New to Rift Lake cichlids and need some guidance

Hey guys,

I am in the process of moving to Kentucky. As a result, I have re-homed the hodge podge SA cichlid tank in my daughter's play room, and I am looking forward to a clean slate. I'm considering african cichlids, but not sure where to start.

A litte about me:

I'm a fairly experienced fish keeper. I've kept a bunch of different NW cichlids, planted tanks with CO2, piranha, a saltwater fish only with live rock tank, and I've got a background in biology (I'm a nurse). I've kept west african riverine cichlids, but never rift lake species.

The tank that I'm looking to reboot is a 29g aquarium that will be in my kids playroom. I'm more especially interested in mouthbrooding or other interesting behavior. I really enjoy watching NW cichlids pair off, change colors, and raise a spawn, and I'd like to show case some interesting breeding behavior for my daughter. I'm not overly concerned with colorful species but my wife and daughter might be.

I've looked at the "cookie cutter" setups for a 20g long, and 29g on another fish forum, but none of the fish species seem familiar to me. I don't even know where to start.

1. What kind of setup do I need? right now I have eco-complete in the tank, but I'd rather not have plants and I'm looking forward to something relatively easy to gravel vac and maintain stable water parameters.

2. What lake lends itself best to something like this?

3. What species and how many for a 29?

4. last but not least I'll be in a new area with few fish resources available. I'll mostly be buying from big box stores or online unless someone knows a LFS in the Paducah/Western, KY area. What kind of fish can I find given this limitation?

Any and all help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
-C

Thanks.

I'm not sure what the water is like. I don't actually live there yet. We're moving not this weekend but next. I tried to find a consumer confidence report but they're not stored online.

So by Krips do you mean Victorian "Rock Kribensis" or like west african riverine Pelvichromis?

Thanks for the info. Yeah that water report is also called a consumer confidence report. I mentioned it in my post. Paducah does generate these reports but they don't put them online. Paducah is like hundreds of miles west of Louisville, is a much smaller city, and is surrounded by navigable rivers and two of the largest man made lakes east of the Mississippi River. All of which would suggest vastly different water parameters than Louisville. That is encouraging though that the water in KY appears to be relatively alkaline. Thanks so much.

DarylA said:

What about a small breeding group of Pseudotropheus Saulosi from Lake Malawi? They are a dwarf Mbuna which mouth brood and are sexually dimorphic.

Click to expand...

This sounds like exactly what I'm looking for. Where do I get this? The inter webs?

How many do I get and what ratio? Do you use dithers?

Yep I'm sold. Found this:

http://youtu.be/78c6ulMLYPs

Thanks Duanes.

I read the latest report but it didn't mention ph or hardness so I just emailed the water works. We'll see what they say.