Should i keep seperate male/female tank or trade in females?

[vanpudin]

I have a 55g and 29g tank. Like other newbies to cichlids i bought some that looked good not being sure if male or female. Now for sure i have 1 male ice blue, 1 female rusty, 2 male red zebras, 1 female red zebra, 3 yellow labs with sex undetermined and 2 socolfi, 1 female and 1 maybe male. Their are a few other africans not munba. All these were in 55g.
For a while things were good as a male and female red zebra spawned a couple of times. All babies are in my 29g.
I recently returned female after their 3rd spawn into 55g. The younger male zebra is maturing and chasing my female around along with other male. Meanwhile my ice blue has spawned with my rusty and female socolfi. Those 2 are in my 29g and have both spit out a few fry. I just caputured those fry i could find and put them seperate. I still have 2 sets of red zebra young in 29g. I think the older set of young ate the 3rd batch of babies as i saw1 fry tail in mouth of another. These oldest of the young are almost ready to give me store credit at the local fish store. I know now the male/female ratios are way off in my 55g, but i dont want a bunch of same kind in 1 tank.
Sorry if to long.
Should l keep all my females in 29g while adding other atractive females, or just get rid of females. Female red zebra and socolfi are attractive to me but some female munba are not so much, such as the rusty.
Any ideas for other attractive females.
Ill be moving soon and will wait til afterwards before adding more fish, hopefully getting rid of some babies.

[efors]

Well, you have 2 alternatives. You can go for an all male tank, but this can take you a few months trying to match which males of different species get along well together. Or you can increase the number of fishes of each species you have. In a 55g, you don't have to stock a bunch of fishes of the same kind as you said; you can have 4 different species (as I have) and 5 fishes of each one. This way, is less likely to have crossbreeding as it is happening now; because males will have more than 1 female of their own kind to choose.
If you don't like the female rusty, I suggest you to trade her and keep your other 4 species: red zebras, ice blues, yellow labs and socolofis; but increase their number to 5 of each species. A tank like this will look great!

[reefplayground]

I would probably attempt to get an all male system going.

And for good looking females, Demasoni's are great, but mean, mbunas.

[vanpudin]

Thanks for the suggestions. I think i will probably try to weed out the females in the 55g to make it a male only tank. If i had a tank bigger than 55g i would try the 3 or 4 female to male ratio with a particular kind of fish. If i did this ratio in 55g would'nt i be limited to how many kinds or spieces of fish i keep? I'm not certain yet if i should make the 29g an all female cichlid tank or just use the tank for other fish my family may like. I do have to let babies mature more in the 29g so i can get rid of them. It seems i have had more sucess with african cichlids though. Thanks for more replies

[vanpudin]

Another reason i'm thinking of all male thank in 55g is because i'm getting tired of dealing with fry that i have to keep along time to grow enough to get rid of. I guess i could let nature take its course with babies being snacks in the 55g, but i have a soft heart. Luckly the 2 other females in which male/females (rusty,socolofis) crossbreed, have only 1-2 babies each for some reason. Are the eggs less fertile when when male/female crossbreed? The few babies i may keep because they may be cool lookin when they get bigger. The rusty's 1 fry may look nice when older as the male ice blue is the suspected father. The adult female rusty maybe the one female i get rid of as its the least atractive.
Thank u for anymore replies.

[vanpudin]

Heres a photo just taken of the female rusty and socolfi in 29g along with red zebra babies. It looks like rusty may be holding at least 1 more fry. I recently recovered 2 fry from socolfi and 1 from rusty and moved elsewere.

[vanpudin]

Just saw female rusty spit out 1 fry. I just caught it and put with other fry from rusty and socolfi. Also to add to my list of fish in 55g is another aditional ice blue with sex undetermined. I just forgot it. It's smaller and dosent have coloration as my bigger male ice blue.