derek asked:
I currently have 5 assorted african cichlids at 5″ each in a 30 gallon tank. I am looking at upgrading to a 135 gallon tank and adding approx. 110″ of fish. Ive always heard to stick with the African Cichlids but are there any other fish that get along fine with the territorial cichlids?
I currently have 5 assorted african cichlids at 5″ each in a 30 gallon tank. I am looking at upgrading to a 135 gallon tank and adding approx. 110″ of fish. Ive always heard to stick with the African Cichlids but are there any other fish that get along fine with the territorial cichlids?
May 15th, 2009 at 4:19 am
not if you want them to live, seriously, not too many things will survive with africans altho my husband used to keep clown loaches with them
and one time had a siamese tiger but you might not be able to find them anymore
May 16th, 2009 at 4:46 am
My friend who never owned fish before had 17 of them in one tank and they all ate eachother until they were down to 5. Then any other thing she added, sucker fish whatever, they ate.
Good Luck
May 19th, 2009 at 3:23 am
I’ll tell you right now, on a forum like this, every Tom Dick and Harry is going to tell you something different. You have to gauge the input you get against your common sense many cases.
The first thing to really give you some suggestions would be to know what you have already. Assorted could be anything from very mild Yellow Labs to very violent and aggressive Kenyi or Auratus. That really should be the starting point for any legit suggestions. 135 gallons or not, what you mix in there does matter. The types I listed above, are typical commonly sold Mbuna. You would want to know what genders of those you do have are, and what types.
Pretty much say if you have Mbuna, you MIGHT be able to put in one more species of Mbuna, but you also have room to add at least 1 Hap type and 1 Peacock type. It’s really important to know what you have now though.
I am not even going to look at inches. That’s really off base to think about inches. Inches fails to totally account for aggression, which is a huge factor in Africans, O2 needs, overall footprint and space, levels they occupy in the tank and many other things. I go primarily by aggression levels with proper sex distribution, (typically 1 male for every 3-4 females) and what levels of the tank they would tend to occupy (Mbuna substrate dwellers, Haps and Peacocks, mid to upper levels of the tank)
Yes for the most part, you can mix Africans with other Africans and your footprint on the 135 should support this very well, but again, hate to repeat, what exactly you might try, depends on what you have now. And I’m telling you from going on my third year, in a Malawi tank, first year in a Victorian and Madagascar tank, you can very much have community fish as well as bottom feeders. Your tank is more then likely at least 6 feet long, and as long as you respect your sexing ratio’s, don’t follow that overstock to reduce aggression stuff, you can keep community and bottom feeders. I’ve got 100 pages of shots on photobucket to back it up with.
Let us know what you have to start with first please.
Caves and rocks mean nothing what so ever to Haps and Peacocks. You can put a whole pile of rocks in there, and it will not alter the aggression between Haps and Peacocks simply because they do not dwell in the lower parts of the tank. It’s very important to factor this into what you are mixing. If you just start throwing in this species and that species, you’re going to have problems.
May 21st, 2009 at 3:23 am
Lot of information there, Legend. Anyway, i don’t see why you can’t have mix any africa you want. What you need to know that mbuna actually very territorial, they will stay in same place tho. That may be good new for Hap, peacock because mbuna is not going to chase them to other( mbuna is to busy to guard their home rather than pick on other fish.
Anyway all you need is heap of cave and hiding place for those fish who need to get away from their enemy. Then all the cichlids should get along well. You need to becareful with mbuna. Too many mbuna then you got problem. So only 1 or 2 Mbuna in same tank. You just need to know that the more cichlids you get the less fight they do.
I think you should fine with the cichlids you want.