Malawi Surface Dwellers?

[paulW]

The only other suggestion is to try to extend the rockwork/caves up higher. Although when I've done this, I noticed that the more submissive fish tended to get pushed up to the less "prime" real estate near the top. Still, it helps. I wish there was a fish like you are requesting.

In my tank, I use Red Empress, Acei, and Protmelus to try to fill the middle to upper void. I know I am mispelling this, but I have some Protomelus Tanzania that hang out near the top a lot and are very active. ( Sadly, I only have females, hope to get some males at the next OCA convention. ) Red Empresses also work for me.

 

[JayK1320]

Do you have pics of your tank? I would love to see what it looks like. I am trying to go for something kinda like what you are talking about...something with all lake malawi. I have got a long way to go, but I would love to see some inspiration!

Good luck with the top dweller, let us know what you decide on and how it works out.

 

[cichlidgirl]

Yellow tail Acei are just what you want. They are a mostly peaceful mbuna that swims all over the whole tank but especially seems to like the top 1/3 of the tank. I had heard this and bought some and its totally true. I bought two of them and they swam everywhere together . They were a delightful addition to my mixed mbuna tank. Very highly recommend them. They are really nice looking fish too.

I also had a half grown malawi eyebiter that was bigger than the mbuna in there for a while, he seemed to do fine with the mbuna but my tank was a 72 gallon bow front. Might not work when they get larger. I also had a couple of my more aggressive male peacocks that needed removed from my hap/peacock tank cause they were too mean. They worked good for 6 months in with the mbuna. You could try a borleyi and see how that would work.

I did not have any highly aggressive mbuna though, super aggressive ones such as johanni or other melanchromis species might attempt to shred any malawi haps you put in there. I had mostly some mild zebra species and some peaceful yellow labs and acei. It was a colorful tank and everybody got along pretty good.