75 lake malawi cichlid?
- Thread starter ben park
- Start date
The bottom one Nimbochromis venustus gets to be about 8/9 inches. Obviously that will limit how many you can get. The other two generally grow to about 6 inches.
Looks like peacocks and possibly a venustus cichlid. I know I've seen cichlids exactly like that one before but just can't remember the name. If you want to go with the peacocks I would suggest doing all peacocks. They are beautiful fish but get quite large so I would say no more than 20 in a 75. For a first cichlid aquarium I would suggest doing groups. They do wonderful in groups of 1 male to 3-4 females. It will not be nearly as colorful as an all male tank but you will see lots of interesting behavior and the males will get extremely bright and beautiful just like the picture. You could make 4 distinct rock structures in your aquarium and get 4 groups of 5. If you really do want an all male tank you could try it and it would be WAY more colorful but I don't know much about helping to keep the aggression at bay.
All male peacock tanks can be hit or miss but they are expensive to ensure you are getting males. As long as you are willing to move or rehome specific fish that get too aggressive you should be fine. Red empress is another beautiful fish to consider just try to avoid fish that resemble each other color wise to help limit the aggression.
yea ill probably end up doing 20 of the peacocks on top, some syn cats, the ones u suggested earlier and some red tailed loaches. would i be able to use washed play sand or round gravel? what types of rock should i use?
if i were to do lake malawi cichlids that get near 6" and the size of peacocks, what would you suggest?
You could use pool filter sand or sand blasting sand. I have never used pool filter sand but I have used black blasting sand which was very soft and worked well. You could also pick up some river pebbles from a home improvement store.
If you're going to try all male, I would try to end up with 12, maybe 15 fish. Stick to fish that stay around 6-7", I wouldn't try venustus in a 75. They get big and pretty chunky and dont mind throwing their weight around.
Look into small haps like P. Electra, O. Lithobates, O. Tetrastigma. You can try peaceful mbuna too, like yellow labs and ps. Acei.
If you decide on mixed gender only do one people species. The females mostly look the same and the males will breed with whoever is available.
It's always easier to by larger, already sexed fish. Even if it's more costly, I eliminated the need to remove fish that end up being female. You'll need somewhere to get rid of fish that dont work with others, even if you follow all of the rules, some fish end up being too aggressive or too wimpy to work out.
Look into small haps like P. Electra, O. Lithobates, O. Tetrastigma. You can try peaceful mbuna too, like yellow labs and ps. Acei.
If you decide on mixed gender only do one people species. The females mostly look the same and the males will breed with whoever is available.
It's always easier to by larger, already sexed fish. Even if it's more costly, I eliminated the need to remove fish that end up being female. You'll need somewhere to get rid of fish that dont work with others, even if you follow all of the rules, some fish end up being too aggressive or too wimpy to work out.
