40g breeder mbuna stock help

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PEANUTBUTTER

PEANUTBUTTER

Gambusia
MFK Member
Jun 18, 2014
127
14
18
Canada
Well its been alomst 4 years since ive kept Africans and yesterday i tore down my saltwatr tank and am thinking of converting it to a mbuna tank but its been a long time since ive done freshwater. Any HOB filters you would reccomend and how many fish can i have in it. Also have a 10 gallon sump hooked up to it. And when they start over breeding i have a 800 gallon pond they can go in
 
PEANUTBUTTER said:
Well its been alomst 4 years since ive kept Africans and yesterday i tore down my saltwatr tank and am thinking of converting it to a mbuna tank but its been a long time since ive done freshwater. Any HOB filters you would reccomend and how many fish can i have in it. Also have a 10 gallon sump hooked up to it. And when they start over breeding i have a 800 gallon pond they can go in
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james99 james99
markstrimaran markstrimaran
mattison187 mattison187
 
Hello,
If you live in Canada, I doubt the pond is a good idea. Gets a little cold up there, no?
40 is a little small for most mbuna, I think your best bet is to find a species you like which is on the small side, and do a single group. Pseudotropheus Demasoni would probably be the best choice. You should probably do no less than 12 and no more than 18 or 20. They only get to about 3". The key is to get mostly females, the males will hate each other. But with enough rockwork and females in the way, they will be able to hide or escape.
As far as the filter, I have always liked aquaclear. You definitely want to oversize the filter since you have to pack mbuna tanks more tightly than most fish. An aquaclear 70 or 110 would do the job, I wouldn't go smaller than 70. 110 would be better.
 
Gourami Swami said:
Hello,
If you live in Canada, I doubt the pond is a good idea. Gets a little cold up there, no?
40 is a little small for most mbuna, I think your best bet is to find a species you like which is on the small side, and do a single group. Pseudotropheus Demasoni would probably be the best choice. You should probably do no less than 12 and no more than 18 or 20. They only get to about 3". The key is to get mostly females, the males will hate each other. But with enough rockwork and females in the way, they will be able to hide or escape.
As far as the filter, I have always liked aquaclear. You definitely want to oversize the filter since you have to pack mbuna tanks more tightly than most fish. An aquaclear 70 or 110 would do the job, I wouldn't go smaller than 70. 110 would be better.
Click to expand...


Actually moved to florida lol sorry also wanted to get a senegal birchir and potentially 1 brislenose pleco
 
Definitely a bad idea to include kenyi, they are one of the most aggressive mbuna species.
Your tank is not really big enough to do large mbuna species. I recommended the demasoni, saulosi would also work, because these are dwarf species. 15 6" fish plus a pleco and 12" bichir would be way overstocked. You are going to end up giving yourself nothing but headaches trying to pack this small tank with large aggressive fish. Small aggressive fish like the demasoni might work. The bichir also not a great idea, it will get to 12" and eat your 3" cichlids. Bristlenose would work aggression-wise, but would add a lot of poop to an already packed tank.
If you aren't married to the idea of mbuna, this would be a good size tank to do shell dweller tanganyikans. They are more interesting to keep anyway in my opinion. Occelatus would be great in there. You could do a couple species if you went this way, one species of shell dweller and one dwarf tanganyikan like caudopunctatus. Maybe even a compressiceps.
 
Just not much of a fan of the shell dwellers i tried them once but it wasnt for me. Idk maybe ill go back to the original plan and just do a convict breeding ground. Before when i had Africans i had them in a 125 gallon and had about 80-100 so im still in the mindset of owning a big tank lmao i used to have a senegal birchir with my Africans and it never bothered anyone.
 
A bichir would be fine with large Africans, but a full grown Senegal with drawf Africans like demasoni or saulosi would definitely be a risk to me. I had a Senegal which was probably around 8" attempt to eat a pictus cat which was probably 4" and it choked, both fish died. Wouldn't want to see that happen.
This tank would be much better suited to a breeding pair of convicts or other cryptoheros in my opinion. There are plenty of great cryptoheros type cichlids, sajica panamensis and septemfasciatus to name a few. The larger more aggressive species like convicts and sajica would probably have to be just a bonded pair, the smaller more mild species like nanoluteus or septemfasciatus could probably be kept in a 1m 3f group.
 
I remeber the africans were always enetertaining to me but i always loved breeding fish. Ive been doing this for the past 15 years and i have had every and any kind of freshwater tank. But ive always had big tanks not this tiny 40g im so out of my element now lol.
 
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