much larger, so they should be fine.
The female took it like the compressiceps where they kind of re-acclimate for a few minutes and are fine afterward. The larger male on the other hand freaked out. While I was filling the tank back up, he kept swimming up and down the side of the tank, then across the surface of the water, then up and down the tank, then finally went into hiding and there he's been for two days. He's still alive as I've checked on him a couple times and can see him breathing and moving where he's hiding, but he hasn't been out to eat. As I said, the female is fine, swimming around, eating, doing Calvus things.
In this lesson I have learned that calvus are much more sensitive to water changes than compressiceps, especially when they are WC, and I will be cutting back to much smaller water changes on is tank.
Really hoping this guy pulls through as I absolutly love these fish, really want to breed them, and not to mention the fact that they aren't exactly the least expensive fish I own (more like the most expensive)...

 

As an update, this morning he finally came out of hiding, ate, and is acting normal once again... Now I'm just nervous about the next time it's water change day...