125 gallon peacock tank

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
Reaperxvii

Reaperxvii

Black Skirt Tetra
MFK Member
Jan 14, 2018
35
27
13
31
Hello guys, new to the forms.

I've been in the aquarium hobby about 8 months now and have a successful Community 75 gallon (granted its overstocked but over filtered :) )and two 29 gallon aquariums. Now I'm starting my next project which is going to be a 125 gallon tank and I believe I want to try and all male African cichlid tank from Lake Malawi preferably peacock cichlids, but I have a few questions and concerns.

1) The good news is my water out of the tap is around 7.5 to 7.6, with that said how do I need to go about stocking this tank?.

2) I'm really looking for some nice bright orange, yellow, blue colors. My local fish store has a dragon blood Peacock Cichlid I think is beautiful would he be okay in this tank as well? As well as some orange blotch cichlids?

3) While I know it is in no way required I'm going to be running a 55 gallon fluidized media sump or a 29 gallon wet dry sump I'm still undecided on that. If I do go canister filter route I'll do the same filtration that's on my 75 gallon which is two hydro 600 canister filter

4) I currently have a juvenile red spotted severum and Kirin parrot growingin a 29 gallon right now when they get large enough would they be okay inthe 125? I'm also considering a red King Kong parrot.

5) I know there's probably not a lot that can go in there but what other species could be considered for a all male peacock cichlid tank?

Thank you guys for helping advance and I eagerly await your replies
 
Reaperxvii said:
Hello guys, new to the forms.

I've been in the aquarium hobby about 8 months now and have a successful Community 75 gallon (granted its overstocked but over filtered :) )and two 29 gallon aquariums. Now I'm starting my next project which is going to be a 125 gallon tank and I believe I want to try and all male African cichlid tank from Lake Malawi preferably peacock cichlids, but I have a few questions and concerns.

1) The good news is my water out of the tap is around 7.5 to 7.6, with that said how do I need to go about stocking this tank?.

2) I'm really looking for some nice bright orange, yellow, blue colors. My local fish store has a dragon blood Peacock Cichlid I think is beautiful would he be okay in this tank as well? As well as some orange blotch cichlids?

3) While I know it is in no way required I'm going to be running a 55 gallon fluidized media sump or a 29 gallon wet dry sump I'm still undecided on that. If I do go canister filter route I'll do the same filtration that's on my 75 gallon which is two hydro 600 canister filter

4) I currently have a juvenile red spotted severum and Kirin parrot growingin a 29 gallon right now when they get large enough would they be okay inthe 125? I'm also considering a red King Kong parrot.

5) I know there's probably not a lot that can go in there but what other species could be considered for a all male peacock cichlid tank?

Thank you guys for helping advance and I eagerly await your replies
Click to expand...




Welcome aboard

I'm fairly new to African Malawian Cichlids myself but suggest not adding SA or CA Cichlids. I personally would do a fair amount of research on them before
stocking your 125. Checkout the threads here on the forum and also online KGTropicals will give a lot of info on keeping all male African Peacock Cichlids. Btw my Dragon Blood is aggressive and you will learn that adding 1 or 2 fish at a time is a no no .
 
If you do peacocks, do all males because the females are brown, but if you do other African cichlids like mbuna I'd recommend doing a few females for every male. Wouldn't recommend the KKP. As far as the severum and parrot, they might be fine with some peacocks if you don't have a better tank for them. though the severum will get much larger than them and might bully them. You could try it out and keep an eye on it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: tlindsey
Thanks quick reply's guys! I'll defiantly be doing all male peacocks I believe. Funny enough I have an adult Red Spotted as my centerpiece in my 75 gallon and he completely keeps to himself. The juvenile is much smaller, maybe 2-3in, so he has awhile to go before I'm to worried about him. Same with the Kirin Parrot.

Why do you not recommend the KKP? My LF store says they can be aggressive but I've read different things on the internet about them and parrots in general.

Also would a Bichir be okay in an peacock tank or would it get picked on constantly?
 
  • Like
Reactions: tlindsey
Cichlids are the main thing I keep, great fish and quite a variety of species and colors. A 125g all male peacock tank will be a very colorful "mostly" peaceful tank. I say mostly because peacocks are the more mellow of the cichlid but there are a few like Ob's, Lawanda, dragonblood and a couple others that can be a bit aggressive. Not always but some can.

While I've been in cichlids for years now I just recently got into bichirs myself and I would not suggest mixing the two. One thing is because cichlids are a very active and sometimes aggressive fish and theres a chance they could stress the bichirs out with how active they are. Other thing is if you get a species of bichir like an endi it'll get huge and some peacocks that only get to 4" like a nagara flametail or such could become lunch. Also all cichlids (even pecocks) feed like they are starving even when they are full. So it would be hard to get food past the cichlids and down to a slow eating fish like a bichir. So best to just stay with the all male peacocks in the tank IMO.

PH of 7.5-7.6 is good. When you first get into cichlids you'll read all sorts of things about PH and it will make you think you need to buffer your PH with all sorts of crazy recipes to get the PH up. Truth of the matter is a consistent PH is more important than a high PH so if you have 7.5 - 7.6 you'll be good don't bother looking into raising it with anything. Just letting you know that because it's kind of a normal thing most cichlid guys (myself included when I got into them) get talked into doing when you first get into cichlids and it's not needed.

Far as what can go in with them. Some haps work alright with peacocks. You'll just want to stay away from some of the larger more aggressive predatory haps. Ones like Venustus are normally pretty mellow for the most part and get up to about 10-12" and have good color so a Venustus would be a nice choice for a hap. A red fin borleyi is another nice fish to add with peacocks, they are normally pretty mellow, I have a huge 9" male one in my hap & peacock tank and he leaves everyone alone. Also look into some clown loaches, albino bristol nose plecos, and some synodontis catfish those will all do well in a peacock tank.
 
  • Like
Reactions: tlindsey
Thanks gourami! And thank you for that information Steve, glad to know I don't need to do anything special ph wise. But I have any issues putting in multiple orange blotch cichlids or Dragon Blood cichlids? I know a few of you said the dragon Bloods can be more aggressive than the standards. I guess one more question I have is how many cichlids can you put in a hundred 25 gallon tank? I know most people say to Overstock the tank too spread out aggression. Also what kind of filtration do you run on your cichlid tank Steve? Also I apologize for any spelling errors I'm using voice to text haha
 
  • Like
Reactions: tlindsey
As long as you have the filtration then around 30 is a good number of peacocks for a 125g. Most times you'll stock a bit higher (35-40) and end up weeding out the trouble makers and end up with around 30.

OB's can have attitudes, I've had some that were so mean I had to give them away to friends or take to our club auctions just to get them out of my tank. Then I've had others that were really laid back. Really only way to find out if you can do two is to try and see if you get lucky and get two that are mellow. I've actually got four of them in my 240g but I orginally had 6 and had to rehome two that were jerks.

I've got a pair of fx5 canisters on my hap & peacock tank, it's a 240g tank. Cichlids are messy eaters and produce a good amount of waste so I'd suggest a good pair of canisters or sump even on the 125g so it will handle the bio load of a nice big group of adult cichlids.
 
  • Like
Reactions: tlindsey
Okay thanks steve! Will defiantly try two OB's at a time then.

I think I want to go the sump route for this 125, at least just to try it. Will a 29 gallon trickle filter (Wet/Dry Filter) be sufficient filtration or should I do something like a 55 gallon liquidized media sump?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
MonsterFishKeepers.com
Top Bottom