I have a 100g mbuna tank with about 5 fish and 3 fish in QT waiting to be put in. All the books i read about mbuna say these fish have to be kept in a all mbuna tank in groups of one male to 3 females per type of fish. The fish are about 1 to 2 inches long and many i cant tell if they are males or females how do i get this ratio and do i need this ratio
Cichlid Tank
- Thread starter andrew.ars
- Start date
It might still be alittle too early to tell if you have male or female...When we first got our mbuna they were all about the same size as yours and we just had to wait and see.and now our fish are about 3 and a half to 4 inches. and now we can tell what is male and female.....the male has the pointed dorsal fin and the longer and pointer anal fin with longer pelvic fins...and the males tend to have more egg spots on their pelvic fins than the females..but time only told for us..we though we had 2 male labs and it turned out we had 1 male and 1 female...males always have coloring on them, to where the female is a drab brown or tan color....
and the reason ya need the 3-1 ratio is to cut down on aggression on one single female....
I found this on a website on why you need more females to one male in a mbuna tank:::
With all species, just keep one male of each species per tank regardless of tank size. Keep more than one female of the species to each male as this spares the solitary female harassment.
In tanks of over 20 fish, just keep the male of the species as a specimen fish with no females. Avoid keeping similar-looking species together as this will result in males fighting and possible interbreeding.
Here is the website
http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/pages/show_article.php?article_id=604
and the reason ya need the 3-1 ratio is to cut down on aggression on one single female....
I found this on a website on why you need more females to one male in a mbuna tank:::
With all species, just keep one male of each species per tank regardless of tank size. Keep more than one female of the species to each male as this spares the solitary female harassment.
In tanks of over 20 fish, just keep the male of the species as a specimen fish with no females. Avoid keeping similar-looking species together as this will result in males fighting and possible interbreeding.
Here is the website
http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/pages/show_article.php?article_id=604
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I read these things in books but it is almost impossible to tell males from females when they are small and if i could tell the lfs would kick me out if i tryed to pick the fish i wanted out of the african mix tank it takes them 5 min to catch any fish much less the one i want and the big ones are so expensive
so far so good with aggression but that is most likely because they are small
i added the fish from the qt tank and for about 10 min it was ww3 the fish where flashing but now it is calm again
they should post a warning on these fish for new owners i have never seen a fw fish flash until i got a cichlid tank
so far so good with aggression but that is most likely because they are small
i added the fish from the qt tank and for about 10 min it was ww3 the fish where flashing but now it is calm again
they should post a warning on these fish for new owners i have never seen a fw fish flash until i got a cichlid tank
andrew.ars said:
I just got a mbuna tank myself. I'll be adding a couple more fish next week. Hopefully I don't have ww3 going on in my tank also.
Yeah, that was fun watching them try to catch mine also. The girl that was originally helping me gave up and got a more experienced employee to get the fish. And she ended up taking out all the ornaments in the tank to be able to get themandrew.ars said:
There is one thing you can do to stop WW3 in your tank when introducing new cichlids, and that is to rearrange the ""furniture"" in the tank so that every fish can establish a new territory...That can minimize the aggression toward the new cichlids or other fish that are put in the tank....We had to rearrange ours quite a bit..and it seemed to help except for the red zebra we have....He owns the whole tank...:mad2: ...little bugger...gggrrr...yeah it is fun to watch the LFS people to try and catch the cichlids, the people literally rip up the whole tank just to get one or two fish.....
But, try and rearrange the decorations and see if that helps some...if not you might want to get rid of the most aggressive cichlids and go with some more peaceful ones.....our labs and blue peacocks and electric blue are very peaceful towards one another and the one remaining ob peacock we have....I wish hubby never got the red zebra...very aggressive and very territorial....
We were supposed to get 2 male labs and TADAH we have lab fry....oh well we still love our little fishies and fry and all.....
so good luck with the not knowing the sex part...it takes time and hopefully most of the LFS people will know the difference....(cuz we were told we got 2 males) Nope....:dance2:
But, try and rearrange the decorations and see if that helps some...if not you might want to get rid of the most aggressive cichlids and go with some more peaceful ones.....our labs and blue peacocks and electric blue are very peaceful towards one another and the one remaining ob peacock we have....I wish hubby never got the red zebra...very aggressive and very territorial....
We were supposed to get 2 male labs and TADAH we have lab fry....oh well we still love our little fishies and fry and all.....
so good luck with the not knowing the sex part...it takes time and hopefully most of the LFS people will know the difference....(cuz we were told we got 2 males) Nope....:dance2:
The small size prevents accurate identification. Also, the chain LFS are notorious at selling mixed batches which really clouds your decision. Though more expensive, I prefer to buy from breeders to get exactly what I want.
It seems like i'm seeing more assorted cichlid tanks in fish stores,, these appear to be cross breaded fish, and sometimes can be beautifull, I also prefer to stay with the originals tho.....