stocking ratio

[boydie]

hey all

whats a good m to f ratio for breeding africans in a 3x2x2 tank.

cheers boydie

[D6C1]

What africans do you have in mind?

Usually 1M and 2 or 3F

[GTR73]

Depends what Africans you have but I've found 4-5 girls and 1 boy is a good ratio. I bred P.saulosi in a 3ft for a while and the male was really hard on his woman. I found that 3 girls wasn't enough because I'd usually have one with a mouthful removed to a separate brooding tank, which left just two girls and they'd cop it even worse. Not to mention the fact the male will continue harassing a weakened mouth brooding female regardless. So I lost a couple when first starting off.

However that extra one or two girls made all the difference - too many ladies for him to keep up with!

[dobbin4]

3x2x2 ,, would not allow many ,, 1 x m 5 x f would be fine.

You will need plenty of cover, pots ,caves etc

To help the holding females.

I would go for more female's in a tank that size to allow the aggression to be spread among the females.

GTR73 has it right.

[Frontosa Andrew]

You can breed most of the smaller species of mbuna in that size tank. Peacocks should be around 1 M:3-4 F, yellows are a little more flexible with regards to numbers. It also depends on which way you want to with the breeding. If you're content to watch the spectacle that is cichlid parental behavior, keep the numbers down. If you want to breed for trade/commercial reasons and the parental behavior doesn't blow your skirt up, then you can add a few extra fish and remove the mothers to a separate tank or a fry saver (fry saver method not recommended for anything bigger than yellows). Don't keep yellows and auratus together, as they crossbreed readily, and the offspring can be a right mongrel to distinguish and separate.