All male amphilophus tank

[zimmy]

I’ve set up my 240G with 8 midas cichlids (all about 4-5 inches). I’ll be adding a few more next week with the view to just keeping the males I like best and selling off the females and males that are being jerks.

My question is what’s the minimum number of males I should aim for to disperse aggression and not have to do daily water changes? Also would like 1-2 extras in case of a casualty down the road. I’ve seen the youtube videos of Shawn Armentrout’s all male amphilophus tank. I think his was a 300G and he seemed to end up with 5 amphs.

The tank’s footprint is 8x2x2, the tank is filtered by a 120G sump and I do water changes (50-75% of the main tank) two to three times per week.

 

[zimmy]

Should mention that current stock is 6 creamsicle midas and 2 barred midas (one of which is clearly a female). Will be adding 3 more barred midas, 3 amarillos, 1 sagittae and 1 labiatus.

 

[DMD123]

Im doing something similar but in an 8ft 300 gallon.

Here is my thread: https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/threads/ideas-for-an-all-amphilophus-tank.722816/

sbgbuddy has an amph tank going with upwards of 15 fish. But bigger tank than mine.

 

[zimmy]

Thanks man. I've been following your thread closely and have read sbgbuddy's a few times. Both of you have tanks that are a bit bigger than mine. I don't think I've seen anyone say whether there is a general rule about the minimum number of males that are likely to work. I know every group will be a little different.

sbgbuddy's collection is awesome but I don't think I'd want to do the frequency of water changes needed to keep the nitrates down.

 

[DMD123]

Thanks man. I've been following your thread closely and have read sbgbuddy's a few times. Both of you have tanks that are a bit bigger than mine. I don't think I've seen anyone say whether there is a general rule about the minimum number of males that are likely to work. I know every group will be a little different.

sbgbuddy's collection is awesome but I don't think I'd want to do the frequency of water changes needed to keep the nitrates down.

Im likely needing to rehome the balas if I decide to go with the number of amphs Im thinking to keep aggression down. Im thinking at least 6 to 7 to spread it around enough. At one point when I had a community of mixed larger cichlids that were considered less aggressive, my number was 5 and it just wasn’t enough. Now with a group like this Im leaning towards 7 (or more). Not loooking forward to the water changes...