haha well saidNo bandwagon here, kinda confused on that oneLook to each their own not every fish, tank, aquascape etc is for everyone. When I built this tank it was "you HAVE to do stingrays,arowana, pbass!!!@!@" for me, my cup of tea is and always has been africans. I see greatly different body types, color forms, personality differences in africans, some don't. Thanks for the comments all, glad you like it as much as I do.
500 gallon african cichlid tank
- Thread starter stempy
- Start date
I tend to agree that an all haps tank looks boring because they are all blue fish with similar body shape. There is no accident that Malawian haps all look and behave alike because they all originated from a single bloodline. That said, I love haps because of their vibrant blue color, but I like to mix them with Tanganyikans and CA/SA to provide variation in body shape, color and behavior. I also believe in small tank are for small fish, and big tank for big fish. There is no reason to go into 500 gal tank if you are going to house the same size fish you can keep in a 75 gal. A few monster size fish will be more impressive than 50 to 60 small fish. You don't have to go into sting rays, arowanas or Peacock Bass if they are not your cup. A few large Frontosa and CA/SA cichlids can break up the monotony and provide size, color, and body shape variation.
African fish can't be beat. This guy has a 500 gallon it is his and he has a great stock list. CA /SA ARE BORING. All the fish are olive/brown color except for super common dempseys. Plus African haps move around not like CA/SA that hide all the time.
I have fronts in there, and apparantly you havent seen a 14" rostratus or 16" tyrannochromis? Put that in a 75 gallon and see how it turns out :/
Great looking tank my friend! I am now in tank envy! African cichlids are the best Species of fish. I love them and i love your tank. Well Done!
The tank looks great can't wait to see an update when they're all grown and their colors fully develop. I like a big tank with lots of fish, much more then with few big ones. Lots of activity and color in there one can never get bored of it
Sorry, I didn't notice that you have Frontosa, rostratus and tyrannochromis as I only watched the youtube, and didn't read your fish list. It's nice to have these big guys as a 500 gal tank without any foot long fish is underutilized. The reason the fish are not very showy now is that they are mostly juvenile silvery fish. Eventually, they will color up and reach big size. The Front will provide impressive size and body shape to contrast the classic hap profile. I would add some red fish to splice up the predominantly blue hap tank. Unfortunately, there aren't any strong red fish in African lakes except for man made hybrid peacocks. To add red to your stock other than hybrids, I would add clown loaches and a few red cichlids from CA/SA such as Red Severem, Red Head or Chocolate cichlids.
+1You're trying to convince the African Cichlid section that fish like a severum will liven up large african cichlid tank, in your opinion... in my opinion the only thing less lively than a severum is a common pleco
Great tank!
nice! looks like them peacocks are breeding.I'd keep a close eye on those tigers.they can be real aggressive.
