New African Cichlids....

great - you want to stack up the rock right to the water level, make a couple of piles etc. e.g. the tank in my avatar - I started with 6 pieces of rock...now its a rock tank with a slight fish infestation.

the more rockwork (of course up to a point), the more secure the Fish will feel and the more they will be out and about; somewhat counterintuitively with less rockwork they will cower in the small bit of cover available.
 
great - you want to stack up the rock right to the water level, make a couple of piles etc. e.g. the tank in my avatar - I started with 6 pieces of rock...now its a rock tank with a slight fish infestation.

the more rockwork (of course up to a point), the more secure the Fish will feel and the more they will be out and about; somewhat counterintuitively with less rockwork they will cower in the small bit of cover available.


yeha im starting \to notci\e since i got the rocks they come out a lil bit more...asnd the colors are i donyt know my nicer looking now then when they were at the fish shop
 
ok i was doing some research and it seems that my orange peacock is a OB peacock and my blue one is a Kenyi i think beacuuse i found one that looks like it...anyways to my questions i did some research and these fish seem compatible with my 2 cichlids i have
1.Lavender Bbuna or rusty cichlid
2.blue peacock.
3.Red top hongi
4.red zebra
5.sunshine peacock
6 yellow tail acei
and it was also saying a good mixing species for peacocks are the hapiochromis species.........
 
ok i was doing some research and it seems that my orange peacock is a OB peacock and my blue one is a Kenyi i think beacuuse i found one that looks like it...anyways to my questions i did some research and these fish seem compatible with my 2 cichlids i have
1.Lavender Bbuna or rusty cichlid
2.blue peacock.
3.Red top hongi
4.red zebra
5.sunshine peacock
6 yellow tail acei
and it was also saying a good mixing species for peacocks are the hapiochromis species.........

60 gallon tank correct ? how long (the most important dimension for africans is length, presuming adequate water volume) and how filtered ?

Mixing Mbuna with Aulonocara is not ideal - the Mbuna are generally more aggressive than the Peacocks, who can suffer a bit in terms of feeding & general stress as a result.

But you only have a couple of Peacocks in there right now correct ? So if you don't add more Peacocks, you could happily have a go at say the labidchormis caereulus (yellow lab), labidochromis hongi (red top hongi on your list), iodotropheus sperengae (rusty cichlid, or lavender mbuna on your list) and the Pseudotropheus Acei (yellow tail acei on your list).

Those are considered amongst the least aggressive Mbuna; only real problem I see what those stocked at the ratio of 1 male, 3 females each is that you will likely have hybrid fry between the two groups of labidochromis. If that bothers you (and remember you should never release hybrid fry from your system) choose one group only.

Or, you could equally decide you are doing a Peacock Tank, which you would stock at the same ratio of males to females. The main drawback to Peacocks is that the females are all unattractive and drab, but the Males are stunners. With Peacocks you would try and pick say 4 or 5 different species, again stocked at 1 male to 3 females or so. You almost certainly will end up with hybrid fry as aulonocara are very unselective breeders.

You can mix mbuna and peacocks but this goes against a lot of advice from very qualified and experienced fishkeepers. If you did this, take 3 of the Mbuna groups as discussed above, and find 3 or 4 tops Male Peacocks which are dramatically differently coloured from each other. You may very well end up having to remove from tank due to them not thriving so as always with cichlids and especially rift lake stocking mixes have a Plan B (rehome or different tank).

Your tank is not really big enough to stock the bigger haplochromine species.

Either way you need a ton more rockwork in there - two or three piles all the way up the back of the tank is good. Although it is of course your own personal taste entirely they will generally look better on natural looking gravel, or black sand, with rockwork and a very few plants, or none at all.
 
60 gallon tank correct ? how long (the most important dimension for africans is length, presuming adequate water volume) and how filtered ?

Mixing Mbuna with Aulonocara is not ideal - the Mbuna are generally more aggressive than the Peacocks, who can suffer a bit in terms of feeding & general stress as a result.

But you only have a couple of Peacocks in there right now correct ? So if you don't add more Peacocks, you could happily have a go at say the labidchormis caereulus (yellow lab), labidochromis hongi (red top hongi on your list), iodotropheus sperengae (rusty cichlid, or lavender mbuna on your list) and the Pseudotropheus Acei (yellow tail acei on your list).

Those are considered amongst the least aggressive Mbuna; only real problem I see what those stocked at the ratio of 1 male, 3 females each is that you will likely have hybrid fry between the two groups of labidochromis. If that bothers you (and remember you should never release hybrid fry from your system) choose one group only.

Or, you could equally decide you are doing a Peacock Tank, which you would stock at the same ratio of males to females. The main drawback to Peacocks is that the females are all unattractive and drab, but the Males are stunners. With Peacocks you would try and pick say 4 or 5 different species, again stocked at 1 male to 3 females or so. You almost certainly will end up with hybrid fry as aulonocara are very unselective breeders.

You can mix mbuna and peacocks but this goes against a lot of advice from very qualified and experienced fishkeepers. If you did this, take 3 of the Mbuna groups as discussed above, and find 3 or 4 tops Male Peacocks which are dramatically differently coloured from each other. You may very well end up having to remove from tank due to them not thriving so as always with cichlids and especially rift lake stocking mixes have a Plan B (rehome or different tank).

Your tank is not really big enough to stock the bigger haplochromine species.

Either way you need a ton more rockwork in there - two or three piles all the way up the back of the tank is good. Although it is of course your own personal taste entirely they will generally look better on natural looking gravel, or black sand, with rockwork and a very few plants, or none at all.


I THINK IM JUST GONNA GO WITH DIFFERENT TYPE OF PEACOCKS SINCE THEY REALLY ARE GOOD LOCKING..

TO ANSWER YOURE QUESTIONS MY TANK IS 60 GALLON ( 4FT LONG 14" HIGH BY 12 WIDE...

what different type of peacocks are there to chose from? and yeah i know i need more rocks alot more but im not planning on finishing stocking my tank tell i change my gravel and have more rocks then i'll add more peacocks i really like the albino peacocks with the orange eyes..

i just want to know what fish i want to get when i go to my lfs... know what i mean?

anyways thanks agian and here some questions

what different type of peacocks is there and for each species of peacocks i stock them to the ratio of 1 male to every 3 females?
 
tons of options :

www.cichlidforum.com - use the species database and look at Lake Malawi Peacocks. Equally your LFS will have lots of aquarium created colour morphs which you might like. Try not to have similarly coloured males. Its getting the females that's the problem, as they are all very unattractive and don't sell well.

1 Male, 3 or 4 females is good for all of 'em. Stock one group of each kind - maybe 15 or so fish...although the temptation will always be to go up to 18 or 20 and you can do that subject to filtration and water change discipline.

You can alternatively go for an all Male tank but you have to pretty much stick to just 1 of each species/colour morph and even then they can beat the tar out of each other, so you need a Plan B - either ability to return fish, or 2 large tanks to swap them around; not reccomended if starting out with these fish. Again about 15 specimens would be nice.

What filtration are you running ? you want to seriously over filter the tank.
 
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