Help me stock my 75gal tank.

[AaronCombs]

Hello everyone,

I have a 75gal tank I just acquired. Now after some tweaks and fixes it's ready to go. Freshwater tank as an FYI. It does have a nice life support system hooked up.

So I'm trying to decide what fish to stock in the tank. My wife and I are wanting colorful fish, though I thought about getting some piranhas lol. So I'm thinking setting this one up as a Cichlid tank. Now if I do this, I don't know what kind of cichlids to buy as I have never had them before. The tank has no drift wood, I removed this to keep it from lowering the pH. Natural rock, pea gravel substrate. With other random rocks laying around. I have buffers to raise and lower the pH as needed pending what we decide on.

If you could stock this 75 gal tank, what kind of cichlids and how many of each would you put in it. I'm not looking to breed them, keep that in mind. I'm also open to other freshwater fish. Just note I have a 55 gal tank already with guppies/mollies/platies; As well I'm working on setting up a freshwater shark tank. I'll probably start on salt water tanks next year.

 

[JC_P]

Look into african cichlids, your aquarium size is a good one for mbunas and some tanganyikan cichlid species.

 

[AaronCombs]

Here's some thought, I do like the Mbunas color spectrum.

Give me some input on this list...

6x yellow lab's
6x blue zebra's
6x red zebra's


or I could go this route, lil more specific for ya 2-4 of each, I'm unsure if there is any compatibility issue with these below though.

Labidochromis
Labidochromis hongi kimpuma
Maylandia estherae
Melanochromis auratus
Mayalndia Zebra
Maylandia red zebra
melanochromis chipokae




Also what other kinds of fish can I drop in with them? As in for algae eaters, etc.

 

[crisper]

I would skip on the M.auratus and M.chipokae both species are highly aggressive and will most likely kill of the rest of the cichlids. As for algae control i would add a few bristlenose plecs.

 

[JC_P]

I would skip on the M.auratus and M.chipokae both species are highly aggressive and will most likely kill of the rest of the cichlids. As for algae control i would add a few bristlenose plecs.

+1