New to Africans, stocking questions

[peach rum 11]

Hello! I've got a 55g Central/South American cichlid tank that i'm clearing out in order to make way for some African cichlids. The tank is 55 gallons, has a hydor prime 20 canister filter, and is decorated with tons of driftwood, rocks, and fake/live plants. The live plants are large anubias, so I'm not to worried about them.
The tank will have 7 giant danios, a pair of bristlenose plecos, and XX African cichlids. I'm thinking of stocking with 1 Christmas Fulu, 1 yellow lab, and 3-4 other same-sized "assorted" Africans. Does this sound ok? Oh, and possibly a Synodontis of some sort. There are TONS of hiding places in my tank and I do bi-weekly water changes of 15-25%.
So now the questions. Is this a good number of cichlids? Should I do 1 less?
WHAT SHOULD I DO ABOUT MALE/FEMALE RATIOS? I want to keep the Fulu a single, since they are 16 bucks each. Would it be ok if I just got a male? How hard are the Africans to breed? Will the assorted cichlids breed with eachother? Is there anything else I should know about these fish? I plan to feed New life spectrum cichlid pellets, bloodworms, mysis shrimp, and dried seaweed.
Please tell me anything else I need to know! Oddly, out of my 6 years of fish keeping, through reefs and brackish setups, community and SA aggressive, I've somehow dodged the African bug...until now

 

[jm1212]

1 male to at least 3 females is recomended.

dont keep plants with african cichlids; they are herbivores and will make short work of them. you may also want to take out the driftwood because africans like their water hard. the rockwork will really help to raise the pH, but adding crushed coral to the filter will also help. rock work is also essential in helping to ease aggresion.

 

[dbcb314]

I would get rid of the danios.... africans dont need dithers


1/3 ratio is a good if you want females. I always thought females were ugly and I don't ever breed fish so when I had africans I only had males.

 

[jm1212]

getting rid of the dithers will also free up some bioload.

 

[peach rum 11]

How difficult is it to breed these fish? I know the females are usually pretty drab, so I may end up going all male. Hmm, then again if I ever wanted to add some female to try to breed, I'm sure it'd be *quite* difficult to convince the other fish to accept them...
Yeah the anubias is already in there, so I'm just gonna leave it. If nothing else it'll give the fish something to snack on/play with for a few days
Where I live, the water comes out of the tap at about 7.5. Oddly, no matter how much driftwood I chuck in my tank (I tried a LOT to lower it naturally for my SA fish) I can't seem to get my pH below 7.4. And I will be adding about 2 cups of crushed coral to my filter :]
There is TONS of rock in there and I'm going to pick up some more today when I go by work to get my new fishies!

 

[peach rum 11]

well, I would gladly get rid of them. I don't even like them that much. I just don't think I can catch them.
So I guess they can chill out in there for a bit. I'll probably end up catching them and taking them in a couple at a time, haha.

Will I have enough room for a Syno or two?

 

[Coler]

The 55 is a good size tank for them; you can do a great set-up.

The minnows need to go.

I don't know how the fulu (lake victoria ?) will get on with the malawis or what the water requirements for it are.

Labs do better in groups - think 1 male/3 female. The nice thing is they all, male and female, have that lovely colouration.

After that, you need to decide what you're looking for. Basically, try to keep species which differ in colouration to avoid too much conflict, and the ratio of 1 male to 3/4 females is used to avoid inter-species problems. All mbuna are territorial and aggressive relative to other fish, but within themselves they also vary greatly (e.g. the labs or acei are quite placid whereas auratus are tank killers at maturity)

Labs look great with blue fish e.g. Pseudotropheus Socolofi or Demasoni (Don't do demasoni with other blue fish, and the ratio needs to be 1/2 males with 8/10 females to spread out inter species aggression with them).

You also want absolutely tons and tons of rockwork set up to form caves, and forget about the real plants; they're likely to become lunch very quickly, but I would in fact take them out.

Check this link for suggested stockings http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/quick_reference_list.php and see what you like. There's also a great species data base.

If it was me I'd do synos (3/4, maybe multipunctatus) instead of the plecs.

You could also consider doing Peacocks (Aulonocara species) also from Lake Malawi; exceptionally colourful, less aggression generally than the mbuna.

edit :

How difficult is it to breed these fish? I know the females are usually pretty drab, so I may end up going all male. Hmm, then again if I ever wanted to add some female to try to breed, I'm sure it'd be *quite* difficult to convince the other fish to accept them...

Not difficult to breed given excellent water & tank maintenance. If you go all male you'll just keep 1 of each species you like and you still don't want to keep similar looking species - not great for e.g. labs which prefer groups and perhaps hard to locate sufficient differently coloured fish. If you go all male really think about the Peacock option - there's so many colour variations and the aggression generally is not as high.

You want to over-filter the tank.- If it was me starting my set-up again I'd run two good quality external cannister filters.

 

[peach rum 11]

The minnows need to go.
Yeaaah the problem is I don't think I can catch them. I'll give it a shot, though!!
The Fulu's are actually extinct in the wild, or so I hear. At work, we keep them in about 7.2 pH with all the other Africans (seperate tanks, of course) and they are pretty aggressive. Their color is absolutely stunning, though.

Ok, I'll probably nix the labs, then. I'd LOVE a male Demasoni, though. I'll actually probably end up with an all-male tank. So as far as color goes: Fulu (he's like, magenta, yellow, green, blue, etc), a Demasoni, a yellow or orange cichlid, this pinkish albino type (SO. pretty.), then the other 1 or 2 will be just anything that catches my eye, possibly a peacock. Sound ok?

I've added 1 metric ****load of rock to the tank, and I'll pick up some more when I go by work. I'm probably also going to be installing a whole network of pvc caves.

I'm keeping the bristlenose plecs because they are a mated pair, and make me monies sometimes . So in that case I'll just add 2 synos. I'll probably wait for a bit on those though, until I can get them some really good secure caves built.
Thanks SOOOOO much for all your help!! I'll let you know tonight what I picked up! (maaan I love my employee discount at work.)

 

[Coler]

No prob my pleasure.

Keeping mbuna & peacocks can be a problem - mbuna more aggressive, different habitats - unless in a very large tank.

By my count you have planned around 7 fish. With mbuna I'd go at least twice that to spread out aggression and prevent hyper-dominant fish from claiming too large a territory.

 

[peach rum 11]

ok, let me get this straightened out. the africans you usually see as "assorted" are typically mbunas?
so i should pick out something like 12 fish (all i can afford right now!) and call it a tank? ooooh i'm excited!
hmmm, so now. what if i accidentally get like, 2 females and 10 males? do all the male mbunas display the spots on/near the anal fin? if not, how will i be able to sex them for sure? or should i just pick out 12 healthy looking fish and hope for the best?