# New Mbuna tank setup, halfway there



## psychonaut (Aug 2, 2014)

Hi everyone, im new to the world of cichlids and also this forum. Id like to share my setup and also get advise on the best tankmates for my residents. I have a 55 gallon tank with a whisper ex70, stocked with 4 acei and 3 (soon to be 4) yellow labs, a shrimp and a pleco. Im pretty sure that i have one male yellow lab (biggest fish in tank; about 3 inches) and the other two are female. The acei are too small and were just added so i dont wanna stress them out by sexing them quite yet. I also have a jack dempsey ( :? ) who was an original tankmate with the big male lab, he will probably be making his way back to the pet store in exchange for another fish before he can get too aggressive. however at the moment he is not dominant, the yellow lab puts him in his place and he seems to think he is an acei at the moment lol. all my other fish seem to be getting along great but they are all only on day two in my tank. I am wondering what a good group to add to the tank would be, c. afra? (so pretty). and I am also wondering if i can add a demasoni, perhaps by its lonesome, and hopefully a female. Also, i will be adding more lava rocks soon to create more caves. I want to upload pictures for you guys but cant seem to figure out how, so some instructions on that would be cool if u guys wanna see the setup, (its awesome i think  ) Thanks for your help.


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## psychonaut (Aug 2, 2014)

So I found the post at the top of the board that tells you how to post images, sorry for being a noob here but heres some pictures.


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## hose91 (Mar 5, 2014)

Honestly, I think your labs and acei will both get much bigger, and you're better off rehoming the JD, and maybe adding one or two of the Labs and Acei, and then calling it good. Nice drift wood and plants. Your fish might prefer a few more rock piles, but there are some places to hide there, so they're not critical. You've got a very nice setup so far, I think it's time to sit back and enjoy, watching it mature.


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## psychonaut (Aug 2, 2014)

one response? this forum is bunk


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## joescaper1 (Feb 14, 2013)

I don't see any pictures, maybe that is what everyone is waiting on.

Joe


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## Deeda (Oct 12, 2012)

The pics do work for me, maybe no one knows what to recommend with your existing set up or they weren't on the forum over the weekend.

Demasoni need to be kept in larger groups and your tank is probably too small for them alone. They are very hard on each other as well as other cichlids.

I also find that P. acei get too large for even a 75G tank but that is just my opinion.


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## psychonaut (Aug 2, 2014)

my research has told me that i can put a crew of demasoni in with them and that there is a good amount of people who have had luck with labs acei and demasoni, they are primarily aggressive against their own species or species that look like them. and a 55 gallon tank is without a dought way more than enough room for demasoni if i had them alone, demasoni are some of the smallest mbuna, even being called dwarfs. but i was wondering about keeping a single one by itself. and i am not ruling out a tank upgrade about a year from now when my acei start to reach about 4 inches or so.


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## hisplaceresort1 (Mar 10, 2014)

I keep a single demasoni in a 75 gallon heavily stocked tank. It's one of my mellower fish; however, he or she (don't know yet) is one of the smallest, other than the fry, this one is the smallest fish in the tank... 
Here's the deal... what works for some just flat out doesn't work for others... there is trial and error and isolating troublemakers and rehoming, etc. One of the coolest things about these fish is they do have really distinctive personalities! There are people all over this forum that have combinations that should work and don't, and shouldn't work, but do...
I have a hot mess mix of different mbuna (and a few not) in mine (didn't start reading the forum until I had most of them!) and the things that help me the most that I've learned from this forum are:
1.) Keep your water pristine - when they do get fin nips, etc., they will heal faster... and you just should anyway. and a few degrees cooler (77 instead of 80) makes a little difference, too.
2.) Don't introduce just one fish at a time if you can help it. Do it in as dark of conditions as possible, in conjunction with a water change and moving things around if possible. Then keep the lights off for awhile longer.
3.) Lighting... for my tank anyway, there is such a thing as too bright... I actually ramped _down _my lighting to a fluval w/ only 950 lumens, 7500K, on the daylight setting, which comes on at 9:00 AM. I turn it to night setting at 7pm. it goes off at midnight. my gravel is black, the back of my tank is painted black, so my tank is not really bright. This somewhat recent change, for me anyway, had an immediate and amazing effect of calming my fish down. Consistent on/off times, and lower intensity really did the trick. I am really surprised how much this has helped.
4.) Places to hide... I got really carried away with fake plants and places to hide... and it helped a lot. I admit, it is a bigger pain cleaning each week, but for me is worth it.

Hope this helps... Let us know how things go!


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## hisplaceresort1 (Mar 10, 2014)

Oh, and I should mention my demasoni is about 2-3/4 inches, and although grew quickly at first, seems to have stopped growing. Most of my mbuna are thick and around 4" average.


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## anthraxx4200 (Aug 16, 2012)

id highly suggest you not get demasoni. from what *** seen (tried demasoni multiple times) they will just end up killing each other off. even in a tank w/ 100's of lbs. of rock they slowly killed themselves off. i know you may have read that youll be okay but i highly doubt given your tank setup that they will enjoy it. the gravel is too large for them to redecorate and you have a ton of stuff in there that will lower the ph (additional waste from decomposing plant materials and the abundance of logs) im sure you dont wanna hear it but long term i think a complete tank tear down is in order. id go with sand and rocks and dump the plants / logs. anyways GL in whatever you choose, just stay away from demasoni.


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## Burner460 (Jul 24, 2014)

also keep an eye out on the water hardness, i heard driftwood can make it softer and you don't want that for mbuna. Maybe add some african cichlid lake salts every now and then to make up for it.

+1 on the demasoni comments. IME they don't fight any more or less than other mbuna, but they do serious damage to each other when they do. They just seem overly fragile to me. By comparison, when i had a breeding group of Cyaneorhabdos with Saulosi in a 40G, they would fight even more than the demasoni, but never lost one. The "Demons" i had in a 55G with yellow labs went from 20 to 5 in about 3 weeks...


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## psychonaut (Aug 2, 2014)

YOU GUYS NEED TO READ A FULL POST BEFORE COMMENTING, MY QUESTION WAS IF I COULD KEEP A DEMASONI BY ITSELF. SO MANY USELESS COMMENTS BY PEOPLE. 
anyways i got a single I REPEAT SINGLE (for those that apparently cant read) demasoni, he is extremely peaceful and is getting along fine with all my mbuna, in terms of drift wood my hardness is fine however i bought a bag of crushed coral to up my PH, its been a couple weeks and i havnt seen much of a different, im going to buy about three more bags of it as soon as i can.

thank you hisplaceresort1 for an extremely helpful and intelligent answer, i can tell you read my whole post coherently.


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## Burner460 (Jul 24, 2014)

psychonaut said:


> YOU GUYS NEED TO READ A FULL POST BEFORE COMMENTING, MY QUESTION WAS IF I COULD KEEP A DEMASONI BY ITSELF. SO MANY USELESS COMMENTS BY PEOPLE.
> anyways i got a single I REPEAT SINGLE (for those that apparently cant read) demasoni, he is extremely peaceful and is getting along fine with all my mbuna, in terms of drift wood my hardness is fine however i bought a bag of crushed coral to up my PH, its been a couple weeks and i havnt seen much of a different, im going to buy about three more bags of it as soon as i can.
> 
> thank you hisplaceresort1 for an extremely helpful and intelligent answer, i can tell you read my whole post coherently.


+1 on the demasoni comments. IME they don't fight any more or less than other mbuna, but they do serious damage to each other when they do. They just seem overly fragile to me. By comparison, when i had a breeding group of Cyaneorhabdos with Saulosi in a 40G, they would fight even more than the demasoni, but never lost one. The "Demons" i had in a 55G with yellow labs went from 20 to 5 in about 3 weeks...


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## psychonaut (Aug 2, 2014)

Burner460 said:


> psychonaut said:
> 
> 
> > YOU GUYS NEED TO READ A FULL POST BEFORE COMMENTING, MY QUESTION WAS IF I COULD KEEP A DEMASONI BY ITSELF. SO MANY USELESS COMMENTS BY PEOPLE.
> ...


man dude, this forum is trash, sorry i ever stumbled on it and for the intelligent people that are sticking with it. im deleting my account


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## Burner460 (Jul 24, 2014)

No Demasoni, bad idea.


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## Deeda (Oct 12, 2012)

psychonaut said:


> man dude, this forum is trash, sorry i ever stumbled on it and for the intelligent people that are sticking with it. im deleting my account


I'm sorry you are unhappy with the responses you have received so far. I can lock this thread so you won't receive any more comments. It's up to you if you are no longer interested in being a member of this forum.


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## Burner460 (Jul 24, 2014)

+1 on the Demasoni comments!


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