African Cichlids

[sic0198]

I know one really shouldn't keep 'em in anything smaller than a 50 gallon aquariums but I really like these fish. Is there any way I could get some in a 30 gallon?

Wow

 

[stang1]

It all depends on what Cichlids you're after. If it's Tanganikyan, then you could quite easily have some shelldwellers in that size tank. For a lot of the Malawi Cichlids, I think they do need a minimum of 50G+.

 

[borissimo]

Just to say that when we had 12 Malawis in a 120 litre tank (sorry not sure what it is in gallons) they were fine as babies but as they grew bigger (months, not years) we had an aggression problem where, although we didn't manage to properly witness what was happening, it appeared that either all or some would pick on one fish. We managed to save one by transferring her (a female alonocara auratus (sorry wrong spelling but it is the yellow with black stripe) putting her in our other tank. She recovered and repaid us by eating our guppies! We put her back in the cichlid tank and she was fine but we did lose three of the fish in this way.

We then bought a bigger (220 oblong and then 290 ltr corner) tank and crowded them with stopped the aggression completely, but recently lost the majority of them when the filter and airline failed overnight.

I don't know what the answer is with these fish, but we are now trying a smaller number of fish in the corner tank and are waiting to see what happens.