# Newbie with a 77gal African Cichlid tank. Need Help!



## CanadianCoaster (Apr 16, 2010)

Hey guys. I'm new here and I posted this in the tank setup sections and it was suggested that I post it here so here goes:

Hi everyone! This is my first post in the forum. I recently set up a 77 gal african cichlid tank (my first cichlid tank) and I think that I've made a few mistakes. I had a list of fish that I could put together and according to some other forums I've mixed the wrong fish and I don't have the right numbers of each. Could someone please give me some correct advice on what fish I should have in my tank? Since I'm just starting out, I only got one of each fish because I was afraid that they would breed and I don't think that I'm ready for that yet. Or was that my first mistake? This is what I have in my tank right now: 
(I've sexed them myself just by going by their fin shape so I might be wrong and probably am)

Males: 
yellow lab 
rusty 
yellow tail acei 
fontosa 
red zebra 
electric blue johanni 
albino socolofi

Females: 
colbalt blue 
ob peacock 
marble 
taiwan reef (not sure if that is what she is or not) 
cherry red hap (not sure if that is what she is or not)

I have pictures of the taiwan and cherry but I'm not sure how to attach them to my post. I appriciate any advice that you can give me. I'm hoping that the people on this forum are nicer than the others that I've posted on because they just told me I didn't know what I was doing and that I screwed up. I know that I don't everything about cichlids yet. I just started out but I want to do this right. I'm getting close to 30 and my husband and I are building a new house this fall and we really want to put a giant tank (at least 500 gallons) into our new home so we decided to start off with a 77gal and "get our feet wet" as they say and work out all the kinks before we get our big tank. So if there's anyone out there who knows what their doing and is willing to help a newbie out, please reply to me! I'll be looking forward to all of your advice! Thanks!!


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## scrubjay (Oct 25, 2009)

You can post photos after you have posted five times. :wink:

OMG you really screwed up!! Just kidding :lol: Welcome to the forum, we are here to help newbies 

heck, we all have probably made mistakes with cichlids--I'm not sure it is possible to _not _make a mistake at one point or another. You didn't do so badly. It seems you must have gotten these from a fish store, correct? Do you have any way of taking some back or trading some in, or even selling them to someone else?

Most of your cichlids are from Lake Malawi and would do well in your tank. Two common problems with Malawi cichlids are incompatibility due to aggression, and hybridization between two species. To avoid these things, people generally do one of two things: (a) have an all-male tank where none of the males looks similar to another (males fight other males of their own species of course), or (b) choose a few to several species (depending on tank size) and have one male and 4-6 females of each species. No two species should look alike, to reduce intraspecific (within species) aggression and to reduce the potential for hybridization. These darn mouth-brooding cichlids aren't too picky about the species of their mate! You can also deal with the problem of hybridization by having a little group of Synodontis catfish that will eat the fry when they are very young. Hybrid fish shouldn't leave your house.

Let's assume you want to go with the all-male tank. Are your tank dimensions 48" long x 18" wide x 20" high? If so, you can have roughly 20 Malawi cichlids in there, plus a group of catfish.
Many of these fish are a good choice for an all-male tank. But there are a few that are probably best taken out if you want a better chance at attaining a stable community. This is because mbuna (most of your fish fall into this group of Malawi cichlids) are more aggressive than fish in other species groups and are best kept with others of their kind.

Two I recommend getting rid of:
The _frontosa _from Lake Tanganyika should go. They really need a larger tank and are usually kept with other frontosa. I don't think it will thrive in an all-male mbuna tank. 
The blue johanni. They are too aggressive and will not help things.
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/profiles/species.php?id=760

The rest of the males should be okay together.

Now, whether or not you should keep the others depends on whether they are female or not. If they are females, you should get rid of them because they will hybridize with the males.

Also, as a very general rule, peacocks and haps should not be mixed with the more aggressive mbuna. So even if they were male, I might get rid of the OB peacock.

I don't know what the "marble" is--another patchy calico-looking cichlid?
Not sure about Taiwan Reef or _Protomelas _sp. "Steveni Taiwan" (Taiwanee Reef) and whether it would go with the other males if it was a male 
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/p_steveni.php
"cherry red hap" - maybe a Super Red Empress?? I would probably recommend removing whether female or not.
If you look up the species profiles http://www.cichlid-forum.com/profiles/index.php, you will find more photos of males and females that may help you sex them. Or if they are too young, wait until you can.

That leaves you with male yellow lab, rusty, yellow tail acei, red zebra, albino socolofi. So the next step would be to add more male mbuna of different colors, or decide to have a few species groups instead (e.g., lab group, rusty group, and acei group, all of which are less aggressive species.

That's probably enough to chew on for tonight. My pet rats are going crazy upstairs and sounds like things are getting knocked over. :lol:


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## CanadianCoaster (Apr 16, 2010)

Thanks scrubjay. You have been so helpful. I never expected anyone to go to all the troble that you have to help out someone you don't even know. Hopefully you'll be able to answer a few more of my questions.

I'm not sure if I can return a few of my fish to the store or not but I will look into it as well as selling the others that don't belong. I got most of my fish from one store, a few from another and then the remaining from someone I found online who was looking to sell off his smaller fish to make room for his larger ones.

As for the synodontis catfish; would any catfish or pleco work the same because I am looking into a few different plecos for my tank. I'd ultimately like to have a zebra (L046) but before I pay a couple hundred dollars for a fish, I want to make sure he's not going to just be a very expensive snack. Either him or a snowball or mega clown pleco or even a white seam pleco. (And I promise to never willingly introduce a hybrid of mine into the genral poplution. I have seen how riled-up that topic gets some people on the forums!)

My tank is 48''x18''x24'' but it's only my starter tank and I will be upgrading to a 500 gall (or larger) this fall or next summer. So that brings me to another question. Let's say next summer when I have my new tank, I want to add in more fish. Do I have to buy full grown fish so that they don't become snacks for my (I'm assuming by that time) full grown fish? Or can I just go to a LFS and pick up another batch of juvies and mix them in? And how long does it take a cichlid anyway to be considered full grown and develop it's adult colors?

Ok, assuming that I do go with an all male tank, what other fish can I combine with the ones that you recommended that I keep? When I was going through the profiles I found some that I would absolutely love to have:
1. Altolamprologus calvus (black or white)
2. Julidochromis marlieri (burundi)
3. Dimidiochromis compressiceps (once I get my larger tank of course)
4. Neolamprologus brichardi
5. Melanochromus interruptus
6. Paracyprichromis nigripinnis
7. Placidochromis sp. Phenochilus tanzania
8. Cynotilapia afra (cobue)
9. Pseudotropheus demasoni
10. Tropheus annectens
11. Neolamprologus helianthus
12. Tropheus duboisi
13. Neolamprologus marunguensis
14. Protomelas ornatus
15. Lepidiolamprologus kendalli
16. Neolamprologus signatus
17. Paralabidochromis sp. Rock Kribensis

And that list brings me to yet another question. I'm noticing that most fall into 3 catergories with their names. chromis, prologus and tilapia. Should I be sticking to just one of the 3 or can I combine fish from these 3 different names or does it even matter?

And thanks for the proper names of my taiwan and cherry red. When I compared them to the photos I found under the profiles section I'm pretty confident that they are a Protomelas sp. "Steveni Taiwan" (wether she's a female remains to be seen) and a Super Red Empress.

And one final thing for tonight, if I switched my male frontosa out for a female, would I be able to keep her in the tank with the rest? I've always wanted one and it's kind of the reason I got into cichlids; I just wasn't aware that I could ONLY have frontosas in a tank.

Thanks again!


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## scrubjay (Oct 25, 2009)

I might not able to answer all questions at once today, but let's start with a few.

First, a general warning that an all-male Malawi mbuna tank is not an easy tank to maintain due to the aggressive nature of these fish. Expect to be watching for fish hiding in the corner of your tank, or injured fish, because they are being bullied. You will likely have to trade out fish until you find a mix that works and is stable. You should have a 10-gallon set up for fish being ejected from the other fish and some way of dealing with these fish. It really is best to add them all as juveniles at once. Established fish will attack newcomers. You can try to reduce the aggression by changing up the rockwork and adding new fish at night, but this may only work occasionally. More aggressive fish may need to be removed as well as those being bullied. So, be certain you want to deal with this hassle. All-male hap and peacock tanks are much easier, but you shouldn't mix them with any but the sweetest mbuna, like yellow labs.

Either a male or female frontosa will get too big for that tank and really shouldn't be kept with the mbuna from Malawi. I know they are beautiful cichlids, but they are much different in character. Some even find them boring after a while, unfortunately. I think they are great fish, but best kept in a really large tank as a group. They also get big enough to eat other cichlids. There is a series of articles on frontosa in the library 
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/frontosa_corner.php

Personally I don't like mixing Tanganyikan cichlids with Malawi cichlids. To me it looks goofy because the mbuna are sort of in a class of their own. The Tang cichlids have a much wider variety of spawning habits, diet, etc., and in a tank of male mbuna they won't be able to express their natural behavior. It can be done, but only with certain species. Some folks do add a male tropheus to male tanks, but again, most keep them in colonies in large tanks. For me, it's both aesthetic (looks unnatural) and most Tangs are kept because of their interesting behaviors, which mbuna will interfere with.

Instead of trying to have one of every kind of cichlid you like, I would consider changing your expectations to establishing one good tank of compatible fish based on people's recommendations (for example, all-male Malawi mbuna) and then, if you want to try a Tang cichlid community, consider another large tank after the first is established and stable. Trying to take on too many difficult challenges will only be expensive and frustrating. It's hard enough trying to establish an all-male Malawi tank without adding other factors. You will likely need to order fish to be shipped to you unless you have an outrageously good fish store there.

I would not keep a nice plecostomus with the male mbuna. The mbuna have been known to pluck the eyes out of the plecos and kill them. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. They will not really help with algae either. Some keep bristlenose plecos for algae, but sometimes the mbuna attack them too.

Demasoni are best kept in groups of a dozen or more.

Your best bet for your all male tank is to stick to the Malawi mbuna. But you need to avoid any two that look alike. And until your females are gone, you run the risk of a male pairing up with a female and then attacking your other fish.
all of the mbuna are here
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/profiles/category.php?cat=2
Avoid any of these hyper-aggressive species:
"Kenyi" _Metriaclima lombardoi_
"auratus" _Melanochromis auratus_
"bumblebee" "hornet" _Pseudotropheus crabro_
"Johanni" _Melanochromis johannii_

At this point, the question of adding other cichlids to your mix may best be met by posting your proposed group on the Malawi section of the forum. If I were you, I would spend a few days reading a lot of the posts and learning more about mbuna. The more you know, the less grief you will have in establishing a community of fish.
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/phpBB/viewforum.php?f=9

Rather than the groups you mention, focus on the groups most people talk about:
mbuna, haps, and peacocks for the Malawi cichlids. The tangs are another story and, like I said, I would stick to Malawi for this tank to avoid problems. Reading the articles on African cichlids in the library may help answer some of your questions too
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/introduction_list.php
Read the profiles on each of the species you have in your tank, and any species articles too.
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/profiles/
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/species_profiles.php

I'm curious about the 500-gallon. Would you be making the tank?

Hope this helps


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## CanadianCoaster (Apr 16, 2010)

Thanks again. I can't believe how helpful you're being.

I think that I'm going to change my tank and switch to having groups of 4 or 5 different fish. I think from everything that I've read that it's going to be a lot more peaceful (for them and me!) I've been able to find homes for the other fish and I've decided to keep the red zebra, albino socolofi, and yellow lab for sure and I think I'll make my 4th group cobalt zebras. It seems like this is the "generic" mbuna tank and I didn't really want to have something that everyone else had but I'm starting to think that an all male tank is going to be to difficult for me to keep, at least for now. Do you think that I'd have room to keep a group of the yellow tail aceis if I have a 1m-3f ratio? Or would it be better to have just the 4 species and have a 1-4 ratio? I just like the idea of having the acei's because they swim near the top of the tank.

I've had cats and dogs and birds and rabbits before and I don't think that if you were to combine the needs of all of them that it would be as difficult as keeping cichlids. Who knew?! :?


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## scrubjay (Oct 25, 2009)

Every group of critter seems to have its own set of complexities. I'm getting some geese soon and that should be very interesting...

I think your decision is smart. You will have less potential for hybridization and aggression if you have more females for each male, so four species is probably best. What about getting more socolofi, but blue ones, instead of the cobalts? Both sexes are a nice blue.
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/profiles/species.php?id=919
I'm not completely sure about the acei if you have another blue cichlid group like the cobalts or socolofi though. If you wanted acei, I might choose a fourth species that is not solid blue. Maybe red zebras, yellow labs, acei, and a _Cynotilapia _variety?
or red zebras, yellow labs, albino and blue _socolofi _(or cobalts), and Perlmutt?

_Cynotilapia afra_ Cobue
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/profiles/species.php?id=1371
Cynotilapia sp. 'Hara' http://www.cichlid-forum.com/profiles/species.php?id=2626
Perlmutt http://www.cichlid-forum.com/profiles/species.php?id=741
Maingano http://www.cichlid-forum.com/profiles/species.php?id=756 (some find these too aggressive in communities though)

I wouldn't worry about having a similar species group to someone else. There's a good reason people choose certain combinations, including compatibility and just great colors. Besides, their tanks aren't in your house. :wink:

Once you make a decision, or have a few alternative possibilities, you might run it past the Malawi forum because there is so much experience there on combinations that work (and don't). I definitely don't know everything and I'm always learning something new there myself.


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## CanadianCoaster (Apr 16, 2010)

Geese huh? I wish you the best with that one!

I think that I'm going to go with red zebras, yellow labs, albino socolofi and cobalts and I'm going to try to keep a group of yellow tailed acei's in there as well. I would have liked to switch out the cobalts for blue socolofi's but my LFS doesn't stock them on a regular basis and they always have plenty of cobalts. So hopefully this tank works out and once I get some more experience under my belt I'm going to set up a more exciting african tank before moving onto a discus tank! This is an addicitve hobby but I was warned! :wink:


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## patten (Mar 5, 2010)

I am a total newbie to all this, my tank is only a month old, but because of this I have done lots of reading recently.

I was told not to do yellow labs and red zebras because of the hybridization risk. Hence I chose Labs and Rusties. They look really good together and Rusties are supposed to be some of the most peaceful and easiest of the Mbuna to keep. They are great looking fish into the bargain.

Just a thought.

Best of luck with it all. I can see why everyone gets hooked and ends up with heaps of tanks though. So I am jealous that you can start out with the dream of the big tank in the future.


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## scrubjay (Oct 25, 2009)

You are right patten. Labs and red zebras will hybridize. labs and rusties are a great combo.

Canadian, I forgot if you want to breed or not? If you don't want hybrids or fry, you can get a couple of _Synodontis mulipunctatus_ to eat them. If you want to keep and raise fry, you might want to switch out your labs or zebras. 
You could consider going with a species that has yellow or orange females; _P. saulosi_ is very popular:
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/profiles/species.php?id=1
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/profiles/s ... php?id=801
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/profiles/s ... php?id=800
But I would expect that any _Metriaclima_ spp. could hybridize with another This is why mbuna tanks are like a puzzle to solve--you change a species and it has implications for all the other species in the tank


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## Brisco007 (Nov 23, 2009)

you dont want a frontosa in there. waste of a fish. his fins will get nipped. best to have them in a colony


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## Jagzster (May 8, 2007)

I would second Scrubjay, regarding your question. Several of the fish purchased,ie: Labs, Acei and Rusty's, in my experience are generally peaceful and do very well with Peacocks. Most Mbuna species have reputations to live up to and Johanni's are no exception. Sooner or later, the Johanni will cost you a fish or two or three or four! My recommendation would be to remove the Johanni, Front and Hap. :thumb:


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## CanadianCoaster (Apr 16, 2010)

Ok, so I just typed this whole entry out and as I was about to post it - the computer glitched and it just disappeared. So if it shows up twice, you'll all know why.

Thanks for all your advice guys. Here's an update on how my tank's going. I now have a group of red zebras, albinos, and yellow tails and will eventually have a group of cobalts (or blue socolofis depending on which I can get my hands on first). Then of course I still have most of my singletons such as my frontosa, johanni, rusty, yellow lab, marble peacock, taiwan reef and super red hap (who was listed earlier as my cherry red hap thanks to my dear LFS).

My ob peacock is no longer with us, rest her little fish soul. I have to take the blame for it though because I believe it was a result of when I went through my tank and vented all my fish. She just wasn't the same afterwards. She just hung out in a corner at the top of the tank instead of patrolling and ruling over the tank like she usually did and then she died 2 days later. Over stressed I guess. As for my others, some will be staying (for now) and the others have homes waiting once their new tank finishes cycling.

But I do have to say that most of my singletons are breaking most of the sterotypical rules. For instance, my rusty (who is the smallest in the tank by a long shot) is quite the little trouble maker and I don't think that he'll be staying if he keeps it up. My johanni on the other hand who is supposed to be causing all the chaos, is probably one of the most peaceful fish in the tank and has even been "adopted" by my albinos. My male albino herds his 3 females and the male johanni around and it seems to be going fine. Weird huh? My frontosa has to be the loneliest fish in the world because he just hangs out in his corner at the bottom of the tank and doesn't venture out to do much exploring except for at feeding time. He's always the first one to come and greet me when I open the lid. He's quickly becomming my favourite. But as for all the others, they just ignor him as if he's invisible. I'm thinking that I might have to forego my idea of setting up a lake tang tank and set up a frontosa tank instead and get him a bunch of friends.

According to a fellow fish keeper who used to breed labs, he says that mine is a hybrid which puts me in a difficult spot because I didn't really want to keep him because of my red zebras but I can't in good conscience give him away because he's a hybrid. So.... as for my others, the marble peacock and taiwan reef are going to new homes soon as I mentioned above and I think that my super red will be joining them eventually but I'm going to hang onto him for a little longer because he's fitting into the tank really nicely and his colors are so pretty now that they are coming in.

Oh and I just added a trio of angelicus botia for cleanup duty and egg control (if there ever is any). I'm not really trying to breed them but if it does happen and I manage to get to some of the fry before the others do, I would like to try to raise them. There just isn't much of a demand where I live. There's only about 140,000 people in my whole province (which is an island btw) and only 30,000 in my city so you can understand why I'm not really looking to breed these guys full time.

I just want to say thanks again for all your advice and thanks for listening!


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