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First time African cichlid tank. Few questions + Advice welcomed.


Tozman

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Hi guys I have recently setup my tank to try raising some Africans, the only fish iv owned apart from Gold fish was a huge red devil who was on her own and very easy to keep.

Now that I have more fish in the tank I was hoping for some tips and even just general advice on keeping Africans. 

Firstly, are all these fish compatible in the long run? (unsure of proper names sorry) I was told they are but the hongi seems to chase the yellows a lot.

8x electric yellows, 2x dragonbloods, 2x peacock, 1x hongi, 1x blue dolphin, 1x little catfish (I'm unsure of the name of this one, was just told they go well with Africans? I'll try attach a picture, he's very fast.)

 

Second, how many is too many?  Iv been told to "stock it high with Africans" to avoid them becoming territorial but I'm not sure how many that is. Tank is 4x2x1.5 ft and I have 15 fish so far.

 

Thanks guys :)

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:raisehand:  welcome to ACE Tozman

good size tank but what filtration do you have on it ?

it shouldn't be a problem increasing the fish numbers so long as the filtration is correct for an increase

also you need to factor in that the fish will grow and what looked like an empty tank will soon look full

your Yellows look a bit pale it may be food , new to the tank or just how they are, try and feed them

some colour enhancing food with your staple food of choice it may help

 

the catfish looks like a Synodontis petricola by the body shape and these are a dwarf species

https://www.google.com.au/?gws_rd=ssl#q=synodontis+petricola&*&spf=64

the other it could be is Synodontis multipunctatus cuckoo cat

https://www.google.com.au/?gws_rd=ssl#q=synodontis+multipunctatus&*&spf=1813

hope this helps with your start in African cichlids

 

 

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Hi Link2hell thanks for your help :)

The catfish is definitely a Synodontis petricola thankyou for clearing that up. 

At the moment I have an aquaone 500 hang on filter and a resun sp-2500L internal power filter (pic attached). Seeing how it goes with this setup as I can't afford another canister filter atm (mine lost vacuum and burned out on me while I was on holidays at Xmas). Do you think this will be good enough? 

The yellows were like that when I got them, they were being fed a mix of TTanked 1,2,3mm pellet mix with 5mm spirulina disc mixed in, all sinking.

I was given a little pouch of it when I bought them from my mate and have since crushed up some aqua one cichlid pellets and some hikari cichlid gold I had leftover and mixed in with it to add some colour. If there is something better I should be giving them I'd love some suggestions as iv only got enough for another month or two so I'll buy some bulk food when I get paid.

Iv only had the fish for a week now, and I do miss my devil, but I am certainly loving having more colours and movement in the tank! Spent hours sitting and watching them swim around every afternoon :)

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Hi Tozman. Welcome to the cichlid world. I recommend New Life Spectrum or hikari cichlid gold. Both decent foods. As far as the bloodworms go ive heard mixed opinions about them. Ive never fed my mbuna with it and they have grown well. Good luck with the hobby.

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Hi Tozman

the filtration will be OK as Africans are not as dirty a fish as large Americans in waste production

ATM I would just be concentrating on the fish you have for a couple months and then look at expanding

once everything has settled down and you figure what you like and what you think are hmmmmm 

try to round them up into a group of about 4-5 of each species

as you are new to this I may as well start you off on Peacocks and the differences

for a newbie they are just Peacocks for most long time keepers there are 2 schools

1.) they only look to keep correct type species and never mix them in the same tank unless they are display males

the Asian hybrid types are not rec'd well = OB, Dragon blood etc that have no natural location other than Asian ponds

2.) they are not worried by keeping the hybrids and breed them to sell as they are colourful and sell easy.

the yellows I don't think will improve in quality but you will get more colour into them using Tetrabits or similar Colourbits

I stand by the line - it costs the same to feed good fish as it does bad fish so always look for the better quality

different fish have different feeding techniques

Bloodworms and better Blackworms in moderation will be fine but ... Mbuna are algae grazers with long intestinal tracts

so high protein foods are not recommended as in the worst case scenario you can get bloat

MBUNA =  E Yellow, Hongi etc small Malawi algae grazers that find small amounts of inverts while grazing

Peacocks sift for invertabrates and what else they find

Bllue Dolphin sift and recycle detritus plus what other nutrients they find

Sera Flora is a good staple flake for all your fish

NLS have some good foods in their line but the pellets tend to leave a red residue while the algae gel is good

Hikari and Dianichi  also make a good pellet

try to match the food to the fish and it's easier for a large fish to eat small pellets but not the other way around

 

 

 

 

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Thank you very much for the advice. I will do some research online to learn more about each specific breed I have and also learn their proper names and types. 

I will pick up some Sera flora flake this week if I can find some, if not I will order some in. thank you for that, the food was the main thing I was worried about. 

I will keep the fish I have for now until I learn more about them and then I will think about stocking some more. 

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Don't go crazy with overstocking, in around 12 months the tank will look much fuller as the fish will have doubled in size, with the dominant fish being possibly bigger again. Although the fish go nuts for bloodworms/blackworms, most of your fish will get enough protein from a good pellet food like NLS/Hikari etc and will grow fast enough. Frequent water changes will enable the fish to grow faster. Similar looking species will eventually start picking on each other and you may have some losses as they mature. I would get a few more syno's as they look great when they group together and are more active. The internal filters are a huge pain, I'd get another cannister too. Enjoy.

 

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