150 gallon Mbuna tank stocking

[tanksAlot]

Hi all, I have a 150 gallon tank that has 700 lbs of rock for cover, the tank has been fishless cycling for over three weeks, ammonia is 0-ppm, nitrates have spiked and are dropping, plan on doing water change and stocking this tank with its full fish load of 64 Mbuna next week. Its filtered by overfull and sump with prefilter socks, bio media, crushed coarl in filter, two retrun pumps, one returning 700 gallons through three nozzles, one rerturning 950 gallons through spray bar built into rock pile. The mbuna I have collected so far for this tank are listed below, i plan on stocking 8 of each fish, assumimg possiably a reduction in numbers as the tank settles in, removing bullies or picked on fish. What are your thoughts, thanks Mike M
8-Pseudotropheus sp. "acei"
8-Metriaclima callainos
8-Pseudotropheus polit
8-Labidochromis sp. "Perlmutt"
8-Metriaclima sp. "elongatus chewere"
8-Cynotilapia afra :Nkhata bay"
8-Labidochromis sp. "Mbamba"
8-Metriaclima Lombardio "Kenyi"

 

[verbal]

I think the Metriaclima would be problematic. Kenyii are colorful, but extremely mean. I have heard similar things about Pseudotropheus polit. You also probably want to choose one of the two Labidochromis groups.

I don't think roughly 64 fish is a bad option for your initial stocking. However I think you might want to start with groups of 10 to 12.

 

[tanksAlot]

Thanks verbal, do you think with the population in the tank that the aggression of the kenyii and polit would be spread out. Would they pick on there own or go after the less aggressive like the acei. I idea is to have an aggressive tank within reason, very body co-existing. Reduse speicies and increase numbers? Once again for your time, Mike

 

[Tony]

That's quite a few blue vertical-barred fish in there. Like Jessie said, Kenyi are known bruisers, as are cobalt blue zebras and elongatus. Is this a 6' 150 or a 4' 150? If it's 4', you could be pretty rough.

The rock work is pretty impressive. It may be a bit tough pulling fish though.

 

[fischfan13]

Hi all, I have a 150 gallon tank that has 700 lbs of rock for cover, the tank has been fishless cycling for over three weeks, ammonia is 0-ppm, nitrates have spiked and are dropping, plan on doing water change and stocking this tank with its full fish load of 64 Mbuna next week. Its filtered by overfull and sump with prefilter socks, bio media, crushed coarl in filter, two retrun pumps, one returning 700 gallons through three nozzles, one rerturning 950 gallons through spray bar built into rock pile. The mbuna I have collected so far for this tank are listed below, i plan on stocking 8 of each fish, assumimg possiably a reduction in numbers as the tank settles in, removing bullies or picked on fish. What are your thoughts, thanks Mike M
8-Pseudotropheus sp. "acei"
8-Metriaclima callainos
8-Pseudotropheus polit
8-Labidochromis sp. "Perlmutt"
8-Metriaclima sp. "elongatus chewere"
8-Cynotilapia afra :Nkhata bay"
8-Labidochromis sp. "Mbamba"
8-Metriaclima Lombardio "Kenyi"

64 Mbuna in a 150g is great!
Here is my 2 cents.
ONE Group of Pseudotropheus
ONE Group of Metriaclima
ONE Group of Labidochromis
...and so on.
Even with the large numbers of each you still run the chance of crossbreeding.
What I do REALLY like is that you are doing a tank with 8 of these and 8 of those. Too many people want to do one or two of each Mbuna .

As for the Kenyi...please reconsider.

 

[69cichlids]

64 Mbuna in a 150g is great!
Here is my 2 cents.
ONE Group of Pseudotropheus
ONE Group of Metriaclima
ONE Group of Labidochromis
...and so on.
Even with the large numbers of each you still run the chance of crossbreeding.
What I do REALLY like is that you are doing a tank with 8 of these and 8 of those. Too many people want to do one or two of each Mbuna .

As for the Kenyi...please reconsider.

Agreed, I have kenyi...very aggressive they ended up killing a few of my fish

Sent from my SCH-I500 using MonsterAquariaNetwork App

 

[fishman13]

Good luck trying to get holding females. Am i right tony. All those questions i had about how to catch a holding female. But AWSOME tank.

 

[verbal]

Good luck trying to get holding females. Am i right tony. All those questions i had about how to catch a holding female. But AWSOME tank.

I am not tony, but I do agree that it would be hard to catch holding females. However you likely would get some fry that managed to hide in the crevices. Which makes it more important not to potentially produce hybrids.

 

[gravel_digger]

thats a great looking tank....

 

[WendyFish]

You've clearly put a lot of thought into your equipment and now stocking. It is coming together awesome. :happy0158:

One thing you might consider about the rockscape is based on my experience with heavily rocked and crowded tanks. If you want your fish to breed, they may have a bit more difficulty doing it in a heavily rocked tank, especially as they get bigger; at least in my experience with mbuna, bigger fish in crowded and rocky tanks can have trouble finding a big enough, private enough space to spawn uninterrupted by others. My other bit of experience is, depending on the personality of the fish, they can be less active in heavily rocked tanks. Basically, everyone finds a cave and they're pretty happy to just lurk in it. More balance of rock and open water leads to more activity on average, while the fish still have somewhere to go and hide if they are stressed. Just a thought, this could certainly depend on personalities. Plus it's easy to pull some of the rock out if you want to play around with it.

Also, I guess something this thread brings up that I don't know is whether the "one per species" idea, while definitely a good rule of thumb, is a strict necessity. Take especially something like pseudotropheus, whose species and morphs are widely diverse and where over time a number of fish have been reclassified in/out. It seems like you can follow some other common sense rules on body type and appearance that will prevent hybridization perfectly adequately. On the flipside, of course, are things that will hybridize totally readily across species (e.g. red zebras and yellow labs) so the comment on the multiple blue barred fish is definitely something to watch out for! All of this of course is subject to adequate numbers. My advice is, even if you don't think you want to breed them -- having been in this camp once myself -- the idea that you have to fish them out and cull them if they breed sucks. Especially because once you see the little buggers, they're really cute.

 

[fishman13]

I am not tony, but I do agree that it would be hard to catch holding females. However you likely would get some fry that managed to hide in the crevices. Which makes it more important not to potentially produce hybrids.

I know jesse. LOL. I was talking to tony. Confeusion is a problem with me when i post.