400 Litre cichlid community

Just set this up a few weeks ago, transferred most of the fish from my old tank but there are about a dozen new additions so far.

Just noticed the Labeotropheus Trewavasae Mmpanga spawning last night.
Great looking fish, looking forward to growing some on.

Cheers,
Patrick

Looks Great Patrick
Good luck with the spawning

LB

Thanks

Some gorgeous fish there.Id say you have some good filtration system with that many fish.

Very nice tank there and your fish look great.
Good luck with the spawning.

Thanks Guys.

I run 3 external filters

2 Tetratec 1200 and 1 Eheim Thermal
There is also a powerhead to increase flow.

A wee bit of a tight fit getting 2 cannister filters into one of the presses..

You need it for these guys though.

Noice

beautiful fish, and a huge livingstoni wow, only thing i'd be worried about is the frontosa in with malawi's they generally dont get as much food as they should with more boisterous malawi's out competeing them for food, do u find this the case???

Cheers Guys.

Re: the Frontosa - to be honest I've heard this on other forums but have not found it to be a problem.
The Frontosa have spawned & do fine when it comes to feeding.
The two smaller ones have been raised with mbuna from a little over an inch in size so I guess they are used to their ways.

I noticed last night that the Tropheus have spawned now too & I have a female holding.

Although I don't encourage mixing all of these species unless you know what you're doing, it really does hammer home the fact that fish don't read books.

Tropheus & Frontosa would be both considered difficult to breed & here they are breeding in this mayhem.

I think a lot of the time the problem is that people read an article & then file it under 'beliefs' without any experience to back it up.

For me its about making sure fish health & water quality are top priority.

I am considering moving the Tropheus out if this spawn goes well though as I'd like to breed them on an ongoing basis.

Cheers,
Patrick

well done mate on the breeding, keep an eye on the tropheus hate to see the fry getting eaten...you've obviously got some sort of good thing going there
Seamus

Hi Patrick,
What type of rock, sand do you have in your tank and is the backround black or blue i just find it hard to see in the vid.


Cheers

GB

Hi Gerry,

Its ocean rock, black background and coral sand.

Cheers,
Patrick

Cheers Patrick

How do you bring the return back into the tank from your 3 filters, do you use spray bars?

Is your ocean rock glued together or just stacked on top of each other? Do you clean the rock or does it naturally darken over time?

Is the coral sand a fine sand and is it easy to clean?

Do you have any other equipment in the tank?


Sorry for all the questions just do a bit of research and your tank is a real eye catcher.

Thank again

GB

Hi Gerry,

feel free to ask as many questions as you like - happy to help.

There are 3 spray bars for the 3 cannisters, its a really tight fit in the hood
but they are positioned at opposite ends of the tank and create great flow.

One of the filters is an eheim wet/dry and it works in a pulsing manner to simulate tidal current too.

The ocean rock is stacked, I've had a few rock falls in the past that scared the hell out of me..
But I need to take the rock out to catch holding females & fry etc. so can't glue it together.

I have the stacking down to a tee now so no near heart attacks for some time thankfully

The rocks do darken over time, I used to clean them weekly with a toothbrush but I havent cleaned them in a few months now & they don't seem to be darkening much.

There are a couple of plecos and a few Tropheus which are all voracious algae eaters so they are probably taking care of business.

The coral sand is not really fine, the grains are about twice the size of sugar grains. Its good stuff, good consistency for digging etc.

This is the equipment in the tank:

3 filters, 1 powerhead, 1 heater & one of the filters is a thermal filter so has a built-in heater.

It has the standard Juwel lighting with one white & one blue bulb at the moment but I'm not really happy with it so will probably swap it for a luminaire shortly.

Good luck if you do set one up! Any questions etc just ask.

Cheers,
Patrick

Hi Patrick
Have a rio 240 at moment, my thinking at the moment is to kit it out like this

Filter
use juwel filter and additional Tetratec ex1200 and as soon as possible i will take out the juwel and replace with another Tetratec ex1200.

Heater
use juwel 200w heater, over time i might get an external heater but thats down the road abit.

Sand
Coral sand any taughts on how much i will need?

Rock
Ocean Rock once again any taughts on how mush i will need?

Power head
use the juwel power head and when i get another Tetratec get a seperate power head.

What are your taughts Patrick on this setup am i missing anything out or should i be going in a different direction??

Would you recommend a egg crate base for the rock to sit on in case of a collaspe or are they any good??

Just thinking i should probably tell you what fish i plan to put in the tank:huh:
I plan to go with an african cichlid fish grouping as i think it is the closests i will get to a colorful marine setup for the next few years.
Looking for a real blast of color in the tank colud you recommend any fish from your experience that you think suit.

Bet your sorry you said "feel free to ask as many questions as you like"

Once again Patrick thanks

GB

Hi 2poc
Looks really well,plenty of colour and movement,whats the total number of fish in the tank...?
Lar

Ok, deep breath

Here we go:

Rio 240 is a bit small for some of the larger Africans but fine for mbuna.
Mbuna are the smaller rock dwellers & have fantastic colour so you won't be limited in terms of choice.
You are definitely on the right track - just make sure at this stage that your water is hard enough.
My PH is 7.6 & that is the lower end of what they prefer. You can of course buy buffers if your water isn't suitable.

Filter
Definitely ditch the Juwel filter, the filter box gathers so much dirt that you can't get out...
I've removed them from 4 tanks & its dead simple.

2 Tetratecs will do the business on 240 litres!

Heater
Juwel heaters are rubbish....
I would leave it in there but buy another brand & run both heaters in the tank.
That way if the Juwel kicks the bucket the other will step in.
Need to be careful that the Juwel heater doesn't overheat - I nearly boiled my fish when one just kept heating to
30 degrees regardless of its setting.

Sand
Best to keep just a light sprinkling of sand to avoid a build up of bacteria under the sand.
A deep sand bed is good to save your tank from rock falls etc. but dead spots do build up unless its
stirred each week & they can pollute the tank. I only keep half an inch of sand on the bottom these days.

I would just go for a 5/6kg bag.

Rock
If you can get the 'Reef Rock' which is dead live rock that will be a better option than ocean rock.
It has lots more crevices for fry to survive in & is lighter so you get more rock for your money.

Difficult to say how much you will need as its down to personal taste - keep an eye out for someone selling
off an existing tank & make an offer on the rock. Buying it per kilo in the shop works out very expensive…
You should be able to pick it up on the forum easily enough.

Powerhead
Use the powerhead out of the juwel filter - this can be rigged up using a couple of suction clips on the side of the tank.
Just make sure the inlet is towards the glass to avoid fish getting sucked in/stuck to it.
With big numbers of fish oxygen is key to keeping them healthy so plenty of surface disruption from spray bars/powerheads
is great.

Eggcrate
I havent come across it before to be honest. If you can get your hands on some it can't do any harm!

If you can, pick up the aqualog book on mbuna.. Brilliant book with so many pictures… Excellent for id's and also a great
reference to see what kind of fish you like. Be prepared to pay 100 quid+ for it though..
For a real blast of colour you can't beat a load of blue and yellow fish.

Fish to check out:

Labidochromis Careleous - electric yellow males and females, black finnage
Melanochromis Maingano - black with vibrant blue horizontal stripes
Pseudotropheus Saulosi - blue vertical striped males & bright orange females

There are so many fish to choose from..

Your tank with that filtration will be good for 30 fish once you keep up the water quality.
You just need to be very careful about the choice of fish and NEVER buy any fish that you don't know the id.
So many people end up buying innocent looking fish like kenyi or auratus which in turn wipe out everything in their tanks…

That should be enough to keep you going for a while

-Patrick

cardinal wrote:

Hi 2poc
Looks really well,plenty of colour and movement,whats the total number of fish in the tank...?
Lar

Cheers Lar, total number of fish is around 60 but that includes juveniles.
There's probably another 20 or so fry hiding in the rocks, the tank seems full of them lately.

I've another 40 or so juveniles growing on at the moment.

-Patrick

very comprehensive and well written post 2poc with good tips. i really enjoyed reading it.
just one recomendation i might slightly differ with is to mix maingano with the very similar coloured salousi males in such a relatively small tank as they would probably clash. When breeding salousi males become very intolerant of any similar sized deep blue fish or other salousi males. having said that they are not really tough and if the opponent stands up to them they head for the hills.
also it is hard to get good quality maingano lately, compared to when they first appeared in the hobby.
other possibilities for a peacful tank would be the shoaling acci, sprengerae or mel. joanjohnsonae. and maybe one or two moori(dolphin), ahli or aulonacara.

Patrick, thanks a million for taking the time out to give us all the info, i am very grateful, have alot to digest but looking for.ward to working thru it.

Once again thanks

GB

Derek, thanks to you also for the input will have a check of the fish you listed.

Cheers

GB

You're welcome Gerry.

Derek - I wasn't 100% on the maingano, wouldn't usually recommend any melanochromis for first timers but I have just gotten quite fond of them lately & wouldn't have thought they'd cause problems with salousi due to the stripes being in different directions.

I agree though - Acei would be a better option for sure!
Acei are really lovely peaceful fish.

The only thing with Acei is that I have found them to be very delicate.
They're the only cichlids I've ever lost through disease, I had 3 & lost all 3 over a period of about a year & a half..
Could be that they are too peaceful for my setup but they weren't getting bullied..

cheers,
Patrick

yes 2poc and gerry. acci are one of the few shoaling malawis, although salousi do stick together a fair bit. although generally hardy acci can indeed sometimes fade away in rocky set ups. if memory serves me, acci live a bit offshore in the lake and congregate around large sunken trees or driftwood and therefore would not like to be too crowded. of the 2 usual acci the whitetail is bigger and tougher than the yellowtail. there is a third yellow finned and much larger blue/purple fish also called acci.(cant remember name, common name yellow finned acci)
with the salousi/maingano situation, i think its a combination of colour and size which triggers fighting rather than pattern. the only time i successfully kept and bred those little buggers demasoni (salousi male minature lookalikes) was in company with the larger salousi. they ignored each other and the normal demasoni aggression towards their own kind was much toned down.
i agree that good quality maingano are stunners, but its hard to get good stock and like most melanochromis they dont age well. these days a lot of imported malawis seem to arrive with mild bacterial infections, (fish shimmy and show slight tail rot) easily cleared up with such as melafix but a nuisance nevertheless.

hi 2poc
what is malawi tank like these days. you were saying before the plan was to increase the haps and reduce mbuna numbers.

Hi Derek, ages since I've taken any pics I must charge up the camera.

I had so many fish breeding I just lost track of the main tank & focused on raising the fry. I've since gotten rid of all of the fry & about 20 mbuna from the main tank - including all the females I was breeding from.

Still considering getting rid of the rest of the mbuna but havent seen anything eye catching to replace them.

The difference in the haps fins since I got rid of that lot is testament to the fin nipping ability of mbuna!!

I added a group of 5 C. Moori, a big male Venustus & have a big Jack Dempsey in there till I figure out what to do with him.

The Tropheus Moori I had originally are still doing well in the company of the Malawis & I even have fry growing on from them.

I've set up a 240 litre marine tank too so that is taking some of the attention away from the Malawis.

I went through a phase of collecting every species I could lay my hands on & seem to have come out of it now with a much clearer picture of what I like.
At some stage I definitely want a pure mbuna tank with just demasoni & yellow labs.

For the moment though I'm liking the haps, just not seeing any decent ones for sale anywhere....

Cheers,
Patrick