Will a pair of these guys fit in a 29g?

[Wippit Guud]

Tank at work has a Pseudotropheus Acei who's holding at the moment... wanted to get a pair of them to start my life in the cichlid world of things. Would they grow too big for a 29?

(actually, I wanna get 5, hope for 2 to pair off, and send the rest back)

[DarthV]

Males will stay under 6" long, so it probably shouldn't be a problem, with enough filtration that is. I'm not sure what the safe ratio between males and females would be.

[Andy16]

a 29 should be fine with just 2. When you have 5 you might have some aggresion going on and some of the fish you send back might be pretty beat up.

[Reiner]

Yes they would fit but I would go for 1m and 3 f ratio. They don't form pairs like other cichlids they are harem brooders. If a single female is holding for 3-4 weeks the male will constantly bother her to mate again. But if you have more females the male has a few females he can bother and won't stress just 1 poor female.

[valerie]

if you were to get just 2(male/female) the male will most likely pick on the female constantly. They are polygamous(sp?) mouthbrooders so they don't form pairs. Its best to keep atleast 1male/2-3females. The more females you have the less likely they are to be harrassed by the male.

For a 29g i wouldn't add any Mbuna besides electric yellows(Lab.caeruleus) As most MBuna are too aggresive to be housed in sucha small tank. Even though Ps.acei are supposedly one of the "less" aggresive Mbuna i still don't think they would do well in such a small tank.

If you want to get into african and you don't want to start out with a big tank(55g +), then why dont' you look into shellies.

[Wippit Guud]

Shellies are harder to find :P

[DarthV]

Pets Unlimited in Moncton had some dwarf vieja cichlids in with some blue acaras...I think they were actually an apisto species... I don't think they had very many of them though.

[Wippit Guud]

Gonna hit the Pets U here today while my car is in the shop to see if I can get a list of what they have the ability or order in, give me a better idea for what I have to work with.

[DarthV]

Hahahah don't make me laugh. I haven't had any luck whatsoever in getting the staff at the Pets Unlimited here in F'ton in getting ANY of the species I want. I got one of the best excuses I have ever heard when I wanted a Jack Dempsey - "The supplier has the marked as out of season" WTF?! I've brought in lists on numerous occasions and still get the run-around. My new stand for a 50gak should be ready this weekend, but I'll look elsewhere for the tank if PU won't accomodate my livestock needs. The manager waffled about "margins" when I handed him a list last week. I just sent off an email to aquacreations and hopefully they will be able to help me out.

[Wippit Guud]

Man, I should've applied for the fish manager job... if I had known then what was gonna happen in my personal life, I would've in a second...

... suposed to be a place in Halifax where the 2 head fish guys are big into Africans.

[DarthV]

Well it just comes down to them not wanting to bring in a lot of fish that they might not be able to sell. If they won't bring in fish for me, I'll let my wallet show my displeasure. ;)

[thekrib]

i got 4 pseudotropheus 2 m 2 f, 1 female was stupidly packed in the same bag as the male, and was mostly dead when we got her home, she died in the tank 5 minutes later, the other female was chased into a rock pile and got herself stuck overnight and i found her dead, this is just to give you an idead, they are really relentless to the females. and you will have to only have 1 male because the males will kill eachother if you only have 2, either 3 or more males or 1 male.

the good thing is that you dont have to pair them up. get 1 male and at least 2 females.

[Wippit Guud]

Well, could you fit 3 in a 29g?

[thekrib]

you could fit the 3 (1m 2f) plus other malawis if you wanted