55g, yellow labs and... ?

[nchoe123]

Heya-- the usual question-- what to put in there? I don't want a lot of aggression; but I am pretty sure that the almost-too-popular yellow labs would be good to get; but what else should I add?

I don't think I want to go the shelldweller route... they're not very colorful.

I want vibrant color! Hence the yellow labs.

What other colors can I get? Blue ahli? A single demasoni?

Filtration plans: I have an eheim ecco 2236 and a fluval internal 4+ allocated for this already. Sandy bottom, and a big pile of rocks for caves, I understand.

What else? It'll be pretty bright, with the ~200+ watts of coralife aqualight that I have. No plants, or maybe I'll haul over some of my Amazon Sword (or would it just die?)


Do I need an airstone in addition to the internal powerhead-filter and the external canister?

[GirlieGirl8521]

If you don't want alot of aggression, you could go the all male tank route. There's obviously going to be some aggression, because they are Mbuna. But, with no females to fight over, they won't be as aggressive. Plus, you'll get all the color and vibrant fish.

Just make sure you get males.....you could go with alot of different fish, or make it even less aggressive, by sticking to the Labs, some male Peacocks, and maybe an Acei.

Either way, I think that would be a nice tank.

200+watts of light? I hope you have some actinic bulbs in there to cut down on the watts per gallon......200+watts of daylight and no plants=serious algae. ;)

Actinic bulbs should help cut down on the algae and they will make your fish's colors really stand out.

[nchoe123]

as it turns out the actinic was the one that wasn't working (another thread where I am asking about how to replace the plug that the wires go into-- still don't know the answer there).

I feel like i'd like to see breeding. maybe the acei (from other reading) just so I have more than one color.

Should I bother with non-cichlids like Tiger Barbs, Giant Danios, Rainbowfish to add I don't know, excitement/dithers? I have some Zebra Danios already (GloFish actually, so I don't want them to get eaten-- too expensive for that!)

Seems like it might be tough to ensure that I have males only, plus I do sort of want to see baby labs...

[nickmcmechan]

blue cobalts, red zebras, rustys...

[kay-bee]

Yellow labs are compatible with almost any other species of mbuna. For a low-aggression tank select other low-end aggressive mbuna's (pseudotropheus acei, iodotropheus sprengerae, etc).

Keep in mind when compared to the aggression level of other mbunas, they're mildy aggressive, but if kept with non-mbuna's they may attempt to dominate them. I personally wouldn't recommend any non-cichlids to this set up unless they're some sort african catfish (synodontis genus).

[Coler]

the yellow labs will look great with demasoni (you want 10 - 12 in a ration of 4 or 5 females for the males here).

for a lovely mix of colour think about pseudotropheus acei or pseudo. socolofi, the labs, and iodotropheus sperengae (rusty cichlids), or swap one of the non-labs for an albino variant if you like that look - pseudo. socolofi and pseudo. macrothalmus both have very attractive albino strains. I prefer macrothalmus - nice flash of orange up around the gills/head...4 or 5 of each, say 1 male per 3 or 4 females

[nchoe123]

thanks folks, this gives me a real start on what to look at... there's only so much googling i can do... lots of people write about labs, but since they're so easy to go with, there haven't been many from the low-aggression side of things.