55g African Cichlid tank
- Thread starter Roody
- Start date
That fish in the 4th pic looks like a melanochromis auratus. I can tell you that these guys are supposedly some bad mamma jammas, AKA highly aggressive. I can't say much about your other stock except it looks like maybe 1 yellow lab, and possibly one of the zebra species. I'm sure others will chime in here as I have no experience with them, but I've read that the auratus can do some serious damage to the rest of your stocking.
Yeah, M. auratus are natural killers! Your stocking plan can become dangerous. Remember the advices given on your other thread. Also, you will need to add many more hiding places for your fishes; using rocks, for example.
Nice start.
You might want to weight down those plants if you wish to keep them where they are. Mbuna will move things around if they can. Also like efors said you are going to need a lot more hiding spots. You may want to reconsider the M. auratus. He may be cute and nice now but they get to be a pretty good size and have the potential to kill your other fish, I would keep and eye on the maingo/johanni(blue black one). The vertical stripes may be too similar to the auratus and he may decide to take the blue one out. Also I find that the males(Auratus) do not look very nice when they are adults.
From what i can tell you also have 2 zebra types:zed zebra and an albino met. greshakei, since they are a similar species they may end up cross breeding, I would pick one of the other to keep. It looks like you have 2 male albinos as well which will not work out for long. Red zebras are also known for cross breeding with yellow labs if there are not enough female red zebras. Red zebras can also be a bit spunky.
I'm not trying to be rude or anything I'm just being honest. The best way to a successful mbuna tank is to choose species that have similar aggression levels and keep groups of these species. Look up the species you have and choose which ones you want to keep. We can help you with that since a lot of peple have experience with these fish. You have to be carful and provide them with a lot of places to hide and form territories. It may seem to work now but once those fish get a bit larger they will have you pulling your hair out in frustration.
You might want to weight down those plants if you wish to keep them where they are. Mbuna will move things around if they can. Also like efors said you are going to need a lot more hiding spots. You may want to reconsider the M. auratus. He may be cute and nice now but they get to be a pretty good size and have the potential to kill your other fish, I would keep and eye on the maingo/johanni(blue black one). The vertical stripes may be too similar to the auratus and he may decide to take the blue one out. Also I find that the males(Auratus) do not look very nice when they are adults.
From what i can tell you also have 2 zebra types:zed zebra and an albino met. greshakei, since they are a similar species they may end up cross breeding, I would pick one of the other to keep. It looks like you have 2 male albinos as well which will not work out for long. Red zebras are also known for cross breeding with yellow labs if there are not enough female red zebras. Red zebras can also be a bit spunky.
I'm not trying to be rude or anything I'm just being honest. The best way to a successful mbuna tank is to choose species that have similar aggression levels and keep groups of these species. Look up the species you have and choose which ones you want to keep. We can help you with that since a lot of peple have experience with these fish. You have to be carful and provide them with a lot of places to hide and form territories. It may seem to work now but once those fish get a bit larger they will have you pulling your hair out in frustration.
No offense taken at all. Honestly, I'm a little frustrated with myself because I worked so hard to make sure I cycled the tank properly, but I trusted people in the pet stores to help me stock them. That was stupid of me to do. The yellow and black fish in the 4th pic is the one that I believe is sick. I got him saturday night and he has never eaten. Plus, he seems to not be a fan of the light as much. When the lights are on he stays low in the tank and when they are off he goes up.
I appreciate the continued assistance. Clearly, I made a mistake with how I started stocking my tank.
I appreciate the continued assistance. Clearly, I made a mistake with how I started stocking my tank.
I recorded two videos this evening to give you guys something to look at in determining all that I got in my tank. Not sure if you can view .mod files or not, but any assistance would be appreciated. I'm trying to fix my naive mistakes regarding stocking and this would be one big way to do that.
Thanks for any help you can provide.
http://www.tkzm.net/videos/africancichlidtype1.MOD
http://www.tkzm.net/videos/africancichlidtype2.MOD
Thanks for any help you can provide.
http://www.tkzm.net/videos/africancichlidtype1.MOD
http://www.tkzm.net/videos/africancichlidtype2.MOD
