New to African Cichlids

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Sorry for taking awhile to post an update here. It's been pretty busy. I'm setting up a 3rd tank because my brother wanted one now too. ;)

Anyway, I don't have a pic yet because the babies move waaay too fast but here's a vid of them that I took on the night that we got them. So far, I've only been able to ID 2 species - Yellow Lab and Cobalt Blue. The orange one may be a Red Zebra? Not sure. Can you please help me ID them? My mom just picked these guys out from a tank called "Assorted Cichlids" :eek: I was just told that they are all Malawi Cichlids.

[video=youtube;QkL9D1Zv5NU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkL9D1Zv5NU&context=C4620665ADvjVQa1PpcFOr ppmnqkfY3PWQ4R9hwNuRcacZjWg7KBM=[/video]

I'll post more pics/vids once I got everything settled down. :)

Thanks again for all your help!
 
i have a 120 gal tank with about 30 some cichlids.. the best thing to do would be overstock the tank to keep the aggression down. that being said i would go with 10 to 15 mbuna. good filtration is a must and plenty of air. you generally want to have enough flow from you filters to turn your tank over at least 5 times per hour. since i have a 120 i have 2 filters, one is a wet/dry sump that turns it over 5x in a hour and the other is a canister filter that does it 3x per hour.. so take your gallons times at least 5 and that's how many gph (gallons per hour) of flow you will need. 55x5=275gph at least. hope that helps with your filtration question (:
 
Thanks a lot!

We have about 12 African cichlids in that tank. The filtration I have setup for it is 1 Eheim 2215 (164 GPH) and 2 Penguin 350 (350 GPH). So I guess that will be 864 GPH in total. I'm also thinking of adding some wave maker if I notice that fish poo is accumulating on the rocks.
 
that should be enough gph..lol and with the wavemaker..in the rift lakes there isn't that much current.. and from what I've seen mbuna doesn't like it that much..at least mine didn't..they were always trying to find a spot where there wasnt much. with the poo its just something you will have to deal with and clean. also make sure you feed them a vegetable mix so they thrive..i put cucumber slices weighted down by small pvc pipes (1") and use fishing line. also i feed them a mix of cichlid flakes and omega one super veggie kelp pellets for the spiraling in it.

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Oh okay lol. I guess no to a wavemaker then. Thanks for the tip! Right now we're feeding them some Omega One Cichlid pellet since that's the only thing small enough that we can find. But once they grow a little bigger, we'll start feeding Hikari Bio-Gold and NLS. I'll make sure to add some veggies to their diet now you mentioned it!

:)
 
Sorry for the double post.

I just wanted to ask a couple of questions about how to care for African Cichlids.
1) I was informed that they need brackish water. Should I add Aquarium Salt to the tank? If so, how much do I put for a 55 gallon?
2) Our tap pH is actually low. I believe it's around 6.0. Do I need to add anything to increase the pH or should I just leave it alone?
3) Are they very sensitive to nitrates in the water? Our tap has 20ppm nitrates on it so my usual nitrate reading at the end of the week (with my Oscar tank) is usually somewhere around 60ppm. I haven't done any water changes for the African tank so I'm not sure what theirs are.

Thanks in advance!
 
Um yes there is a lot of current lol. Putting a power head in would be cool. My fish love the power head and will all line up and swim in them lol (I have 2 power heads.) The tank looks amazing by the way and yes that looks to be a red zebra. You don't need brackish water. It can help them if you add salt, but in all reality the water you fill your tank with probably already has enough salt in it. You don't have to have salt. The pH should balance out over a week, but if it stays really low I would go down to the local fish store and see if they have any chemicals you can add and get your water tested for free to know what chemicals to add. The fish are kind of sensitive to nitrates, but if you do a tank change probably once every week you should be fine I mean you have that tank over filtered so nicely that it should not really affect them. Good luck on your tank and keep me updated :P any other questions?
 
Oh and if you get a power head I recommend putting it at some place elevated in the tank upper level in water column. I say this because my fish love the power head, but not 24/7 so put it in a place where they can access it, but don't have it on them 24/7 lol
 
coxey26 said:
that should be enough gph..lol and with the wavemaker..in the rift lakes there isn't that much current.. and from what I've seen mbuna doesn't like it that much
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Wavemakers actually work really well in mbuna tanks to help simulate the wave-washed, upper rocky habitats. My mbuna love swimming in the current and playing in the flow from the powerheads. It also helps greatly in keeping the sand clean in my tank.
 
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