We have been building a plywood tank (link in the diy section) and I had been planning on putting my catfish in it, but I think we're going to go a different direction with the tank. We have a 55 with some mbuna in it, 2 electric yellows, 2 electric blues, a powder blue, an electric blue johanni, and 2 red zebra cichlids. I was thinking it would be very cool to fill it with africans since they have so much color and you could fit a TON of fish in it. Would you suggest I stick with the mbuna or are haps/peacocks more colorful? Mbuna are certainly easier to come by here, but to stock something of this size I will really have to make an online order anyway. If I stick with the mbuna, I know for sure I want to get some acei, some ob's, and some more blues in there. Any other really nice mbuna to have my lfs start looking for that you can think of? Also, how many do you think I can put in my tank (8Lx2Hx3W approximately 359 gallons). It usually takes the guy at our lfs about a month to get in what we ask for, so I was wanting to start planning what was going in there as all we have left is putting the glass in and finish work on the tank now.
stocking questions
- Thread starter laura65536
- Start date
Haps and peacocks are nicer looking, but more exspensive. They also are bigger, but tend to be less active. I would go for peacocks and haps though.
I suggest you get the tank going first... then get it cycled. After that you still aren't going to be able to just plop a fully stocked amount of fish into the tank... IE your bio-filters wont be able to handle it. But still when you buy fish online you can get ~8-14 fish in a 1 level box (Depending on size, ie young or full grown). And that would be good for starting. Honestly until you know what fish you want, and what types numbers can't really be said. And to tell the truth with that size tank I think you should just keep adding till you think it is good and of course filters can still keep up. (Remember if you go with hap/peacock, an all male tank will give you lots of color, but less interesting behavior.... But with that size tank I really would do all male.)
I suggest you get the tank going first... then get it cycled. After that you still aren't going to be able to just plop a fully stocked amount of fish into the tank... IE your bio-filters wont be able to handle it. But still when you buy fish online you can get ~8-14 fish in a 1 level box (Depending on size, ie young or full grown). And that would be good for starting. Honestly until you know what fish you want, and what types numbers can't really be said. And to tell the truth with that size tank I think you should just keep adding till you think it is good and of course filters can still keep up. (Remember if you go with hap/peacock, an all male tank will give you lots of color, but less interesting behavior.... But with that size tank I really would do all male.)
well my husband says to go with the mbuna, since he really likes the johanni, can we have more than one of those, its a mean little bugger. And I know it needs to be cycled and everything, but I intend to move what we have into it as soon as we fill it up, I'm just going to move the ac110, and emperor 400 with them, along with the sand from their tank, then I was planning on adding 10ish fish every two weeks, but when I make my order online, I'll be making a large order, and I'll add some fish to the big tank, and then split the rest up between our 46 and 55 and add those later. I know if we can add more johanni he wants 5 more of those, I'll be making an order from petsolutions to get us started so this is the stock list we'll be getting form them:
2 m. auratus
5 Electric Blue Johanni
4 P. Kennyi
4 ob zebras
4 venustus
4 Electric Blue Ahli
6 acei
6 Pseudotropheus Elongatus
If all of those are compatible, (I'm fairly new to africans, only had ours for about 4 months) that is a good start, but I would like to have a list of pretty, more rare fish to have our lfs start looking for. Since it takes so long for him to get them in, and once he gets them in he has said he would hold them for me until we were ready to put them in, so if you guys could help out it'd be greatly appriciated.
2 m. auratus
5 Electric Blue Johanni
4 P. Kennyi
4 ob zebras
4 venustus
4 Electric Blue Ahli
6 acei
6 Pseudotropheus Elongatus
If all of those are compatible, (I'm fairly new to africans, only had ours for about 4 months) that is a good start, but I would like to have a list of pretty, more rare fish to have our lfs start looking for. Since it takes so long for him to get them in, and once he gets them in he has said he would hold them for me until we were ready to put them in, so if you guys could help out it'd be greatly appriciated.
I think you might have some problems down the line, though with 300+ gallons eh who knows.
Venustus will get big might find mbuna as good snacks... you Electric Blue fryeri will likely get picked on as Johanni and kennyi get bigger and more aggressive.
Honestly if you don't want to have to worry about fish killing fish try to stay mbunas with mbunas
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/profiles/category.php?cat=2
and peacocks and haps together.
Venustus will get big might find mbuna as good snacks... you Electric Blue fryeri will likely get picked on as Johanni and kennyi get bigger and more aggressive.
Honestly if you don't want to have to worry about fish killing fish try to stay mbunas with mbunas
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/profiles/category.php?cat=2
and peacocks and haps together.
The Ahli actually gets bigger and will most likely pick on other fish.ikevi;1256121; said:
You need A LOT more filtration.
tarheels910;1256377; said:
I agree on the filtering, but honestly the fryeri only get to be ~7 inches, and while they are an aggressive hap, they aren't anything near as aggressive as an ~6 inch Kenyi, or even in my case I had my 5 inch fryeri being beat up by 2 inch zebras...
And I assumed that they were going to add more filtration, just using what they had to kick start it.
(Note my comment about the Kenyi getting bigger was meaning as the Kenyi grow up they tend to get meaner, didn't mean for it to sound like they actually grew up larger than the fryeri.)
Oh, sorry. The Kenyi are meaner by far, but the Fryeri gets bigger.ikevi;1256408; said:
As for the stock, there isnt much that you cant put in this tank.
yes, there is more filtration, we have a sump on the tank, and the hobs are just to seed it, then we're taking them off. Okay, well we have to have the johanni, thats the one and only fish my hubby likes out of all of our fish. I had thought that was a mbuna, if it's not, what is it and what can go with it?
Its a mbuna. Melanchromis to be exact. You can pretty much put any other mbuna with them as long as you overstock to keep down aggression.
okay so as long as I stick to mbuna, it should all be fine then, I found a very helpful list on cichlid forum, with a list of all the mbunas. But backing to the stocking levels, how many should I eventually end up with in that size of a tank? I know they can't all go in at once, but what should be my goal. And the sump was made for an overstocked tank, so there is plenty of filtration going through there (2200gph with lots of bio) and if need be I plan on adding an xp5 later on, but since we're not doing large catfish now we may not end up needing that.