# multis and...



## tranced (Jan 11, 2006)

hi i am setting up a new 4' x 1.5' x 1.5' tank.

the multifasciatus shell dwellers seem like intersting fish so i would like to keep these in there, how many should i initially buy to start the tank off?

its not a tiny tank so i woul like to keep another species in there. i have heard julies are good tank mates, thought i wonder if i could keep something like mbuna in there? peacocks maybe or tropheous(sp) ?

i dont want aggro problems, but also i think since they have different food requirements this also could make life difficult?

i plan to set up a sand bed on one side then have a rock pile on the other, (hopefully) creating two separate and distinctive territories to reduce aggro. I plan to feed the multies bloodworms and baby brine shrimp, and i hear this can cause probs with mbuna, and i guess its not practically possible to feed each species 'seperately'

one last thing, i am a maniac for filtration, will the strong currents and/or undertow be a bad thing for multies?


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## thetim6 (Jan 24, 2003)

I can't say whether keeping multis with Mbuna is a good idea, but from my experience large male peacocks are very disruptive to a multi colony. They go around feeding off the bottom, inhaling the sand substrate and filtering out food from it. When they do this over a multi colony they have a tendency to suck fry out of shells, and once they know they can they will keep doing it.

As far as what you can keep, in my experience anyway, I have had great luck with julidiochromis dickfieldi and altolamprologous compressiceps. I have a 55 gallon tang tank that has been running for a few years now with those species in it and everything is going great. The only thing not breeding are the comps, which there is only a m/f pair of. The multis are not countable, but if I had to guess I would say there are easily dozens of adults. I started off with 6 a few years ago, and I have previously given away several large sets to establish new colonies, which are flourishing as well.

The julies are just as profilic as the multis, and my main tank is filled with juveniles of every size. I started with a 1f/2m trio, which after a year turned into a 1f/1m pair. I have two tanks full of their offspring.

Also in the tank are a group of tiger barbs (5), 3 upside down cats (my tank's pH is 7.5, I don't buffer or adjust it), a rubber lip pleco, and a 10 year old female white convict which is, at this point anyway, extremely passive and presents no problems to the tank. However, I would NEVER add a young convict to a tank with multis in it. Multis are tough, but they are sometimes too tough for their own good and they may very well be so boisterous fighting a convict that they get themselves killed.

Obviously you can keep other species than what I have, I'm only offering advice based on my experience. So by no means am I saying these are your only choices, just that it's all I have tried and therefore all I can legitimately comment on.

Edit: Sorry, I missed your question about current and water flow. I have a fluval 304 canister filter and two penguin 400's on my 55. I don't know how that ranks for flow, but it causes no noticeable problems for my multis.


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## cjacob316 (Dec 4, 2008)

most (including me) will suggest to not mix the lakes

julies or calvus would work well in your tank for the rocky areas, and could also add some cyps for the open water


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## tranced (Jan 11, 2006)

ok thanks for the help so far 

would any species of julie be alright? or perhaps, more specifically...is there any julidochromis species i should avoid? the dickfieldi have an ... erm... unfortunate name i dont think i can keep a straight face while asking my friends to come and check out my 'dickfieldi' !!!

i regards to the physical layout, if i have calvus/compressiceps as well as julies will they need two separate rockpiles or will they all get along in one mass of rock?

i would like them to all breed, if they dont no big deal, but im thinking to maximise the chances, i should start with say 6 of each species... and if a pair forms and drives away the others, send the remainder back to the fish shop and just keep the pair, does this sound sane/reasonable?

i have other tanks available to grow out the fry etc if i need it.

also, if i throw in some harlequin rasboras do you think the calvus/compressiceps will eat em?? 

finally, just to complete the picture, i will be using pool filter sand, with heaps of shells on one side of the tank. on the other i will have a base of normal limestone rocks, with texas holey on top of it. using an eheim 2213 and 2217 for bio, and a fluval 404 as a purely mechanical


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## cjacob316 (Dec 4, 2008)

i'm not big on keeping the two in the same tank, but if you do, yes you need to make sure you have two distinguishable territories, like rocks on each end and the shells in the middle, yes the best thing is to start with 4-6 juvies and wait till they pair off, then sell back the remainders, i personally like the dickfieldi the most, but in your size tank, pretty sure all would be fine, just look at the profiles section to see which ones you like and would stay a size you like

there is always a risk putting in non cichlids, usually they get bullied to death

and i think you are going way overboard on the filtration, way too much money to be spending and you don't need separate filters for bio and mechanical, a rena xp3 or xp4 would be more than enough filter, i'm sure just the fluval 405 will be sufficiant alone as well


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## jh82 (Oct 26, 2007)

Mbuna and Multis in the same tank is a bad idea in my opinion. Feeding Mbuna or Tropheus bloodworms probably is not wise either.

Julis and Altos are definitely a better choice for Multi tank mates. You should be able to breed all 3 of these species in the tank you have, no problem. I would go with Transcriptus for the Juli but Ornatus would work, also.

I have a tank with 3 Adult comps and a school of Harlequin Rasboras. The Comps totally ignore them. The Comps/Calvus won't eat them unless the Rasboras are really, really small. Like babies.


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## tranced (Jan 11, 2006)

awesome, sounds like my setup will be a multi colony, and (hopefully breeding) pairs of transcriptus and compressiceps. some harlequin rasboras for added sparkle...

think the tank will be alright with no cleaner? *** always ran with a bristenose or two, or siamese flying foxes, im worried they will eat the eggs tho??


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## Darkside (Feb 6, 2008)

You may as well add the SAEs because your Comps will be eating the eggs/fry anyway. I'd skip on the rasbora, you're better off with something a little more hardy (my multies finished off a shoal of rasboras in short order).


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## tranced (Jan 11, 2006)

also im running those filters cos thats what i have already.... or are you talking about the electrical costs of running them being too expensive?

i was under the impression they use little power... at least compared to hundreds of watts of heating anyway.

i have a 6x2x2 tank at my other house, however its empty at the moment cos i dont have time to to maintain a tank away from home, and its too heavy to move easily. hence i have alot of filters already purchased/cycled so i figured what the hey ill just super filter this tank lol

another factor, is that my stand can potentially take another 4 x 1.5 x 1.5 underneath this tank, so its nice to have fully operational canister filter there at the drop of a hat should i impulsively buy another 4 foot tank 

so just to clarify, were you referring to the running costs of these filters being too much, or the purchase cost?

also the eheim classics are great filters but i dont like cleaning them too often ... by omitting mechanical filtration i hope to reduce the cleaning of them.

the fluval has a stupid design in my opinion where water can bypass the media and im not confident in how long its gonna keep running, its been run dry several times and is now very noisy/the impeller cover broke. So should it happen to be on its last legs, i would rather lose my water polisher than my main bio filter.

anyway that somehow turned into a wall of text, hahah but thats why im running that setup...


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## thetim6 (Jan 24, 2003)

I would try to make two separate rock piles, especially in a tank that size where you can easily do it.

My julies let the female comp hang out in their rock pile, but the big female dickfieldi is pretty aggressive (territorially) towards the male comp.

I have a shell pile in the middle, with a rock pile on either side. There are baby dickfieldi everywhere now though. I'll probably have to break the tank down to get them all out in a few months.

Also comps are not that aggressive, at least in my tanks. They basically negate all aggression by absorbing attacks into their tough scales, I have never seen my comps attack another fish. Comps will eat other fish, but only if they are tiny. Most rasboras, even not full grown, will be much too large to eat for anything but a full grown comp. Altos can easily damage their mouths going after large prey, so even if an Alto could eat a rasbora, chances are it wouldn't even try (especially if kept fed.)

However, rasboras tend to be small and typically would be sensitive to attacks and harassment from cichlids. If you want a schooling fish I recommend rosy or tiger barbs as they are both very robust and do not mind being chased around a bit. I have even witnessed my tiger barbs spawning after large water changes. Once again, there are other fish that would work, but I wouldn't want to suggest something I haven't personally tried myself.


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## cjacob316 (Dec 4, 2008)

i was reffering to the cost of purchase


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## tranced (Jan 11, 2006)

^^^ yeah they werent cheap thats for sure... though its fun buying them perhaps that was my downfall 

today i found out a new hose for my fluvals gonna cost 60 bucks so maybe i will leave it out the equasion after all...

ill try get the tank setup this week (minus the fish) and post some photos of the layout, see what u guys think ...

thanks for all the great advice so far, much appreciated :thumb:


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## cjacob316 (Dec 4, 2008)

if you're going to run both eheim filters i'd run bio and mechaincal in both, and rotate the maintainance, that way you make sure that if one slacks in flow and pollishing, the other may help to pick up the slack, also if you do decide to set up another tank, you can just pick up one canister and move it and not have to divy up the bio media


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## tranced (Jan 11, 2006)

yeah its looking like going that way, the fluvals got some problem now where the impeller shaft wont plug into the head unit, either the rubber bit that holds it has fallen off, or its snapped a piece of the impeller shaft off in it... :?

got the rocks and sand in the tank now, and bought a new (non glass) heater... will get some pics when the water clears up

going to put a group of gold comps in there once the water is good 

as for the shellies im swinging more towards gold ocellatus now after seeing them in the pet shop they kind of caught my eye and i really like them !!!

so the tank will probably be just the comps and some occies now...


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## tranced (Jan 11, 2006)

heheheh or maybe ill go with the tropheous after all :?

**** tangs, they are all so awesome... i keep changing my mind... cue the second tank and raging girlfriend...


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## cjacob316 (Dec 4, 2008)

i'b be concerned about tank size when it comes to tropheus


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## tranced (Jan 11, 2006)

u think 65 gal is too small? 
people seem to say 55-75 is minimum size, so i figured with some creative aquascaping i could pull it off...

but yeah they definately sound more challenging... not that thats a bad thing of course


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## tranced (Jan 11, 2006)

ok *** finally made up my mind :lol:

im skipping the comps/calvus, despite being awesome fish, their predatory instincts and slow growth rate has led me to the conclusion, that they are not what im looking for.

so the community will simply be gold occies, and a school of cyps, with a single bristlenose 'janitor'

still ironing out the kinks with my setup, the carpet is drenched... my girlfriend is gonna kill me :lol:

but im running the eheim 2213 and 2217, the 2217 is hooked into my rena smart heater, i just cut the eheim 'baseball bat' intake off and it fit straight into the smartheater :thumb:

the only annoying thing is the little green 2213 intake now sticks out like a dogs bits....

waiting for the camera to charge and then ill put some pics up tonight if i can figure it out..


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## tranced (Jan 11, 2006)

i still need to add the shells and some smaller rocks around the sides for the occies...

the middle rock pile is basically a few pieces of holey rock, with some kind of coral-type rock stuffed into the gaps. it creats heaps of tiny crevices and im hoping it will act like a giant 'fry saver'


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