How are Africans classified?

[fishkeeper4244]

I always here about african cichlids being from certain lakes but how many are there? also how are certain speices identified when there are so many crosses?
does anybody know any good buddies for them, i would want to add a catfish or bichir or something else for variety. prob a crayfish.

 

[waerox]

there are TONS of different lakes in the rift valley. that being in this hobby most SA fish come from malawi/riverine/victoria/t[FONT=Verdana, Arial]anganyika lakes. and fish should be kept with other fish from their particular lake. i believe a lot of people keep [/FONT]synodonsits catfish with some SA cichlids. but i'd wait for someone thats more versed with SA to verify that.

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[shellies215]

the crosses generally don't occur in nature. yes there are hundreds of species from each lake, but they all have names,and sometimes a name and location if there is more than one color variant of said species.

 

[Pharaoh]

I always here about african cichlids being from certain lakes but how many are there? also how are certain speices identified when there are so many crosses?
does anybody know any good buddies for them, i would want to add a catfish or bichir or something else for variety. prob a crayfish.

As stated above, Africans come from numerous lakes. There are many factors that will affect how they are classified. I suggest you look into researching how classifications are done as a whole, not just Africans.

Depending on the type of Africans that you are interested in keeping, stocking advice and husbandry techniques can vary. Let us know what specific fish you are interested in keeping and we can help from there.

Speaking generally, but crayfish do not tend to work well with Africans. I know lots of people that keep synodontis species with Africans, but long term effectiveness will vary based on the specific stocking.