# New 50 gallon



## cichlidfantasy (Oct 7, 2007)

Hello,

I recently picked up a 50g and was wondering how many different species I could have in it.

The dimensions are 48 x 13 x 19. I currently have 4 Jalo reef afra (1m 3f) one is holding. Planning to keep 3 males and 9 females of the Jalos after she releases the fry. Also I recently bought 6 juvenile yellow labs and was planning to keep 1 male out of the group as soon as I can tell them apart.

So, my question is... would I be able to keep one more species or is this the maximum? Thanks for the help.


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## F8LBITEva (Nov 9, 2007)

I think with Mbunas you want to overstock to disperse agression but with overstocking comes more filtration and more frequent water changes, sounds like you have a 55 gallon by the way.


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## cichlidfantasy (Oct 7, 2007)

The exact dimensions are 48 x 12 1/2 x 18 1/2. I usually do a 30% water change every week and for filtration I have an aquaclear 70 and a 110. Is that enough?

I'm not sure but I was thinking maybe one more _lesser _aggressive species, for perhaps a total of 5 males and 15 females. Is that too much.. not enough? Thanks again.


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## xenergyx (Feb 4, 2008)

if you are keeping 16 jalos plus how many labs, 4? = ~20?

so that would be your total of 5m and 15f, but without an extra species...

so your total with something else could be some 25+ fish...

I'm no expert but I think that may be too much with an extra species in there at least without a substantial amount of hiding places and some additional filtration...


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## cichlidfantasy (Oct 7, 2007)

xenergyx said:


> if you are keeping 16 jalos plus how many labs, 4? = ~20?
> 
> so that would be your total of 5m and 15f, but without an extra species...
> 
> ...


I had six labs and one died, so it's now 5, but I'm planning to only keep 1 male lab and hopefully 3 females out of the 5. So yes, 4 labs. I'm also re-thinking having that many afras... but who knows.

The third species will be acei; maybe 3-4 of them. If all possible, I only plan to keep 4 out of each (3) species.

But even if I did have 25, are you saying that an aquaclear 70 and 110 is not enough for filtration? There are plenty of rocks. Thanks


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## hollyfish2000 (Aug 23, 2007)

Are you going to vent the labs to determine gender? You can't tell otherwise. I guess you could wait until some are holding and assume the ones that are not are male . . .


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## cichlidfantasy (Oct 7, 2007)

hollyfish2000 said:


> Are you going to vent the labs to determine gender? You can't tell otherwise. I guess you could wait until some are holding and assume the ones that are not are male . . .


It shouldn't be hard to tell when they start to mature, since the males will generally have a more dominant personality. They'll also try to breed with the females, but I realize there are no guarantees this way. However, I do think there's a good chance to tell them apart when they start to mature. There are already 2 obvious males, and they are only an 1 1/2".


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