Help in creating a happy and peacful community

[Savethemall]

Hi . I have 3 tanks with african cichlids in them. At the moment non if the tanks is peacful and im trying to find the best arrangment with the fish for them to be peacful and happy. The first tank is 150 cm, 600 liters and has a female socolofi 13 cm and a female cobalt 13 cm.the tank is divided beacuse the soco keeps injuring the cobalt. The second tank is 130 and 300 liter has a female white tale acei 11 cm, A female kenny 11cm a male snow white 10cm, a male red zebra 10cm and a male ob peacock 10 cm. The tank is also divided. The third tank 140 and 350 liters has two male scianochromis frieri 8 cm. A hybrid male ruby peacock 9cm and a female red zebra 6 cm. All of the tanks gas strong filteration, heaters and plenty of decorations and hiding spots.
We rescue fish, and were not buying nor planning what to rescue.. so im trying to think how to rearrange between these 3 tanks in order to create the best situation
Would really appreciate your advice , tank you.

 

[Deadeye]

Technically there isn’t a way to keep it completely peaceful and calm, as every Malawi cichlid lives to be the last one left.
I would do it based on gender and relative aggression. Keep males and females separate, as breeding causes aggression.
I don’t know all of those cichlids, but for the ones I do recognize:
Zebra, cobalt, and kenyi go well together as are very aggressive.
Acei is pretty mild, can be with a peacock.
Snow White and socolofi are same species and could go together aggression wise.
Note that this is species based, not gender based.

 

[DJRansome]

I think you would need more fish to make each tank more peaceful because overstocking helps manage aggression. The problem is you have several of the same genera (you might want one Metriaclima species per tank for example) and you have three: Cobalt, red zebra, kenyi.

I would split the socolofi BECAUSE they are same species. They can go with the metriaclima, Add fish to each species group (shoot for 1m:4f for socolofi, cobalt and red zebra and 1m:7f for kenyi).

And I would split the two fryeri and have only peacocks with them. Agree the acei can go with these, but I would have groups (1m:4f in each group) of each fryeri, acei and whatever peacock you choose.

That's two tanks for haps and peacocks, and three tanks for mbuna. You have three tanks.

Personally I would rehome the species I don't want to keep and stock the remaining tanks with the keepers.

 

[Milingu]

With lake Malawi cichlids and especially Mbunas there are two options. Either you overstock the tank or you set it up trying to mimic their natural habitat. I personally don't like the overstocking method because it reduces the range of their natural behaviour. Still I consider a certain density of fish is quite helpfull to maintain a stable hierachy.

To set set up the tank to allow the fish to show their full range of behaviour you need stone structures that reach at least two thirds of the tank height and consist of the largest possible stones. This is the only way for the fish to form territories and avoid each other at the same time in "smaller" tanks (everything under 1000 liters).
One fish must be able to leave the other's field of vision in order not to become the permanent target of aggression.
It is not necessary for the entire stone structure to be two thirds of the pool height, but individual stones should be high enough to serve as a visible barrier.

Here are some examples for big stone structures from youtube.
I especially like the last two because they are not that heavily stocked for their size.

 

[Savethemall]

Ok, first of all thanks for responding, i just need to make it clear again, stocking and buyig fish are not an option.im a rescuer and i think buying fish or any animal is not good.
About other suggestions-right now the cobalt and the socolofi are together alone, the zebra ,keny, acei , white sicolofi and ob peacock are together and the frierys are together with the ruby peacock and small female zebra.

 

[Savethemall]

And about the rocks and decorations, all of the tankd arr heavly decorated with rocks caves hiding spots and eyesight breajers

 

[neutrino]

Agree with Milingu and there really isn't a workaround to what he says with the species you have. Even then, either approach can be hit and miss, depending on the individual fish, tank size and arrangement, how many fish in the tank, etc. The basic fact is nearly all Malawi mbuna, and many haps and peacocks, are not peaceful community fish. Unless you select and put together the right mix of species, "peaceful community" ranges from a relative term to a contradiction in terms. Even then you can easily get rogue, crazy dominant/aggressive individuals-- which you can sometimes solve by putting them in a different tank where they're lower on the totem pole, but sometimes not.

With some species you can achieve a relatively peaceful tank with some management and tinkering by removing or adding individuals, but this can be hit or miss. Some species will do pretty well as a species tank with some level of tinkering or management that varies according to species. There are some comparatively mild species where several individuals may mix well with certain other species in a large enough tank, but none of those are on your list, with the possible exception of the acei.

It's the nature of the fish. Some live in open water and some in shallower sandy areas, where either way they mostly just stay out of each other's way. Others live in rocky versions of a reef, where each one has their own little cave or hole that they fiercely defend-- replicating this is and getting it to work makes a nice display but it's not necessarily easy to do.

 

[DJRansome]

Since you can't do any of the suggested solutions and since currently the tanks are relatively peaceful I would not change anything.

To confirm, your goal of rescuing random species, genders and numbers and finding ways to combine them in a limited number of tanks AND keep the fish in a safe or even ideal environment is probably not realistic.

 

[duanes]

I'm going to play bad cop here and suggest the term "rescue" is being misused.
If you take a socially hierarchal fish from a bad situation, and put in an equally unrealistic socially devoid situation, that is not a rescue.
If you take a socially hierarchal species and put it in the proper social situation, one it has evolved to live in, that is a rescue.

 

[Savethemall]

I take the fish from severly neglected tanks. For example some of the mbuna here are survivors from a suoer neglected tank in which wc hasnr been done at all and they were 5 left out of 40 fish in like 3 mounths. Im not reciving any money or helo this is all from my own and some friend money and we're trying to do the good for the fish. We have 3 cichlids tank 3 catfish tanks, one live bearears tank, 1 community tank, 1 gf tank 1 american cichlids tank and 2 betta tanks. All of those fish(over a 100) are rescued from horrible conditions..