hypselecara;1641693; said:
"same" water??not at all. Similar water.
Same diet??? absolutely not!
CA are omnivorous, Malawi cichlids are almost at all vegetarians.
A richer diet in animal protein could degenerate in bloat and deseases.
IMHO I wont mix it with CA,but only with other malawian with a huge temperament (not yellow labs for example)
Blanket statements.
Diet and water params have virtually nothing to do with mixing Malawi's and SA/CA's, especially when referring to tank-raised fish.
There are many mbuna that live on a vegetarian diet, but very few are strict vegetarians. Same goes for CA species, such as Vieja/Paratheraps.
Cynotilapia sp. tend to be planktivores while Aulonocara are primarily insectivores and lets not forget the good number of large open-water piscivores or even the ambush predators such as D. compressiceps or Nimbo. livingstonii which uses a technique also observed in P. freidrichsthalii to obtain prey.
One can make generalizations that a CA cichlid does best in water that is around neutral and neutral-moderately hard and Malawi cichlids do best in water that is higher in pH and hard but that does not make it precisely true.
When it comes to water parameters, there are CA cichlids that can be found in areas with water harder than that of the rift lakes. Certain populations of salvini, blackbelts and uros for example.
Personally, I choose not to mix Malawi cichlids with my SA/CA cichlids because it does not appeal to me. I also believe general temperament of each species plays a big role into who gets kept with who and IMO, though Malawians tend to be generally aggressive, they don't have the drive or reason to protect their territory with everything a breeding pair of CA's would.
