5-20-05: Gave up and ordered some more occies to get ahold of a male. They're lovely! They don't have quite the color of my current fish but they're young yet, and haven't had my patented feeding regimen. They have better color than the average occie already, of course. 3-12-05: The occies were upgraded to a 20 long. I'm now about 99% sure I have all females, so I'll be keeping an eye out for nice males. The caudos will be moving in with these guys ... whenever I manage to catch them. 1-6-05: The five occies that are now "argue" quite a lot but don't do much damage. My girl is the most colorful but they're coloring up more and more all the time so I have high hopes for them in the future. 12-17-04: I removed the other big lava rock to the revamped 20, so there's much more space now. However - OW! The big guy bit me. Maybe he wanted to keep the rock? It's funny when they do that but let's just say - I don't recommend this species for anyone prone to heart attacks! 10-13-04: My gold occies are lovely fish who were getting the short end of the stick in the 44, like the meleagris before them. Luckily, I happened upon some lovely Lepidiolamprologus hecqui the The Fish Place in Buffalo, so the occies were moved out. They seem to like the new tank (a 10) - except for the harassment of the julie, who will be moving back to the 44 as soon as I think he's forgotten he ever lived there. 4-30-04: I've moved this tank home from the dorms and revamped it for my L. ocellatus "gold" pair. I think they like it. Well, okay, I think the male likes it - as usual the female is mostly focused on avoiding the male. In any case, they look great. I'm not sure how the plants are going to decide they like the fine sand, but I'm hoping for the best. The tank also contains a "Hikari Yellow" danio (no idea what species, they're fairly new, and I could only get the one) and a Pitbull Plec (these are the guys that stay at 2"). And don't miss the pictures of the male occie on the Fish page, he's gorgeous!

Profile for this species~Photos of this species~The tank I keep this species in~Article on this species~Anther article on this species