Calling all Frontosa keepers

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
Not sure about algae but I dislike what marine lights do to freshwater fish. What I was doing for fronts (and it's carried over since) was to have a good freshwater light with a slightly cool spectrum bulb and sized smaller than the tank (I did a 4 ft light on a 6 ft tank), making the tank brighter in the middle and darker at the ends. In recent years I've converted to LED lights, which do a nice job bringing out blue and other colors without the weirdo glow or as much distortion as a marine light, and on most of them you can dial the lights up or down to taste and on many you can adjust which color emitters are on. Thing is there are a lot of options, some are better than others, and I'm not an expert on them.

I had one that I had to turn off the reds, because with them on fish color was off and it was growing black beard algae, something I'd never had before. So far I like this basic model better than others I've tried, the color spectrum is reasonable and I don't care about programming my lights. But I've seen tanks with more expensive and really beautiful lighting, though I couldn't tell what they had. Basically I'm fine with a light that brings out colors the fish actually have, but I don't like distorted, overly exaggerated color. Seeing the best version of my tank and fish is one thing, but I'm turned off by photos of fish with cartoon colors they don't have in real life and white or beige sand that looks blue, lol.

There's a fairly significant difference in color between gibberosa and frontosa, gibberosa (like moba) are usually much more blue. Typical C. frontosa (often called Burundi frontosa) tend to have some blue in their fins as juveniles, then lose a lot of it to become mostly black and white adults.

neutrino neutrino - so you are using This Light on your 6' frontosa tank? You mentioned turning the red light off, is that for this fixture or a different one? I see a setting for red + blue for this one, not just blue.

What is your light schedule? How many hours white light / how many blue? What level of light 1-5 are you using?
Anyone else with light fixture / schedule suggestions please jump in
 
I have a six foot, 180 gallon aquarium with 8 adult Gibberosa Kitumba. I have a 4ft led light on the aquarium I find it to be adequate. I keep the light on when I want to hang out and watch my fish.

As far as decor, I have kept it pretty minimal. Attached are a few pictures.
 

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When i kept my kapampa and more recently Mikula groups, I used a 4’ blue white led fixture on a low watt setting. I found since cyphos are deep water fish, they are more relaxed & show better colors in low light glass cages 🤗
 
I have a six foot, 180 gallon aquarium with 8 adult Gibberosa Kitumba. I have a 4ft led light on the aquarium I find it to be adequate. I keep the light on when I want to hang out and watch my fish.

As far as decor, I have kept it pretty minimal. Attached are a few pictures.

How do you take such beautiful photos? Do you actually have a high quality camera? I use my phone - but my images always seem terrible to the quality everyone else seems to get.
 
I only use my phone camera as well. Cyphos are typically very slow moving and spend a reasonable amount of time stationary, suspended in the water column.
If you sit back from the tank and wait they are probably one of the easiest species to get good photos of…
 
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