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Hi all,

I am a newbie looking to start my first African Cichlid tank. I live in a rowhouse in DC so the biggest tank I can probably fit is a 55g (afraid to put anything bigger on the second floor of a 100+ old house.

Therefore I am thinking dwarf Mbuna. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I am still absorbing all I have read and watched about setting up a freshwater tank in general and an A. Cichlid tank more specifically, but there are so many decisions that I am having trouble starting.

Any suggestions on filter type, stocking suggestions, etc. would be greatly appreciated.

My wife is willing to let me put the tank in our bedroom (and I have not told her about the 10g quarantine I will need to have in the spare bedroom) but that is about it. Therefore, I am not looking to breed, can I have an all male 55g tank? If not, are there any tricks to keep breeding to a minimum? If I go with an all male tank, any stocking suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Dan




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Welcome to the forum


Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app

Welcome to the forum!


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Welcome to the forum! There's lots of mbuna keepers in the club that can help steer you in the right direction. Do you have a particular species that you want to keep? I suggest you find one and build a tank around it. If you can, we meet the 2nd Saturday of every month at JFK high school on Randolph rd in Silver Spring. You should come check out a meeting. The speaker in October will be presenting on cichlids from lake Malawi.



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Welcome! I too am setting up my first larger tank, and plan to stock it with mbuna!!! The only difference is that I got it to breed cichlids, not to not breed them! I like P. Demasoni, but I've never heard of anyone even attempt to keep such an aggressive fish in an all-male tank. But good luck!!! Breeding fish is fun!

Welcome!

I would go with an 18 inch wide tank. A standard 75 is 18 inches wide. If you are really concerned about weight there are a couple of 12" tall versions which means the tank is 45 to 50 gallons. Deep Blue makes one and Glass Cages does also.

A 55 or 40 long would be fine for smaller, less aggressive mbuna. However for an all-male tank, the extra width will be very helpful. With one tank, I would focus on smaller and more mellow haps and peacocks.

I have a 40 breeder that is a ruby red peacock colony and a 45 which is a white tail acei and yellow lab tank. Both are only 3' and work quite fine for what I'm doing.

I would not try to do an all male mbuna tank. I'm not sure how you'd even manage that, actually.

You can easily do what I've done with mild mbuna. If you don't make the tank hospitable to fry and if you add a few syndontis, you won't have to worry about fry. You could do an all male peacock tank, but with a 55 you'd be constrained to very mild peacocks and a lot of vigilance IMHO

I think Sam (Avatar) has a few thousand gallons worth of fish tank on the third floor of a 100+ year-old row home in DC... maybe ask him for some tips?

Make sure everyone is ok sleeping through filter noises, heater lights, etc. before you put it in a bedroom. I don't keep tanks in my bedroom... nothing like the sound of running water to make you wake up having to pee 20 times a night...

Welcome Dan -

Becca is right about the sounds in the night - and also right about talking with Sam (Avatar) - he has lots of tanks in an old house - a piece of plywood on the floor to help distribute weight more evenly is one suggestion - the other is - if you can tell which way the stringers in the floor lie (if you have wooden floors the floor boards lie across the stringers - then set the tank across the stringers (same direction as the wood flooring) - distributes the weight across several stringers rather than along one or two.

Hope to see you at the Sept CCA meeting on the 14th in Silver Spring.

Decided on a 75g (thanks to Loni (londonloco)

Well, I decided to get and, thanks to Loni (londonloco), I now have a 4’, 75g tank. But I now need to decide what I am going to put in it and was hoping for some input regarding:

1. Compatibility among the following options
2. Whether the tank is the appropriate size for the species
3. How many of each I should get; and
4. suggestions for compatible algae eaters.

As you can see from the list, I am definitely set on Mbuna, and, as a Mets fan, I would really like to have some orange and blues in the tank. Other than that my main goal is to ensure the fish are compatible.


My ideal set up would include:

• C. Afra (Cobue)
• L. Trewavasae
• P. Saulosi
• P. Johannii

But I am concerned with the overall size of the L. Trewavasae, the aggressiveness of the P. Johannii, and the compatibility of the P. Saulosi and the C. Afra (Cobue).


Other things I was thinking about were:

1. Go with Maingano instead of P. Johannii, I know I lose some orange with the lack of P. Johanii females but I may be able to make this us with adding some M. Estherae (Red)
2. Replacing the P. Saulosi with M. Estherae (Red) and a different blue species that will get along with the C. Afra Cobue
3. Going with Rusties instead of L. Trewavasae (not ideal but willing to do so because I can’t get a bigger tank).

At the same time, I am open to your suggestions.

To help, I have included a picture of what my rock structure may look (I will see how it looks in the tank before “gluing it together).

Finally, due to some other unanticipated commitments, I am probably not going to be able to start stocking until mid October, so if people have fry in these species that anticipate wanting to sell around then, please let me know .

Thanks for your help