NEW tank, NEW to African cichlids

[rusland005]

I'm going to stock African cichlids for the first time, malawi inparticular.

I've been doing my homework on them a bit but just wanted to get thoughts and ideas from you guys first before i go any futher. I'm not 100% on any of this yet

I'm setting up a 5 foot, bow front tank, 18" wide and 24" high,

As far as the stock goes, i am open to suggestions but i am looking for fish that would get bigger than 5-6 inch. What i was thinking was ...

yellow labs - labidochromis caeruleus, 4/6 ?
red zebras - metriaclima estherae 2/3 ?
yellow tail acei - pseudotropheus acei 6 ?

Does that seem enough of each?? I was thinking about running it with only yellow labs for the first few months to try breed them, raising the fry in a seperate tank then futher down the line adding them in with the other fish when they are bigger ...

As for filters i was thinking two tetratec EX700 or 1 FX5 ... would that be enough??

Crushed coral sand for a substrate,

Thanks in advance

 

[rusland005]

As far as the stock goes, i am open to suggestions but i am looking for fish that would get bigger than 5-6 inch. What i was thinking was ...

What i ment to say was something that would not get bigger than 5 - 6 inches.

Also, how would it go with males and females in together? Would i need to make the tank completely male and forget about trying breed the yellow labs??


Thanks again

 

[mike dunagan]

If you have enough females the males should breed with their own kind. However if they do not have their own females they will hybridize. Your stock list seems okay. Your red zebras are the worst of the group.

 

[R.A.C.K]

I've got four yellows and three acei mixed male and female in a 3ft tank and they all seem to get along well. So I'd imagine what you are suggesting in a 5ft tank would be fine.

If you can try to get one male of each and the rest female if you are worried about aggression, but depending on where you get them that may be difficult to do.

I have crushed coral in my tank and it does a great job of keeping the PH up to acceptable levels. As far as filtration goes, I've never had a tank that big so I can't say.

 

[staz]

I would recommend Rustys over the red zebra from my recent experience. Red zebras were too aggressive once the matured.

 

[rusland005]

Thanks for the input guys,

Red zebras look a lovely fish but i will leave them out of the equation for now and go with rustys instead, which i have to say, look equally as nice.



Other one is xenotilapia ochrogenys, it is described as aggressive but not to be kept with other aggressive/highly aggressive fish. Is it a fish that could live in this tank with this kind of tank mates without throwing out the balance ??

 

[shellies215]

I would not put the xeno's in a malawi tank, to much exitement for them

 

[Mokujin22]

I would not put the xeno's in a malawi tank, to much exitement for them

+1. I can't agree more.

You could try some mid-sized haps.. any of the smaller Copadichromis or Placidochromis would be a nice contrast to the mbuna imo. I'm a big fan of mixing in peacocks as well. A group of 1-2M/4-5F in a tank that size would be really nice. Don't mix species and avoid the dwarf varieties imo as they won't color up all that well with adult mbuna.