2/3 major lakes accounted for... are you thinking what i'm thinking?

So, I have a malawi mbuna tank. it's going pretty well, with a bunch of labs (labidochromis caeruleus)--which have bred and one female's holding right now, so they're fairly happy, cobalt zebra (uh, metriaclima callainos), and rusties (iodotropheus sprengerae).

so that's about 15 labs (including five 1" juveniles), 5 rusty, 5 cobalts. a decent mix. i rehomed my murderous pair of auratus back to the store. of rocks, and both a HOB and canister (eheim 2236) as well as an in-tank fluval 4 for water movement. This is a standard 55g. very happy with this tank overall.

Through the magic of craigslist a couple months ago I got a bunch of Victorians: a half dozen Zebra Obliquidens and 7 Fire Red Uganda's. They're all juvies, but growing rapidly. This is in a 50 breeder (36" x 18 x 18). Got another eheim 2236 and a sponge filter in this at the moment.

So now... what about Lake Tanganyika? That's the question.

Do I go for the shellies? I don't want another gigantic tank. I do have my eyes on a 29 via craigslist. I guess I would do a few shellies, and then move some of my other fish there (the top-water swimmers like Glofish perhaps?). Though of course that's not authentic, and I'm mostly trying for authenticity with the other two lake tanks...

So, the misc. fish I have in some other tanks:

a dozen tiger barbs and eight Glofish (fluorescent zebra danios) in a 37.

eight cories in a 10g (a $10 craigslist tank, ugly beige trim, crappy incandescent lights)

about a dozen platys (they breed like crazy, drive me nuts), and a female betta in an eclipse 12 (modified to use a regular HOB filter when the eclipse filter broke).

Should i nix the Tanganyikan tank idea and just use the incoming tank to consolidate my random community fish?

The cories are not currently in with the barbs; because I have a lot of them, they probably might not harass them TOO much; they might, however. The real concern there is that when I feed the barbs, I notice that not a single bite of food makes it down to the bottom...

I did move four little labs into the victorian (now "-ish") tank and the betta in with the cories in the 10g. it was weird having nothing but bottom swimmers in there. now it's placid as before but there's a fish at the top of the tank as well

BTW, i'm sure that you can sympathize how incredibly difficult it is to catch mbuna in a tank full of rocks...

Hmm, no word from the craigslist seller, so maybe I'll pick up a 20 long (same footprint, and besides, shellies wouldn't use more than about 6" of depth right?) instead.

another cichlid site has some template suggested tank stocking suggestions, and since they suggested zebra danios, I think I'll rehome mine to give the tank some visual interest in the top part of the water. they really shouldn't have much difficulty with shellies, or vice versa.

got a regular 20 (out of 20 longs where i looked). half a dozen lamprologus ocellatus "blue"; also dropped my half dozen sunburst orange Glofish, who swim in the top 2/3 of the tank. with sinking food, they seem to let enough drop down for the ocellatus to eat.


i now have all three major rift lakes covered, hooray!