Stocking question...

[Hannibal]

Just wanted to see what everyone would do in my situation. Currently in my 55 gallon I have 7 Ob Peacocks, 7 Ice Blue Zebra, 1 Auratus, 1 Red Zebra, 1 Rainbow shark, and 1 sailfin pleco. I got the majority of these for free for various reasons and yes I know its not an ideal mix. Last weekend I picked up a 75 gallon with stand and canopy and my FX5 is on the way so I have been thinking about how I am going to move them around. Here is what I came up with let me know what you think...

55 gallon - Leave the OB peacocks in there
75 gallon - move the Ice blue, red zebra, and pleco
10 gallon - move the Auratus until I can get rid of him, I used to have 8 peacocks and 8 ice blue. I think he is the bully...
20 gallon - put the rainbow shark in with my wife's tank of mollies, guppies, and tetras. Or just get rid of him too.

What do you think? Also, can I add more to the 55 or 75 gallon tanks?

 

[hollyfish2000]

You could do this:

55 -- peacock tank
75 -- mbuna tank

I don't know anything about rainbow sharks. Removing the bully is always a good idea, although I supposed giving him a larger foot print i.e. a 75 might work. Depends on how much you like him.

All that said, I personally don't like OB peacocks, so I wouldn't keep any of them. Are they all males or a colony? If the former, that won't work for long, but you could keep one and probably pull off an all male tank with lots of sight breaks and a concentration on the milder peacocks. Or you could just do an OB species tank and add a small colony of synos.

for your mbuna -- it depends on what you like. You could easily do three species in your 75, but you want to avoid interbreeding so you'd probably need to move out one of the zebra species. You can't go wrong with a bunch of labs. That leaves you one other species. (labs and zebra will interbreed but if you have enough girls in each colony, they should be OK? I'm not an expert on that as I don't keep zebras.)

 

[Hannibal]

I am not sure about the OB peacocks if they are all male or a colony. I will have to do more research to see how to tell the difference. I think I might just leave them in the 55 for now by themselves and see how things go.

I am getting rid of the Auratus, was cool but didn't know what I was getting into before I got him (was my 1st cichlid). I am still up in the air on the Red Zebra might just see if someone wants him.

I thought about adding some labs to the 75 as I do like them. I will have to keep an eye out on here to see if anyone has any they are looking to sell or get rid of...

If you couldn't tell this is my first attempt at cichlids so I am still learning as I go.

 

[greekz]

I got a big black shark about 12" who chases all my peacocks and haps also a rainbow shark about 5" whose aggressive as well. I don't think your guppies,mollies will survive with the rainbow shark.