Thinking about converting one of my 55G tanks to a Mbuna tank. I would like to do a species tank of Yellow Labs. Filtration would be 2 x Aquaclear 70's and 1 x Marineland 200 Bio-Wheel. How many Labs could I get away with in a standard 55G tank? 50% water changes are currently being performed on a 1 x weekly basis.
Yellow Labs 55G?
- Thread starter RD3557
- Start date
You want it a little crowded so put about 20-25. a few males a lot of females
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Wow, 20-25? I was thinking something more like 12-15 would be the max to start with.
Mbuna are aggressive fish. You actually want to overstock on them (making sure you keep up on water changes) to help spread out the aggression so one fish doesn't get picked on too badly.
+1 on keeping more females than males. of 25 fish, maybe 4-6 males, the rest female. At least with Yellow Labs, the females can be as strikingly pretty as the males, rather than the drab coloration of most african females.
+1 on keeping more females than males. of 25 fish, maybe 4-6 males, the rest female. At least with Yellow Labs, the females can be as strikingly pretty as the males, rather than the drab coloration of most african females.
I had a 55 gallon L. caeruleus species tank years back, mostly F1's, with a few locally line bred specimens. I ran two AC 500's, did a 50% water change weekly, and I believe that the total number of fish was approx 15. (adults) I wouldn't even worry about the m/f ratio too much, my dom male did the vast majority of the breeding at all times, and beat the tar (and even killed) 1 sub dom male that he caught attempting to breed with the females. As long as you have at least 3 males (to even out the dom males aggression) you shouldn't have any problems.
