Getting my 29g water right for mbuna

I'm not very familiar with the chemistry for Lake Malawi, but I do know that during the cycle, your KH will get eaten up naturally. The crushed coral should help, but that also takes a little time to start affecting the water, from what I have gathered. The doses of ammonia that are used in a fishless cycle are typically much higher than will actually be produced once you have fish in the tank, so more KH will be eaten more quickly than normal. Also, you aren't changing water during the cycle, so you aren't replenishing your KH via the tap like will happen once you have fish in there.

PS - You note that you've been cycling for a couple weeks. Have the nitrItes begun showing up yet? If so, you should drop the ammonia level to 3.0ppm instead of 5.0ppm.

29G is way to small for Malawi's. Absolute minimum for small malawi's is 50G. You can do dwarf Tanganicans though.

If your local water is soft and acidic. I would do German blue rams.

all this trouble with water chemistry will be wasted on malawi cichlids. a 29 gallon tank is far too small to successfully house these species ... you will not be able to avoid their natural polygamous spawning aggression in such cramped quarters and many of the fish are going to get killed by what ends up to be the dominant male.

55 gallons minimum for malawi cichlids if you want to be successful.

Any comments on the questions I've asked?

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as in, you don't want to be confused with facts cuz you're going to do what you want anyway?

the chemistry of lake Malawi is: kH 180-240 ppm, gH 160-280 ppm, pH 7.7-8.6.

I agree.... I honestly do not want to give you adivce on how to keep malawis if your going to keep them in a 29 gallon long term. Using it for a grow-out tank is fine though, and you should be thinking of getting at least a 55 gallon set up for them in the near future. I started with a 32 gallon for my malawis and within 6 months they were upgraded to a 90 gallon, and trust me, it was very nessecary.

I think you are too concerned with your water hardness. Get a good african cichlid substrate in there and it will buffer your water to the nessecary levels. Just make sure your pH is good, thats the most important.

Its strange that you would be testing ammonia in your tap water.... but there are products available (such as ammolock) that will help remove ammonia from your tap water. You can also get dechorinator that will also remove ammonia. What test kits are you using?

Also visit this site if your looking into malawi cichlids: http://www.malawimayhem.com. There are some good articles about setting up your tank and proper water chemistry.



HTH
-Diana

Haha.... well its not good your water is testing ammonia. Although, I do recall someone saying chlorine may trigger the test to show ammonia? I dont quite remember. Also something about ammonia creating chloramines which are used to kill bacteria.... so sometimes ammonia is added to the water. Maybe contact your local water department and ask them some questions.

Africans actually do grow quite quickly, of course depending on how frequently you do water changes and how much you feed them. I would aim to upgrade in about 6 months. If it cant be until about a year, maybe start with species that will fare better in that size tank for longer. Yellow labs, for example, are one of the few choices. Rusty cichlids may work as well. This is not really because of thier size, but because of thier temperment. They are less-aggressive and wont kill each other off in a smaller tank. Most other mbuna will...

You could also look into Lake Tangynikan cichlids, which require a very similar water chemistry and biotope. You can get some really awesome smaller sized cichlids, such as shelldwellers (love em).

There are so many possiblities out there .... but I do fancy the malawis.


-Diana