240L (63Gal) Malawi Mbuna starting questions

[MGabesz]

Hi Guys,

I'm planning to setup a 240L tank, 120cm length (4ft) for Mbunas. It would be my second tank, the first is tropical planted, which is totally different.

Please check my plans and advise, if the system and the fish stock would be ok, or need to tweak.

I planned 2 filters, in a total of 2100L/H turnover, with 11L filetr media (Sera Siporax and some Purigen).
For gravel I would like to use ATI Fiji White Sand and would use a lot of limestone for caves.

The planned fishstock:
4 Labidochromis Caeruleus (1 male 3 female)
4 Pseudotropheus acei (1 male 3 female)
3 Copadichromis borley Kadango (1 male 2 female)

And 1-1 male from each of the following:
Pseudotropheus demasoni
Tropheops chilumba
Pseudotropheus flavus
Placidochromis sp. Phenochilus
Copadichromis borley Kadango

Maybe 2 catfish and 2 Anci for houskeepers.

The basic idea is that I would like to get 2 or 3 groups of base schools and some nice colorful individual males for show-up.

Please let me know whether this could work or need some tweaks?
Tahnk you!

 

[Colin_T]

That's potentially a lot of fish in that tank. I would probably drop the Tropheus due to their specialised diet (vegetarian) and it would be hard to make sure it only got plant based foods.

The caeruleus and borleyi are pretty peaceful but the borleyi can get big, not huge but not small either.

Most Pseudotropheus are very aggressive so they would need to be monitored.

Depending on what catfish you get, most live in groups and there are only a few that come from hard alkaline water.

You should also cycle the tank before adding fish due to the pH being alkaline (above 8.0 for Rift Lake cichlids). Any ammonia produced in this pH will be extremely toxic to the fish. You could take some filter media from the established plant tank and use that on the cichlid tank to help speed things along.

 

[MGabesz]

Thank you for the fast response. I've just notice that I misstyped the 3 Borley. So I plannaed just 1 single male Borley and 3 Aulonocara Marmelade (2 females 1 male).

Other than this, I would decrease the numbers by the Pseudotropheus I would come down to 10 Mbunas and 2 Ancis. Its 12 fish alltogether in a 240L tank.
As I read that overstock helps to keep down the aggression level on the Mbunas. Wouldn't 12 fish too few?

Or what else species could be keep in this tnak in a small group?

Thank you

 

[Colin_T]

12 fish should be fine to help spread out the aggression. An easy way to reduce aggression is to add all the fish at the same time. This way none of them have a home town advantage and they all have to work out their place from day one.

Also make sure they are all similar size when you get them.

The borleyi might try to breed with the female Aulonocaras and most Mbuna will hybridise with each other so if you have females of one species, the male from other species might try to breed with them. If you want colour in the tank, then get males only. If you want to breed them, then get species that are completely different to each other so if they do hybridise you will easily notice the babies do not look like their parents.

Some of the bigger rainbowfish can be kept with peaceful African cichlids but some Mbuna will kick hell out of the rainbowfish. There's more info on rainbows at the following link.
http://rainbowfish.angfaqld.org.au/Melano.htm

 

[MGabesz]

I don't want to breed them. Then goal is to build up a nice, colorful malawi tank, with as less fight, as possibleIts harder to select the fish as I thought, because if find two less aggressive spcies, that could be kept together, then they will have different diet

Could you make a suggestion for these 12 fish? Even could be all males, if it won't start world war 3 in the tank.

 

[Colin_T]

You could get a single male of each of the fish you want (except Tropheus) and add a couple more different Aulonocara males and maybe a Haplochromis venustus or livingstoni.