How do you take care of Synodontis Polli? Can it live in a 20 gallon tank by itself? What water conditions does it need?
Synodontis Polli
- Thread starter catfishlvr
- Start date
Planet Catfish says I need to have a PH of 7.8 but my water is only 7 do I need a buffer? So could it live in a 20 gallon by itself or with other fish or does it need a bigger tank?
no dont buffer the water. It will be just fine in a pH of 7.0. You can keep it with most tanganyikan cichlids or catfish. But with such a small tank i worry that the cichlids would fight a lot in such a small tank. So possibly dwarf cichlids from that region would be best.
Synodontis polli lives in lake tanganika which needs at least 8.2 ph. So it doesn't need a buffer even though my water is only 7. I also am going to put in 3 dwarf cichlids into the 20 gallon. What type is best?
catfishlvr;1993989; said:
Yes you're right, Synodontis polli does live in lake tanganyika along with the frequently seen multipunctatus and the very rare behemouth (For synodontis anyway) Synodonti dhonti.
All of them require hard alkaline water. A ph value of at least 7.5 is required. Though they can tolerate upto 8.5. If you keep it in neutral water as suggested above, it will die prematurely as would all other Tanganyikan Synos.
They do well with rift cichlids either malawi or tanganyikans. Do not keep them with west african or god forbid, south american dwarf cichlids as these require very different water parameters. The Polli will eat the eggs and young of cichlids though, so watch out for that. They need plenty of cover so you'll need to aquascape your realtively small tank well to keep them with cichlids.
Best
JC