Malawi cichlids and soft shell turtle?

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo

barracuda123

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Sep 8, 2009
1,822
0
66
Leeds, England
Hi, I think its time to upgrade my malawi tank and I was wondering if they could go with my softshell turtle in a new 75 gallon tank. My softshell turtle is in a 50g right now. He is still 3 inch though (spoilt little thing) lol. So, can I keep them together? I have his 'bed in the tank. I will draw a pic. Sorry for the noob quality, I am on my old laptop as my parents did not let me take my new one to Dubai -.-

turtle.jpg

Thanks for looking.
 
Mbuna, Hap, or Peacock??? "Malawi Cichlid" refers to around 1200 species...

Its fairly possible, Im not sure about the species of turtle, I'm in no way a reptile expert, but I know of the Native Softshells where im from get pretty large, to where they would need a 300g+ aquarium to be able to swim freely, I caught one fishing that was about 14'' of shell, not to mention they do eat fish.

Malawi Cichlids though are fairly fast swimmers, and also because of their territorial nature they are always alert when "sleeping" so it would be hard for the turtle to catch

Another issue you'd have to deal with is waste, turtles produce A LOT of waste, which can cause Ammonia to spike killing most if not all of the fish.

So... with all of the cautions noted, If I were doing this, I would go with the more aggressive species of Mbuna, your M.Auratus, Ps. Demasoni, and/or Ps. Elongatus.

Here's why, Mbuna are more tolarant to water conditions than your peacocks and haps, Mbuna are Rock/Cave Dwellers so with enough rock work in the tank they would have a safe area to go, AND with the more aggressive species they tend to stress a little less than your more docile species when being aggitated by an aggressor (I.E. Turtle)

I would look in the future to upgrading everything for this to work, I'd say a minimum of a 125g, with a 40g wet/dry trickle filter, possibly even higher to compensate for the turtles wastes

Good luck
 
Thanks for the advice, my softie is a chinese softhell. I keep red zebras, electric blue johanies and an unknown mbuna. i will be getting more though. I have currently a filter specialised for 75g tank and an external fluval filter :)
 
Thanks for the advice, my softie is a chinese softhell. I keep red zebras, electric blue johanies and an unknown mbuna. i will be getting more though. I have currently a filter specialised for 75g tank and an external fluval filter :)

post or Pm me a pic of your unknown and Id be glad to help
 
Dude IDK it may work but i am sure you will lose some fish soft shells dont play they are one of the faster water turtles. But anyway good luck and keep us posted
 
MonsterFishKeepers.com