55 gallon ideas *Newb*

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kevbc03

kevbc03

Piranha
MFK Member
Oct 12, 2008
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Cleveland
Hey everyone, I've had an empty 55 gallon running for a while now and had some difficulty deciding what to stock it with because its not a big tank.

I already have another 55 with C/SA cichlids in it so I wanted something new, and finally it hit me! I should try some African cichlids!

So my question to the experts(:D) in keeping African cichlids is what are some good ones to start off with that could live in a 55 for life?
 
kevbc03;3278054; said:
Hey everyone, I've had an empty 55 gallon running for a while now and had some difficulty deciding what to stock it with because its not a big tank.

I already have another 55 with C/SA cichlids in it so I wanted something new, and finally it hit me! I should try some African cichlids!

So my question to the experts(:D) in keeping African cichlids is what are some good ones to start off with that could live in a 55 for life?
Click to expand...

There are so many options here for you. There are a number of species that will do well in a 55G. Is it 4ft long?
I would visit a LFS that has a good selection of Africans. Pick one or two that you like the most and work from there.
C
 
Get yourself one big colony of Pseudotropheus Saulosi. If you buy babies, then buy 20 at least, and remove the extra males. Ideally you'd end up with two adult males and 10 females at least. That way, you'd have a very stable setup, two "dressed" up males, and brooding females wouldn't get overly harrassed by the lover boys.

...or you could do the simple way and cram whatever catches your eye and then complain that it doesn't work for you, or that your fish are killing each other. :popcorn:

On a serious side, make a nice "reef" out of smooth river rocks, make sure to use egg crate on the bottom (you can get a 4' sheet at HH for like 7$ or something). Place the eggcrate on the bottom, add sand -preferably one bag of aragonite (very fine, not coarse) and a little extra playbox sand or moonsand for a nice look, healthy mix (aragonite buffers the water to a constant pH and hardness, even if you "by mistake" you fall behind on your water changes) ...a nice big canister filter or a couple AQ110s and you're set.

Here's a photo for inspiration

PS: try to keep the sandbed not overly thick, 2" maximum, as too much it might just become a trap for noxious gases from leftover food and detritus rotting in the sandbed. You wouldn't want that to happen :)

469975503_44775a7939.jpg
 
tropheus are very expensive at LFS running at about 10-30 a piece and you would need about 10-15 of them peacocks are a great way to go in a 55 gal just 2 great specimens and 4 or 5 females would do nicely and they would look amazing with black sand i use crushed coral in my filter to keep PH high it also acts as a bio filter i have an ob peacock and a flametail Ngara which are amazing specimens that i got for about 8 bucks a piece as babies at LFS an cynotilapia are another great way to go cheap small and beautiful
 
look at the beautiful mbuna that come from lake malawi. they have some awesome colors and some of them stay on the small side. you always should be careful though since aggression is high and hybridization of african cichlids is heavily frowned upon. I have some pics of my african tank in my albums:naughty::naughty::naughty::naughty::D
 
Yeah I saw some of those swede, they look amazing. I kinda had to put a hold on the fish buying for a bit so I've had a 55 gallon running forever lol. But all I know is I want Africans
 
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